Conversation started Jan 29, 2016 at 1:20.
Jan 29, 2016 01:20
Oh, forgot. How about teaching that mass = amount of matter in something?
Personally, I learned that mass = something's "resistance toward going at the speed of light". Not sure if that's correct, but it seemed to make sense.
@SirCumference I don't think anyone can really tell you what mass is
And that massive objects can't reach lightspeed because they, by definition, have resistance toward it
Have you read Einstein's book for high schoolers?
Relativity: the special and general theory
@guest c'mon
Jan 29, 2016 01:23
@SirCumference Mass is really just the eigenvalue of the generator of a central extension to the Poincare algebra.
@SirCumference Just read Hawking-Ellis
@ACuriousMind Bullshit there's no such algebra on curved spacetime
Er...so what I've learned was incorrect?
Check it out @SirCumference
@ACuriousMind don't lie to the boy
you and your flat spaces
@0celo7 bullshit there's no such curved spacetime in my QFT
Jan 29, 2016 01:23
"Boy"... ._.
@SirCumference As incorrect as F=ma.
In the h-bar the line between total bullshit and really advanced stuff is infinidecimally fine
@ACuriousMind fite me irl 1v1
Wait, so what's mass?
@SirCumference We don't know.
Jan 29, 2016 01:24
In GR it has no specific definition
What they use to make pies. Next!
Yeah, sure. That's my recipe. Take one spoon of mass and stir for 5 mins.
Put it in the oven and presto.
@0celo7 no, you'd probably win
So we use mass in a bunch of equations, yet have no idea what it is?
What the hell?
@SirCumference Mass is what your scale measures, length is what your ruler measures, time is what your clock measures.
Works pretty fine so far
Jan 29, 2016 01:26
But I can define the last two. Length is a measure of distance. Time is the progression of events.
The hell is mass?
The hell is distance? The hell is a "progression of events"?
Define: measurement :P
The amount of space between objects
Mass? It's the majority in group; Next!
Time can be defined as the rate at which things to change.
Jan 29, 2016 01:28
The hell is "space", and how do I count it do get the "amount"?
@guest Now you're just arguing semantics
Oh god
So are you pal.
Dude, it's all an illusion
"semitics"...
@SirCumference No, the rate at which things change is their time derivative
Jan 29, 2016 01:29
If everything is an illusion, then they can be called real.
There's nothing to contrast them with.
You have fallen down the "rabbit hole" @SirCumference :D
This is just philosophy.
Just?
What exactly were you expecting when asking "What is mass?"
Philosophy usually isn't based on anything. Science is.
The hell are we using in our equations?
Jan 29, 2016 01:30
Numbers
The symbol $m$
and letters
Can science not find a definite meaning for it?
@SirCumference Give me one example of a word with such a definite meaning.
Jan 29, 2016 01:31
That's why we define the Kg with a bloody lump of platinum like if we were caveman
@BernardMeurer Cavemen with a ball of platinum. Seems legit.
The bad afterlife when you die?
Life has a definite meaning :P
@guest Not really. Are viruses alive?
Jan 29, 2016 01:32
Ask them.
That starts to get arguments.
@ACuriousMind what, why
you've already said you're never coming to America
@SirCumference People don't even agree on the existence of an afterlife, much less on its details. How can that word have a definite meaning?
so it'd be in Europa
you have the home field advantange
AAAAAAH...Goddammit. Just what the hell are we doing, just plugging in random things and expecting answers to the Universe?
Jan 29, 2016 01:33
YES
MAYBE
Especially when we don't know what we're plugging in?
YES
ITS ALL MAGIC
6
what was the question??
Jan 29, 2016 01:33
YES
Of the science, I have a low interest in palaeontology and archaeology, probably because it is too far away.

If I include non sciences, then politics is the least interested unless the concepts can be taught without bias and corruption tones...
@ACuriousMind sounds like one of the grad students in my lab...
@SirCumference Of course, you have to realize what we're doing is not really random. We're doing it because it has worked perfectly fine so far.
But then we're not really learning about the Universe
Jan 29, 2016 01:35
It follows a clear set of laws and they have worked really well so far
We're just finding things that can be applicable
but what are they built upon, we are not there yet
@SirCumference Yes, that's what science is.
I am usually not very interested in people (reminds me too much about corruption), unless they can be viewed as a non human entity. For example, to consider the society as a system of some sort, and analyse that without referring too much about people
Ta-daa science!
3
Jan 29, 2016 01:36
Sigh...and here I thought science was how we study the Universe...
Things just got a whole less cool...
@SirCumference It is the best working approximation to that that we have
Ba bum tss
@SirCumference All we care is about blowing stuff up man, the rest is just a show
Speak for yourself, experimentalist
Jan 29, 2016 01:37
For example, finance does not interested me in the past (because money->corruption->bad->headache to think about)
Until just last year, a professor managed to taught it by reducing it into just a bunch of abstract concepts (hence chunky non human entities) and then I start to get interested in it as a study of how something called money flows in a system
What did you just call me @ACuriousMind?
Wanna fight brah?
1v1 irl
he called you useful
ooo
somehow he thinks that's an insult
Jan 29, 2016 01:38
Fight!
Everything in italic is an insult
@guest I'd gladly fight him
he punked out the last time I was near him
Sad. Very sad.
@BernardMeurer So the bottomline is: It is possible to make me interested in a subject as long you can make it so that it does not remind me of people (except psychology, which I am interested because of self protection)
Look
You're so nice
You're so *nice*
So what's science?
Jan 29, 2016 01:39
Be nice.
Redefine it?
I broke it ;-;
yeah
I've told you @SirCumference It's all magic
This just got way philosophical.
 
Conversation ended Jan 29, 2016 at 1:39.