7 dp log tables had about 100 pages -and the number of pages is an exponential function of the number of dp :(

@Argon, honestly even Newton started making his own log tables

8 dp would be about 1000 pages ...

Just build a massive slide rule!

slide rules only give 2-4 dp depending on which end of the scale the answer was :)

honestly just numerically calcluate logarithms of primes and then use it for stuff like log(6)=log(2)+log(3) etc

Sufficiently large slide rule!

I still remember that $\log 2 = .30103$ correct to about 8 decimal places :)

Let's go play some more Warcraft II!

o_O

.30102998 or .301029998 - not sure which

@OldJohn Feynman had some good tales of mental approximations

@Argon, there is constant lamenting on old game forums on the demise of WC3 but WC2??

@PeterSheldrick My cousin had an old disc - so I put in a DOS emulator and voila!

dosbox?

@PeterSheldrick Yep

Now I am raiding Stormgarde

@OldJohn "Lucky Numbers" chem.fsu.edu/chemlab/isc3523c/feyn_surely.pdf

@JasperLoy Yes. When I was a child, I thought that I would study to know more: now I discovered I study to know that I know nothing.

Suppose I have a distribution dependent on one parameter f(x). I want to solve P( f(x) > C) = p when C and p are known and f is a well known distribution (say poisson) but I want to solve for x

I can get down to a nonlinear equation and solve for x numerically, but I was wondering if there is a better way to go about this problem

And P ( f(x) > C ) means the probability that a random variable following the distribution f(x) is greater than C

@JustinShrake Have you asked in the main site?

No, thought I'd come poking in here first since it seemed to be a small question

I'd be happy with just a nudge in the right direction

@JustinShrake Sometimes these guys are AFK.

As I'm completely useless here, I try to encourage users in the chat to ask questions in the main site.

Hey, anyone know physics?

Good morning(?)!

@sos440 Morning!

Same sos440 from AOPs?

@Nur Yes :)

@Nur As far as know, there is a unique sos440 in the net.

Do you have a rigorous proof of that? :p

@Nur Actually it is a statistical conclusion :(

Hehe!

Kekeke

@JayeshBadwaik I got that from the elections here

@sos440 I stalk you on there sometimes -- when I'm in the mood to learn some integration techniques. It's astonishing how good you are at that stuff! :]

Oops! Misclicked somewhere and possibly flagged some messages! :[

I just woke up from a dream where I was consulting with the designer of a cryptographic protocol for condoms; I was asking her what exactly cryptography had to do with condoms.

@anon LOOL!

Is this one-off do you usually have such weird dreams?

@anon Well. Perhaps it's a new kind of condom that stores the DNA patterns on the semen.

This should be kept secret, i don't want other people using my semen to make in-vitro fertilization.

Somehow South Park, my friend's mom, and amWhy (who had lecture notes about algebraic varieties) made an appearance, but I do not remember anything about them.

Yep this is usual for my dreams. It is unusual for me to remember them though.

@anon Is invariance a fixed lock of something to something?

wut

@anon imm.io/PDt8

@Nur Oh, thanks for your appreciation :) and also sorry for the late response... I was writing something with some music.

Ah. Your wording was strange. Yes, an invariant is a property of a given object that is not altered under some class of transformations (often in particular isomorphisms in some category). Invariance is ... I guess you could say the property of properties being invariant, or the phenomenon of invariant properties existing, or whatever.

Got it.

@JasperLoy Got it.

@anon Are you on a math bachelor?

Anyway I have to leave for work later.

Hmmm... What's the best way to find $$PV\int_{-\infty}^\infty \frac{dx}{x^3+1}$$?

@JasperLoy Days from now. It's going to be a long drive tomorrow and the day after!

@JasperLoy ...Ummm.. Will do!

Its a really tedious drive... bleh

Haha! Just evaluated that integral!

What did you get? :/

$\frac{\pi}{\sqrt{3}}$

Contour integration is awesome!

I wouldn't know! :[

The first to rational terms cancel out under the principal value integral

Just out of interest when people are doing contour integration do they always have to do a sketch? Isn't there a way around it?

@Nur But how could you describe your contour of integration without depicting it?

@JasperLoy Bye!

@Nur You could always attempt to describe it, but drawings are generally best.

Good night everyone!

@Argon -- I see, thanks. Good night!

hey, question when you have the derivitive of $tan^2 (2x)$ or any trig function, you first do the chain rule by: finding derive w/ power rule * dervitive of the trig function and orignal angle * dervitive of the angle?

so $(tan 2x)^2$, then $\frac{d}{dx} = 2 tan 2x * sec^2 2x * 2$

right?

@sos440 Good point! (Sorry, I hid your posts earlier when I was misclicking and just figured how to 'unhide').

@Link What's the derivative of tan(2x)?

So whats the dirt on Bill leaving?

the guy has helped so many people out, wonder what he could have done to get himself suspended

@MSEoris This meta post and associated answers and comments should give you the general idea.

thanks @BrianM.Scott

"The suspension period ends on Dec 13 '13 at 20:47." -- Wow!

If I was banned for that long -- no way I would come back. That would be silly.

@MSEoris Must have been pretty serious!

apparently repeat infraction penalties get compounded severely. Its just a shame that differences in opinion can get clearly beneficial users to leave.

i agree the 3-strikes law is pretty barbaric

whatever damaged is caused by tempers flaring up can seemingly be mitigated by moderation (delete the offending comments etc.)

@MSEoris Note that there are significant differences of opinion on just how beneficial on net this user has been.

i guess the issue is what standard can be applied equally. imagine a hypothetical user who posts terrible stuff and everyone wishes they would just get lost. what kind of policy can make that happen without collateral damage?

@DanBrumleve Deletion of comments has at times been part of the problem.

what's the Latex code for material equivalence?

$\equiv$

err...

\leftrightarrow

$\leftrightarrow$

@Bitrex That’s odd: \equiv should show up as three bars, but I’m seeing only an equals sign.

Hmmm.

$\iff$ ?

I'm looking for <==>

@DanBrumleve thanks!

@Bitrex \Leftrightarrow, capitalized.

@Bitrex \iff works as well

@BrianM.Scott I noticed, and I trust the decisions of the people with experience & seniority on the site. I am fairly new here but have been actively searching through past material for a few months now and often found insightful archived comments by him, this is what I regret losing, I cannot judge on personality.

@leo It gives a shorter arrow, though.

@BrianM.Scott yep

how much time does a mod need to spend on the site to be effective?

define effective :)

well i'm asking more about good timeliness than good judgement

what is the schedule of a typical mod with sound judgement?

@Brian M. Scott Could you elaborate on the differences of opinions bit?

@Nur You’ll find most of them mentioned or fairly clearly implied in the meta thread to which I linked above and the other threads linked from it.

@BrianM.Scott Yeah, many are mentioning his tendency to get into conflict with others. When you mentioned significant differences of opinion on just how beneficial he's been on the net, I assumed you were referring to his mathematics.

@Nur I was sort of referring to both. It’s not the mathematics per se: that’s excellent, so far as I can tell. But I’m firmly of the opinion that his answers were often not very helpful to the person asking the question, because they were too sophisticated. I’m not saying that such answers are altogether bad: they serve a very useful archival purpose. But I prefer to help the OP.

@JasperLoy I can spend more time than most; retirement has it advantages. :-)

the structure of the site can get boring after a while and some of us resort to drama :( recently i was experimenting with capricious downvoting, more recently i've been trying to give the shortest possible answers.

speaking of math though how can aleph_omega be proven to exist in ZF?

@DanBrumleve I’m reminded of a student who bragged about going out at night to run red lights.

@DanBrumleve Of course.

@BrianM.Scott Oh, I see what you mean. I've seen some of the sophisticated answers. They are useful to people like me who just hang around here and sometimes study solutions in old questions, but largely of no use to the struggling OP!

well i've got a clean suspension record, i figure my behavior is legal at least

@JasperLoy What question would that be? :p

or noone has cared to investigate you @DanBrumleve :)

@Nur Exactly! And I agree that they serve a genuine and useful purpose; I just think that it’s secondary to helping the OP.

well its nice to have seen you in here @BrianM.Scott, now I have confirmed youre not a math robot. Its getting late here now so have a good night all!

@JasperLoy Indeed. One of the reasons that I don’t downvote such answers.

@MSEoris G’night!

@Jasper yup and the diversity is a good thing. even if the style is a function of the answerer's mood at the time

@BrianM.Scott I agree. If I was an OP and I was struggling with a question I would probably pissed if someone answered with a far-reaching generalisation beyond my head!

@JasperLoy I don’t downvote, full stop: I think that comments are far more useful.

@Jasper Loy I've seen the line you were talking about! xD

Very challenging! It remains that no-one has given an answer!

@JasperLoy I’m not exactly bilingual in AmE and BrE, but closer to it than most, and I do automatically use some Briticisms.

downvoting is the easiest way to engage someone in a discussion

@DanBrumleve Hardly: in my experience most downvoting is anonymous.

I was reading up the badges and apparently I would get a medal for my first down-vote. Haven't found an answer/question to down-vote yet! :[

I'm in the hunt people, so don't post dodgy stuff! xD

well you have to comment to say why you downvoted. then the discussion starts.

@DanBrumleve The comment alone serves the same purpose.

Then you would never have the critic badge!

Hello, @BrianM.Scott. I am a fan of your simple yet complicated solutions :)

@DumbCow Interesting description! I like to get as much mileage as possible out of elementary techniques; is that sort of what you mean?

@JasperLoy Of course, of course!

@BrianM.Scott Yeah - you have simple solutions for complicated questions. Thanks for your contributions to this site!

@JasperLoy That is not the reply you give to a cherishing fan. :/

@DumbCow You’re welcome! I’m having fun.

i'm not so sure, i feel like the downvote sets a competitive context... there is a chance to explain better and have the downvote retracted... not defending downvoting, what i'm describing is trolling in a sense, but anecdotally i think it has an engaging effect

@JasperLoy Aren’t you missing an asterisk?

@JasperLoy I wouldn't like to have such a boring name.

@BrianM.Scott You know my real name? That's a little awkward.

@JasperLoy It’s Kohli.

@Brian M. Scott -- What do you think of Kelley's General Topology book? (If you're familiar with it). I'm looking for a good first introduction into the subject.

@DumbCow It’s in your email in your profile.

@BrianM.Scott Ah, that's another example of my statement: “People on Math.SE are stalkers.” =)

@Nur There’s a great deal in it, but I find it a bit too old-fashioned for my taste. On balance I think that Munkres is better.

@JasperLoy Willard’s book is outstanding for anyone who’s ready for it. (There are a few errors, however.)

@Nur I don't like topology; I love tautology because I hate topology and I love tautology.

Jasper Loy -- Too much -- as in much more material than most introductions would contain?

@Nur Munkres tries harder than many authors at that level to explain the ideas behind proofs.

my top two tags are topology unfortunately. i know hardly anything about the subject :( it's because of one popular answer i gave

@JasperLoy I wouldn’t say so; you just get a good advanced undergraduate or first-year graduate level introduction to general topology.

@JasperLoy That's where piracy comes in...

@BrianM.Scott I actually have Munkres and even finished the first chapter (I haven't reached the topology yet). I guess I'll stick with it. (I often try two texts on a topic, though, so I thought I might get a second as well?).

@JasperLoy So you read books completely before buying them? You're so... wise...

@Dumb Cow lool.

@Nur I should probably mention that I’ve not seen the current edition of Munkres: mine is the first edition, and there have been some quite noticeable changes. I don’t think that the overall level or style has changed, though, and the context has been brought up to date.

such as, uh, thepiratebay

@JasperLoy There was some alg. top. at the end of the first edition, but I think that that section is one that’s been greatly expanded.

I've the second edition.

@JasperLoy It’s a bit different in emphasis from the others that we’ve mentioned, and it does some things quite differently, but it’s also a good book.

Chapters 9-14 is devoted to Algebraic Topology.

I don't know why I have a little problem reading the classic math texts; probably because they have a little too much philosophy up there which is ridiculous. I also don't imply that I have problems reading philosophy: I just said that the philosophy is too hard to believe. An example of so is this book.

I've just checked and 192 pages are devoted to Algebraic Topology.

@BrianM.Scott, @JasperLoy Many thanks for your advice.

@Nur My pleasure.

Dr. Polya has done some great research, I must say—but I never found it much interesting for me. However, I liked how he approached proofs.

@JasperLoy Haha! Could you say bit more about Willard, though? Is it at the level of Munkres or Kelley? Or somewhere in between?

@Nur Slightly higher.

Can anyone please quickly remind my shabby brain cells how a blockquote is entered?

> Test.

Ah, wasn't working yesterday.

@BrianM.Scott Woah, a no go then! xD

In speaking of things not working, does the latex on chat display for others?

Willard is probably the best reference work of the three.

@Nur Did you run the ChatJax script?

I knew I was missing something!

@JasperLoy I was very glad to see that happen.

@Nur Here.

@Dumb Cow -- Cheers! :]

@Nur =)

Oh, works like a charm now!

How is one officially known as a polymath?

@DumbCow By becoming a mathematician who specialises in polynomials?

@Nur You need to read this.

you have to marry several maths

it is legal only in some states

Haha!