@dmckee I agree it's shitty that economics limit the human experience. You probably won't ever have your own private jet even if you knew how to construct one yourself, simply because you don't have enough money.

hm

@Obliv You cannot strip humans of their contexts. We are social beings, even the ancient Greeks knew that. You cannot ask me what "I" want to do free of all influence, because an "I" that is free of influcence has never existed.

Your construction of an ideal goal that humans should follow just doesn't work - there is no way to determine it.

books.google.fr/books?id=DNc-AAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y&hl=fr

Also of note, apparently

hi @Slereah, can you talk at one of the upcoming tues mtgs

Errr

when

Might be at work

@Slereah ok. so is there a better time/ day? this is DZs recurring mtg

@acuri Actually, I can ask you what you want to do free of all external influence. You won't be able to do whatever that is since we can't (yet) live lives free of external influence. I'm arguing simply pursuing that 'goal' is the only valid path (maybe I'm just too antisocial).

Well at GMT+1, after 19h

@Obliv How are you certain that what I, living in my social context, say that I would do free of influcence is even close to what the "actual" me would do when freed of all social contexts.

Or the week end

Or wait until I'm out of work since that should be next week

And you're not "arguing" that that goal is the only valid path, you're simply postulating it.

@Slereah the mtg is next wk tues. the 2nd mtg after that is 2wks later. can you do the 2nd?

There's nothing wrong with postulating ethical statements, but you need to recognize it.

Should be fine yeah

(I assume MTG is Magic the Gathering)

@Slereah You quit?

Nah

they didn't take me in

'cause I'm terrible at my job :V

god I hate web programming

Well

"Programming"

There is basically no programming beyond using loops and arrays

@Slereah :) ok will see if @DavidZ is ok with that. its 16:00 GMT Tue Jun14th

Oh man

Oh wait

nvm

I thought july 14

Where I'm double free because it's the national holiday!

are you ok with Jun14th?

Sure

@Slereah :) yay

@acuri I don't think it matters what the 'actual' you would do because we can't free anyone of all social contexts (unless you lived alone in svalbard with everything at your disposal). I think most, if not all, humans can imagine a life where they don't have to worry about anything.

I'll be unemployed for two weeks so mostly I'll be playing video games in my underwear

@Slereah lol (what games?) you can post a picture during your talk :P

Who knows!

the underwear and game possibilities are infinite

← lately playing guitar hero/ rock band 4 on ps4 =D

@Obliv Okay. So why would doing what I imagine myself doing in the influence-free context be a more valid life choice than doing what I, well, actually would decide to do given the constraints I have to work with?

Skyrim in boxers

Jagged Alliance in underoos

Portal in a jockstrap

Imagination is the only limit

@acuri I think this argument would lead in circles, by the way, since we have different value systems and I'm looking at this from my own subjective experience. I'm not basing this off of pure logic. From my pov, leading this life is more important/the only valid thing because once you're dead, the life you lived will be permanent. Living this life for yourself instead of for others/because of others seems more valid to me for whatever reason.

But anyway

I am curious about the generalized trig functions

$\cos_e(t)$ and $\sin_e(t)$

@Obliv Ah, but that's your personal decision. You started this debate by telling others to abide by this principle of yours, and presenting it as if it were an obvious fact.

Apparently those are (possibly) the general parametric solution of conic sections

@Obliv some deep philosophical musings there. are you in academia?

@Slereah I am curious where you find these things to be curious about

@ACuriousMind isn't that obvious

@Slereah Crazy GR stuff?

Or in your underpants?

Both seem equally likely from where I stand!

well I actually said imho (in my honest opinion) so I didn't present it as fact. It may have sounded that way, but I'm aware it isn't one @acuri

@vzn u mean am I a student? Yeah I am.

@Obliv undergrad?

yes. finished first year

Curious about time travel -> intrauniverse wormhole -> I hate using multiple coordinate patch -> try to find a coordinate system for a plane with a handle -> try to foliate it with conic sections

pretty obvious

I'm not used to people using "imho" and actually taking the "humble" seriously :D

← also oft contemplates life free of "constraints"

@Slereah There is no coordinate system that covers an entire plane with a handle.

IS THERE NOT

I mean

Just like there's no global coordinate system for a sphere

Obviously not a regular one

But

I am an electron. The last thing you want to do is to confine me

The sphere has spherical coordinates

@Slereah Oh, so you're seeking a coordinate system that's not a coordinate system? :P

oh I meant honest, not humble. Yeah I should probably not argue with acronyms on the internet lol. @acuri damn spent so much time here as usual. Gonna go back to studying ttyl

@Slereah You have to exclude two points for that to work

Well sure but who gives a damn :V

Do you see anyone not using spherical or cylindrical coordinates because of this

I'm not looking for a perfect bijection

Okay, but there's another obstruction here: The plane with a handle has a "branching" at the points where the handle is attached

I'm having trouble thinking of coordinates that can map to that

Yeah that's not trivial

My best guess is like

Spanning various conic sections

The line running over the handle is a line with e ~ infinity

The circle in the handle is e = 0

And you have e as a function of θ

θ=0 e=0, θ=π e=inf

I think that might work

Though the problem is that for e<1, coordinates are cyclical

But not for e>1

Either that or I put everyone cyclical and then it's more a disc with a handle

@Slereah did you upvote the meta ad? only needs 1!

There

@Slereah !!! awesome thx man! 6v as of this nanosecond! it will go live! =D

alas, its likely a fragile balance o_O

Or maybe I split it into two charts :p

@MAFIA36790 DZ said he can put link on main page, it can have more detail, will try to get that worked out soon, also DS has a statement of purpose now (see transcript), would like to see DS help respond to the meta objection(s)

@MAFIA36790 yes, he volunteered for that, recently encouraged him to follow thru.

@MAFIA36790 probably will write up some details on a blog post at some pt also.

hey guys, im derping a bit on differential equations

mind if i ask a quick question about PDEs that is probably just me being stupid on being applied to what i learned about ODEs

Sure

so im dealing with a 4th order linear PDE

$\dot x = D x'' - M x''''$

there we go

we use fourier transforms to solve this

and a term appears in the time dependent exponential

$k^2 D + k^4 M$

so now im suppose to plot this AT a concentration X=.5

this was all in terms of x to begin with

but im not sure how im suppose to talk about the behavior of that term AT a specific X

since we did the fourier transform on the whole function

x to k are the conjugate variables in case that wasnt obvious

what am i over-complicating in my head

did i explain clearly enough whats bugging me @Slereah

Uhhhhhh...is "x" the name of your function, or the variable whose differentiation you denote by the prime?

its the concentration (so a function with value 0 to 1)

i guess blame chemists for the wonkiness in variable choice

OH derp

now i know why i confused you

its x(r)

i said something wrong a little higher up

x --> x~ and r --> k

Well, then just invert the Fourier transform of $\tilde{x}$ and plot that term as a function of k at $x=0.5$.

Wait

Let's be clear what you mean

@MAFIA36790 where?

@user507974 You have a function $x(r,t)$ and you solved it in spatial Fourier space as $\tilde{x}(k,t)$?

@MAFIA36790 There are a few real scientists using vixra out of a deep dedication to the idea of openness. Of course, most of them established their reputation before staking out that position.

And now you're asking to...plot $\tilde{x}$ at $x=0.5$?!?!

I have no idea what's going on :D

there was a long conversation in here in the transcripts when "somebody or other" mentioned vixra and everyone piled on, essentially calling it 100% reputation-killing crap :(

@ACuriousMind yea

@MAFIA36790 ArXiv has gatekeeping. Some people find that objectionable.

was just talking to a foreign (indian) cs student who couldnt get his paper into arxiv without "endorsers". elsewhere a high rep Theoretical Computer Science user assured me there was no such requirement/ filter whatsoever, asserting maybe it was only with the physics sections

@dmckee it has gatekeeping policy and its undeclared/ opaque. worst of both worlds :(

@vzn It is trivial to look that up.

@ACuriousMind disagree / "[citation needed]"

::shrug:: The simply fact is that the wannabes and pretenders and kooks and cranks function as a denial of service attack against truly open systems. You don't even have to assume malicious intent: it's just that there are more of them and they generate more attempts to place material on the system than legitimate users.

It's similar to the problem we have on the site with homework-help.

@vzn What? I gave you the link that describes how the arXiv endorsement system works, what more do you want?

Of course, attempts to 'solve' the problem will always risk excluding valuable outsider content, so we lose something any way 'round.

ACM oh sorry didnt see link.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is why we can't have nice things.

> Detailed instructions on how to proceed with the endorsement request are provided at that time.

↑ why are they withheld/ not openly stated?

@vzn Because endorsement requests go to real people who are busy doing real work. If the system allowed the requests to become a denial of service attack on the endorsers no one would agree to do the job.

Outsiders rarely understand how much of academia runs on people doing pro publica work that they don't get much credit for.

@ACuriousMind hadnt seen that recently. note that arxiv has been around a lot longer than 2004 (close to a decade more) where it said the policy started. etc... so maybe less opaque since then at least :|

@vzn I think that concerns details of how to contact endorsers or how to endorse people. You don't need that information unless you are already trying to submit an paper. I'm not sure what you think is "withheld", the rest of the page pretty clearly outlines how the process works.

I can't recall if I used gopher or ftp the first time I got a preprint off the arXiv, but it was before there was a web so it had to be one of those.

@ACuriousMind they recently asked for comments/ survey/ general feedback. have some info on that in my link pile. think the transparency is improving some )(. but it was a nearly radical gesture/ unprecedented considering their history & it was somewhat acknowledged in the article.

@vzn I know. It was pretty hard to not notice the giant "Take our survey" when accessing the arXiv :P

anyway still think/ suspect/ feel the "endorser" policy is not uniformly enforced. edge cases. etc... but dont really wanna get into that debate

@vzn How could you possibly "feel" that?

@ACuriousMind anecdotal (ofc plz feel free to dismiss/ ignore it)

@ACuriousMind Well, I'd have to get endorsed to publish in, say quantitative finance, but as long as I stick to experimental or phenomenological nuclear or particle physic; or instrumentation I'm good to go. History with arXiv matters, too.

will i do anything wrong if i take some paper from vixra as my high school project?(i don't know much about that website)

Apparently the generalized trig functions have to obey the generalized Pythagorean theorem

@ramsay There is a high chance that a paper picked at random will not contain any actual science.

@ramsay That's a risky strategy!

$$(1-e^2) \cos_e^2(t) + 2e \cos_e(t) + \sin^2_e(t) = 1$$

@JohnRennie why?

@ramsay While I respect Phil Gibbs' motives for setting up Vixra, having a repository that imposes no restrictions on its contributors means it is 99% crap.

Eh, it's fine

Well, maybe 99% is harsh but the crap quotient is very high

It does what it was made for

Which is fun

@ramsay so if you choose a paper at random it is overwhelmingly likely to be complete rubbish

@dmckee (that reminds me) spking of that, would you have any interest in being the site invited speaker sometime? think all your bkg/ insight/ advice in the room is helpful & thered be an audiece

what about arXiv?

@JohnRennie his point is that its not up to the repo to figure it out. its just two different "editorial philosophies," one much more emphatically lassaiz faire

Literally

@ramsay While there is questionable content on arXiv too, the overwhelming majority of things there is fine.

@MAFIA36790 it means if i take paper from arXiv i will get A

Really I don't want to criticize Vixra

It has some high profile authors

I've seen a few paper by Jesus Christ

@ramsay The Arxiv was originally intended for posting preprints of papers that had been accepted by a journal i.e. gone through the peer review process. That guaranteed a high quality (ish :-).

Well about as high a quality as the journals themselves

@ramsay What? What do you even mean by "taking a paper"? What's your task?

Good thing Arxiv doesn't do any Humanities papers

It's now used for publishing papers that haven't been through peer review, but the restriction the Arxiv place on its contributors mean the quality is generally still very high.

@ACuriousMind i have to write a research paper in Physics(and chemistry)

You said "high school". One can't write a research paper in high school. What are you actually supposed to do?

@ACuriousMind Speak for yourself, I'm not a social being

@ramsay You killed the Starks, I'm not helping you

@ramsay And again, what do you mean by "taking a paper" from arXiv? I hope you're not thinking of submitting someone else's work as your own?

@MAFIA36790 o/

@BernardMeurer lol

@ACuriousMind i don't mean very high profiled research paper just a basic one

@BernardMeurer lol

@BernardMeurer A "social being" is not necessarily a "being that enjoys being social" :P

@ACuriousMind yes i mean the same, haha

@ACuriousMind It's been 3 days since I left home

@ramsay what? Can you state in a complete sentence what you intend to do, please.

apart from going to get beer at midnight last night

@ACuriousMind a few exceptional highschoolers have done research & published

@MAFIA36790 to test for it's correctness, right?

@MAFIA36790 What's the drinking age in India?

@BernardMeurer But you've been here. This is also social interaction, if you acknowledge it or not :P

@vzn duh, but it wasn't a school assignment!

@ACuriousMind i am afraid you will take screen shot and i will land in jail

@ramsay I already did that and sent it to Jon Snow. You're doomed

@ACuriousMind An online physics chatroom is the most interaction I've had in 3 days apart from a cashier that I said "debit" to. Is this really your point on me being social :v

@ramsay So - you are aware that trying to pass off someone else's paper as your own is unethical but you decided to go ahead with it anyway and even ask us for help for choosing the correct source?

@BernardMeurer No, it isn't :D Even if you seclude yourself in your room you're still living within the larger context of society

@ACuriousMind yeah

...

@ramsay You oughtta read some Kant dawg, learn some ethics and stuff

@ACuriousMind AM NOT :p

@ramsay: my brother is a teacher and he routinely takes random phrases from his students' papers and Googles them to check the students haven't plagiarised some other author. Don't try it - really, don't try it. Teachers are less naive than you think.

@ramsay There are entire softwares dedicated to finding plagiarism, don't do it.

@JohnRennie i believe my chemistry teacher is very very very lazy but i worry only about my physics teacher

@JohnRennie I have always felt that "Don't do it, you will get caught!" is not the correct reply to such an attitude.

hey @bernardmeurer have you ever built a program that found prime factorizations of numbers? I think it's not too hard I might do it myself but I was wondering if you already had a working one

I can make a Python script in half an hour that'd grab your Arxiv copy in seconds

Even if most teachers were naive enough to not catch it, you still shouldn't pass off other people's work as your own.

@Obliv Hmmm, not really, but I'm confident I can do that in 1 line of Python :v

@ramsay Listen to me, are you listening?

@BernardMeurer yes

@ramsay How old are you? Be honest

@BernardMeurer 15

@ramsay Are you American?

@BernardMeurer nah!

yeah if you have some free-time today could you make one with some specific instructions? It would be: get the prime factorization of the number, count the amount of each prime in this factorization and store it somewhere, rinse repeat. Then after a large enough sample size give back the prime number density for the range.

No, I'm not looking to get you arrested. I couldn't care less, you'll see the point I'll make in a second

Where are you from?

@Obliv Is this your homework dawg?

@BernardMeurer kazakhstan

no it's something for the side @bernardm idk why i'm being such a math nerd but i'm just curious about something ;) if it works out I might be able to provide compensation

@ramsay Okay, great, light blue flag with golden eagle and sun in the center and details to the left

yeah

Listen to me very carefully, do you value the work your father does? Whatever it is. And your mothers? Do you think their jobs and their work is important?

i gotta go to class lmk if you're up to it

yes

@Obliv Alrighty, I'll work on it today :)

@ramsay Now, the people whose papers you're thinking of copying, they're husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons and daughter's of people just like your father and your mother. You see that? I'm no different than you, neither are the people who wrote those papers

So would you like if someone stole your father's work? Or your mother's work?

Or your own work?

I think not

So why would you do that to someone else, you see my point?

@ramsay When you steal from someone you're robbing not only their work, but fundamentally you're robbing yourself of learning

@ramsay Because they trust you, and me, and everyone. Those papers are there so that we, me and you alike, can learn from them, for free. Isn't that wonderful?

Freedom of information, you in Kazakhstan and me in Brazil can access the same knowledge, for free, without barriers

By copying that paper you would be standing in the way of that. You would be encouraging that they don't let knowledge me shared and available

And I don't think you would like that would you @ramsay?

no i won't like

@ramsay So I beg you, don't copy that paper, write your school assignments by yourself. Because it's only our good faith that keeps freedom alive. Don't do it, because it's unethical, and because in the end it damages us, people from poor countries, very hardly

OK i won't copy, my PROMISE

hello

Hello!

If you look in a magnifying glass

and you look at it from far, won't the image be uppside down and smaller?

@ramsay I'm very glad to hear that. Good luck on your assignment and count on me to help you with what I can

@Murplyx Yeah, optics is weird

@Murplyx It's because it's a convex lens and you are moving the object away from the focus point

@BernardMeurer yeah i will be definitely needing help from this room

thanks for answering!

So if i hold the glass so that the focus is behind me, it will be correct,

but if i hold it further away, it won't

?

@Murplyx Does this answer your question?

@MAFIA36790 noted

yes, so that means that you would see the image upside down if your eyes are behind the focus

Also, if I have a prism, i can get a spectrum

but if i have a converging lens, why can i not?

@Murplyx Yeah what you said sounds correct

ye

okay

@BernardMeurer The second question?

I'm thinking, hold it

@Murplyx Have you heard about an effect called total internal reflection?

yes total reflektion

Yeah, so I think it's because since the white light is composed of multi-colored lights (each with a different wavelength) inside the prism they'll suffer total reflection at slightly different angles and the spectrum magic happens

This is what I think, can't say for sure

in the lens that doesn't happen because there's there's barely any reflection, just refraction and the light goes past

Oh, it probably has something to do with a refraction on the light ray as it enters the prism too

@ACuriousMind Halp

@ACuriousMind Idk if this is right

@vzn He knows those, but I like it when he gives me those challenges :)

Lol, I see we're an ethics committee now? :P

what could be a good topic from classical physics, where some basic research can be done?

Chaotic dynamics

@ramsay "Classical physics" is very broad, try to narrow that down

@Danu No, but still it's an important thing to get people to understand