The h Bar

user54412

12:13 AM

@ManishEarth wait, was I self-promoting...? Also, your answer is technically wrong; you are a mod now :)

2:19 AM

@Jonn_Underwood : IMO Feynman Lectures are good for you, You don't need any physics background, and if you have math background its well and good, more helpful.

ManishEarth

3:52 AM

The Hydrogen Wave Function, Imaged

What? What what what what what?

They imaged a wavefunction?

user54412

4:40 AM

I... just... spent an hour reviewing the close votes queue...

user54412

D:

user54412

thankfully the SE software took pity on me and told me I had to stop for the day

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

@ChrisWhite Hey... I saw only 10 posts in the queue..!

user54412

I had 40!

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

OMG... Ahh... I can understand that you haven't gone into the review page for an year..! ;-)

And, that's a nice example for what I call contribution :D

Now, I can see new users like Crowell, Emilo, Josh and Alfred participating in VTC'ing ;-)

user54412

4:45 AM

@ManishEarth Is it just me, or does that look like one of the n=3, l=2 states?

ManishEarth

@ChrisWhite looks like it, but David mentions n=30 there

user54412

I guess the other 27 nodes are just hard to see?

ManishEarth

@ChrisWhite Check the message reply, it was to chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/9608549#9608549

@ChrisWhite either that or the technique only images a small group of orbitals

I'd have to look deeper into it to figure that out

@ChrisWhite you do know how message replies in chat work, right?

user54412

@ManishEarth ummm... about that chat link...?

user54412

apparently not

ManishEarth

4:48 AM

If you click on the tiny gray arrow to the left of a chat message, it takes you to the message it replies to

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

@ManishEarth Does h-bar work on your phone..?

user54412

@ϚѓăʑɏβµԂԃϔ I worry about a VTC war brewing - many of our users have a big interest in closing questions these days, but I don't think they agree on what should be closed

ManishEarth

@ϚѓăʑɏβµԂԃϔ yeah

@ChrisWhite that's what meta/mods/reopen votes are for

@ChrisWhite you can make a message reply to another by hovering over the latter and clicking the tiny gray arrow to the right of it

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

@ChrisWhite I can see that..! Maybe I should control myself by keeping the thought "Ahh.... It's not a problem. Mine isn't the threshold..."" aside :/

user54412

@ManishEarth Ohhhhhhhhh - I'm confusing the two threads you're having with me

user54412

4:50 AM

I'm not a computer, remember

ManishEarth

@ChrisWhite oic

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

@ChrisWhite Oh.. My...

user54412

sign that I need to sleep...

user54412

4 days down, 1 more day of conferencing to go - so exhausting

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

@ChrisWhite Sleep..>>??? Waaa :O

ManishEarth

4:52 AM

@ChrisWhite which conf?

Also, FOOOOOD!

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

@ChrisWhite: Have you slept at 9 once in your life..? :D

user54412

@ManishEarth American Astronomical Society general meeting

user54412

there's surprisingly little food

ManishEarth

In the past two months I think I have slept at every hour of the day. and night

@ChrisWhite ah nice

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

@ChrisWhite Pardon me - but, what do you do there..?

ManishEarth

4:53 AM

@ChrisWhite so...what's the point of attending? :P

user54412

@both Network with people :P

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

Simply clinck drinks and say Cheers..? :D

ManishEarth

@ϚѓăʑɏβµԂԃϔ Conferences are places where you use physics as an excuse for stuffing yourself

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

I thought that..!

Maybe, I'll enjoy going to conferences in the near future...

user54412

@ϚѓăʑɏβµԂԃϔ One summer I let my sleep cycle reach my "natural" period, which turned out to be ~27 hours

user54412

4:55 AM

so yeah, sometimes I slept at 9

user54412

also, I felt well-rested and productive every hour I was awake - it was beautiful

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

@ChrisWhite Ahh... I didn't know that..!

@ManishEarth: Does your vacation end at all..??? :)

ManishEarth

@ϚѓăʑɏβµԂԃϔ still a monthish to go

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

What...? My vacation is only a month..! june 4 to july 3 :?

user54412

@ManishEarth didn't you say you were doing something graphene-related?

ManishEarth

4:58 AM

Yeah

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

with RhysW... (wondering, why he isn't coming here in absence of Manish)

ManishEarth

Just got back from vacation yesterday, though.. Meeting the prof today for a more detailed discussion

user54412

I actually attended a number of astrochemistry talks - turns out properties of graphene-like things are something we need

ManishEarth

Basically I'll be calculating the band structure and from that the properties of graphene/MoS2/silicene/other crazy compounds

@ChrisWhite for?

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

I'm suffering in the middle of not-chatty studious fellas..! (Gimme a break) :D

ManishEarth

5:00 AM

Better semiconductors for better number-crunching?

Or are you talking about graphene in space?

user54412

turns out carbon in the interstellar medium likes to form all sorts of hexagonal molecules

ManishEarth

Ah

alien pencils then

user54412

yep

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

Yeah... I need one..!

ManishEarth

Apparently graphene and company have some wacky optical properties

user54412

5:02 AM

that's a problem when we're trying to look through it with our telescopes :P

ManishEarth

@ChrisWhite Send ballpoint-pen salesmen out to space. Problem solved.

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

1 min ago, by Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

Yeah... I need one..!

user54412

@ϚѓăʑɏβµԂԃϔ You think this is studious? You should see my facebook conversations - I think I talk about GR more there than here :P

user54412

anyway, as it is 1 am, good night all

ManishEarth

'night :)

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

5:06 AM

@ChrisWhite Maybe I can take an introductory there.... Nighty night ;-)

@ManishEarth What I really meant by asking whether h-bar works on phones... is - in low signal areas...

ManishEarth

@ϚѓăʑɏβµԂԃϔ ah. well, depends

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

like the Himalayas you went...

ManishEarth

It can get choppy

oh

i didn't go into the high mountains or anything

I was with civilization

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

@ManishEarth It's not at all working in my hometown...!

ManishEarth

SE worked

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

5:08 AM

@ManishEarth I thought you gone top of the mountains and jumped on the cloudy bed ;-)

ManishEarth

no lol

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

Maybe, I'm trying one :D

Here, every chat message always returns a timeout error... SE is worse... It doesn't load at all..!

ManishEarth

Well, technically Dharamshala and Dalhousie are on tops of mountains. But they're not the really tall snow-capped ones. (They have snow, but not now). The really tall ones are visible from there.

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

ah...

My vacation is bad without SE..! :D

You know, it's pretty difficult for me to adapt to this dial-up, having enjoyed with broadband these much days :/

The encouraging thing is both SE & chat works in my balcony though ;-)

@ManishEarth I've edited something in Emilo's answer in meta... What do you think..? (I think we can do it like that...)

10

A: What can be done about the (current) flood of homework and very basic questions overwhelming our site?

While I disagree with the specific implementation, I think userØØ7's idea does have something to it. Can we have the page respond to users entering the homework tag by showing a short homework FAQ and links to the canonical meta question? I would like to have new users confronted to the homework...

ManishEarth

add it separately, that may not be Emilio's opinion

or comment

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

5:15 AM

@ManishEarth Did you see that..? Just 2 or 3 lines (all I can do with my phone :D)

ManishEarth

i rollbacked it

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

So, we shouldn't do it like that..!

Okay, I'll wait for the feature request...

@ManishEarth I thought my add up wouldn't be an useful answer as regards to the question..!

ManishEarth

comment then

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

Okay... Leave it... You said you're to meet your prof. today... Isn't it?

Are those prof. reachable during vacations..?

ManishEarth

@ϚѓăʑɏβµԂԃϔ they live in the institute

most of them

and yeah, they usually can be found in their offices

the institute has tons of activity in the vacations as well

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

5:25 AM

ah...

@ManishEarth So, Is there any rule like - you shouldn't stay in hostels during vacations, etc...

I mean, where do you stay now..?

ManishEarth

@ϚѓăʑɏβµԂԃϔ Well, you need to show the hostel manager that you have a valid reason for staying

I have 3

So that wasn't hard

During the vacations a lot of people come and work under profs here from outside. They need space too, so we have to vacate our rooms unless we need them.

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

~~No comments~~

@ManishEarth: Okay... I was reviewing VTC's... I used "Leave Open" for this question since both questions didn't look like a duplicate...

2

Q: Naked singularity and extendable geodesics

I'm currently trying to understand the notion of a naked singularity. After consulting books by Wald and Choquet-Bruhat, it seems that for a naked singularity one must have that the causal curves can leave the singularity and extend to infinity (that is, they will not hit the horizon). This looks...

Now, I can see that Ben's answer here covers it...

I VTC'd... Since we can close questions if they were covered by answers in other Qs... Isn't it?

What do you think..?

ManishEarth

gtg, I'll take a look later

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

Okay... Me too... C'ya later ;-)

David Zaslavsky

7:52 AM

A note on this whole issue of low-level questions: I've talked to quite a few high-level undergrads (physics majors) and even some grad students who say that they don't participate in this site because the questions are too complex and they don't know how to answer them.

So we seem to be having two contradictory problems at once: we are losing contributors because the questions are too basic (or such is the claim), and we are losing contributors because the questions are too advanced.

ManishEarth

@DavidZaslavsky Which is why I mentioned in a comment somewhere that there are other views as well

Physics Meta

2:58 PM

2

Q: Can we include homework guidance in the How to Ask sidebar?

This question is a follow-up to this question about what some of us feel is a large spike in low-level homework questions. I propose we include a specific link to our canonical homework meta question in the How to Ask sidebar that shows up when the cursor is on the question title box: I propo...

feature-request questions homework

Dilaton

3:36 PM

I could need some support for this feature request by people who think this would be a good thing meta.stackoverflow.com/q/183321/184300

ManishEarth

already upvoted

Dilaton

@ManishEarth thanks :-)

Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ

6:31 PM

Hmm... I flagged a question as vague - but ended up in a condition that it's already been closed..!

Most of my flags get declined by my dial-up.... Damn -_-

The main thing is - SE didn't notify me :)

Dilaton

9:21 PM

@dmckee why did you roll back my edits of this question? I edited it to remove the alusion to references and enhance the physics to get it reopend. I think even in the rolled back version should it not be closed since it should be allowed to ask about such a quite interesting and higher level issue.

@dmckee the OP says not just give me a reference about a very broad topic, but the question is very well defined as he explains exactly what physics issue he wants to learn about and why. So why can this not be reopend anyway?

Anyway, I have decided to stop trying to improve closed questions and flag them to reopen since it is pretty pointless. Not a single one was and most probably does ever get reopend. So I will wait with improving closed questions, until I am able to state a reopen vote myself after the improvement.

And here is something I have just learned today: it is not absolutely needed, that our or any community in the SE network follows exactly the letter every SE rule or guideline if it does not fit the needs of our physics community. Shog9 encourages even in this answer to a MSO question that communities build their own standards.

So at the end I was right as I said that the mathematicians are doing the right thing when deciding themself what rules they want to adhere to and which ones they omit because they do the needs of their community no good... Just something to think about ;-)

Physics Meta

9:52 PM

2

Q: Should I post a question with the intent to answer it myself?

I am asking because I have seen a couple misconceptions floating around on Physics.SE, but in a way so that it would be semi off-topic to address in answers to the post, and it is a bit too complex to get into in the comments (and also frustrating to do repeatedly). I believe that the best way t...

discussion

Montaigne

10:54 PM

What is a good explanation for "inverse power potential" referring to the collision of molecules?

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