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02:00 - 17:0017:00 - 23:00

02:58
Did someone poison the chatroom?
03:21
I haven't seen it this empty for a long time.
03:35
@skullpatrol $\emptyset$
Here I come.
@JasperLoy TMI :-p
Yo waz good homies
@skullpatrol main seems to be dead, too, at least for me. I've written some good answers (IMO), but there are almost no votes or comments.
03:50
@robjohn It's time to retire, delete your account and forget about this site.
@JasperLoy okay... I should have done that at 100K :-)
@robjohn It's never too late! Anyway, I have retired but I will try to keep my account and come to chat this time.
@JasperLoy what, you've stopped picking lhfs?
@robjohn Yup, they are few and far between these days. And ;-) always answers them first, lol.
@JasperLoy who answers them first?
03:54
@robjohn My enemy who likes to use ;-)
04:05
@robjohn I expect you will still be on this site ten years from now, since you are so dedicated.
So will you, I hope.
@skullpatrol or some incarnation of him
04:35
Indeed @robjohn the internet has many recurrent themes.
 
1 hour later…
05:41
Hi @Chris'ssis I saw you asking about prayer. So you are Christian?
@JasperLoy Greetings
@JasperLoy There is too much mist in life to give you an answer right now.
@Chris'ssis OK. I have given up on all religion.
@JasperLoy However, I experienced some exceptional events that cannot be just a simple happening.
@usukidoll Long time no see!
05:55
yeah
anyway is number theory a good course for mathematicians?
Why not?
is that a yes or a no?
It depends on your interests. It is certainly a major branch of mathematics.
but is it a good course?
What would you mean by good?
05:57
like........are the topics interesting?
Ah, I have almost no interest in number theory myself.
But lots of others do.
So you should just decide for yourself.
 
1 hour later…
07:04
Hi guys, I just want to ask something that might be very easy to all of you but it is hard for me to answer it. How can I answer question like this: "how much is exp(- pi/2)?" Yup, that is the question.
@Tunk-Fey Maclaurin series expansion?
@Khallil No, it is not about calculus question. It's a basic math question.
use a calculator :)
@skullpatrol I wish I could say like that :)
you don't have one?
07:10
I have six. :P
use 22/7 for pi and 685/252 for e
07:25
@Tunk-Fey I don't think there might be an efficient way to calculate that without calculus.
Just sub in some decimal terms instead of $e$ and $\pi$ as @skull suggests and calculate a rough error made through this process.
@Tunk-Fey $i^i$
@robjohn That totally doesn't help in any kind of computation.
@BalarkaSen Oh, I was supposed to help in a calculation?
As I understand it, yeah.
You got it @robjohn. The exp(- pi/2) comes from my calculation when calculating $i^i$.
07:31
@Tunk-Fey Depending on the branch of log used, that is :-)
A fancy way to write the Euler's identity.
But then the next question is "how much is exp(- pi/2)?". This question is asked to me by a MIT Physics prof: Walter Lewin.
@robjohn Yeah, I know that. I use $0\le\theta\le2\pi$.
@Tunk-Fey Is he asking for a numerical value, or something else?
@robjohn I don't know, he just simply asked that to me.
He probably just wants a numerical value.
07:35
@Tunk-Fey It could be a Jeopardy-like answer... which is in the form of a question
$\exp(-\pi/2) = \exp(\pi)^{-1/2} \approx \cfrac1{\sqrt{\pi+20}}$
The question on how good it gets is about the efficiency of the decimal expansion of $\pi$.
In other words, MIT Physics profs like to play word games :)
@Tunk-Fey He could also mean to ask in what sense it exists.
@robjohn I guess so, but this question is really bugging me. I think he asks something that has a philosophical meaning.
If he is asking for "how much is" then give him a numerical expression.
@BalarkaSen And how to answer question like that?
@Tunk-Fey It takes some work. You have to show that the $\Bbb Q$-extension of the exponentiation exists and is unique. If that's done then a natural $\Bbb R$-extension is induced from continuity and the $\Bbb C$-extension (which you don't need here) follows from analytically continuing it throughout the complex plane.
@BalarkaSen It seems a sophisticated answer to me. :D
@Tunk-Fey I know =P I am too lazy to type out the whole work. It's somewhere in MSE I guess.
It takes some fair bit of work however. So beware.
@Tunk-Fey Another approximation would be $\left(1-\frac\pi{2n}\right)^n\le e^{-\pi/2}\le\frac1{\left(1+\frac\pi{2n}\right)^n}$
07:50
Fix some arbitrary base $z$. $f(x)$ be $z^x$. Then for integers $x$ you have $f(x + y) = f(x)f(y)$ so a $\Bbb Z \hookarrow \Bbb Q$ extension follows (e.g., $f(1) = f(1/2)^2$).
Since he is a physics prof, I doubt this question is asking about its numerical value or pure math. Perhaps he asks something that has a philosophical meaning.
But what you really need for reals it continuity. For some sequence ${a_n}$ converging to $a$, you need a unique extension of $f$ that satisfies $\lim_{a_n \to a} f(a_n) = a$
@robjohn If he asks about the numerical value, I will use your approximation formula.
I am not sure how to proceed for uniqueness of the function now. That's what you need to prove.
@Tunk-Fey if so, he needs to clarify in what philosophical sense he means "how much is"?
07:54
Hey, how do you get LaTeX to render in chat?
Never mind, I used the superpower of reading to see it in the sidebar.
@skullpatrol I will ask that question since it is not clear to me (and also to all of us). He hasn't repplied my chat yet.
@Sku
Wow. Good job.
@skullpatrol Thanks.
hello
please
08:04
hello
you're welcome
:)
$[p-\delta,p]$ and $p-\delta,p)$ are homotopicaly equivalent to any point ?
and how to see this ?
please
Is that supposed to be $[p - \delta,p)$ or $(p - \delta,p)$?
sorry
$[p-\delta,p)$
Do you want a homotopy equivalence, or an intuitive explanation of why?
the two if it's possible
08:12
Well, just by contracting the intervals infinitely, we get a single point. (We don't get it for open intervals because it has no endpoints; it would just become nothing.) This is a continuous deformation, so they're homotopically equivalent. That's the intuitive way to think about it.
I'm not that well-versed at topology, though, so I'd be hard pressed to find a homotopy equivalence. I'll let the smarter people in the room handle that.
so if i understand $[p-\delta,p]$ and $[p-\delta,p)$ are both homotopicaly equivalent to ${p-\delta}$ for example
Yep. At least, that's true for the closed interval. For the half-open one, I'm less sure, but still pretty sure.
08:48
hi
can anyone helps with tags for math.stackexchange.com/questions/894906/… ?
Or does anyone have any ideas for it?
09:10
thanks for the upvote!
I need one more so I can add a 100 bounty :)
if anyone wants a big bounty, please upvote :)
Can someone have an idea for this :[math.stackexchange.com/questions/897085/…
09:33
@Vrouvrou Didn't you receive a warning like this, when you were entering the question? i.sstatic.net/CSu6p.png
Please do not use the 'homework' tag, it's currently deprecated and will be removed entirely within the week. For more information, please see the related meta discussion.
10:05
@MartinSleziak i didn't recived it but i'm sorry
have you an idea about the question ?
@robjohn can you help me please
@Vrouvrou I have not done a lot with spectral decompositions, so I don't know that I can help.
have you seen the question ?
who can help me ?
10:25
@N3buchadnezzar No meat, no pudding.
Hello Professor @TedShifrin
@skullpatrol or @TedShifrin can you help me ?
I am glad you did not ask me, because I cannot help you.
@JasperLoy you speak with me ?
@Vrouvrou Yes, good luck.
10:30
@Vrouvrou he never spoke to you before?
I don't know
@r9m it's evaluated in Ovi's book by using the dilogarithm.
@Vrouvrou Do you see that $\{h\in H:\langle f''(u)h,h\rangle<0\}$ is a subspace of H?
r9m
r9m
@Chris'ssis yes .. but its a nice proof .. :D it is very similar to sos's proof as it evaluates the answer in the same form $\dfrac{1}{2}\zeta^2(2)+3\zeta(4)$ :-)
im new here hmm
10:39
@r9m btw, that proof of mine is going to be published these days.
what proof ?
can i see it :)
if you're new, maybe you should say please
r9m
r9m
@Chris'ssis oh ! .. that's Awesome ! :D
oh @skullpatrol :P ok please
@r9m Depending on the work of someone, I might be appear along with someone else, but this is not sure yet. That means my proof you saw may be still simplified.
10:41
i just get rid of Open study questions , so came here for more mathmatics
@r9m I also publish the other series you saw, the one involving the Riemann zeta function. I need to to that before a bigger project like publishing a book.
@robjohn it is the set of $h$ from $H$ so it is clearly a subspace of $H$ no?
r9m
r9m
@Chris'ssis cool !! :D
@r9m I need to publish a book, that would give me more confidence, strength in me to go on this way (especially for the fact that some may discourage you with things like "who cares this crazy mathematics?")
I have thousand of questions, I can make up a very beautiful book with crazy awesome questions & solutions.
r9m
r9m
@Chris'ssis I was going to say just the opposite ... you have no idea how many of us crazy (as you call it) mathematics fans are lurking around in the shadows .. all we need is an initiation :-) ... like that book of yours !! :D
10:48
I am sorry I am not so interested in series =)
@r9m Thanks, but what I said it's really true. I was told, not once, that the mathematics I do is crazy. :-(
Of course, some appreciate these things. :-)
r9m
r9m
@Chris'ssis well the best way to prove them wrong is to publish it and show them the success of the book :-) really that is the only way :) .. no one believes until you show them how it is done :)
@r9m True!!!:D
@robjohn if i take $h,k\in F=\{h\in H:\langle f''(u)h,h\rangle<0\}$, $\langle f''(u)(\lambda h+\mu k),(\lambda h+\mu k)\langle$ but $(\lambda h+\mu k)\in H$ so $\lambda h+\mu k\in F$ so it is a subspace of $H$ no?
@Vrouvrou how do you show that $\lambda h+\mu k\in F$?
r9m
r9m
10:56
@Chris'ssis but how will I know when and where it is going to be published ?! .. its not like you are going to publish it with your pseudonym 'Chris'ssis' :P .. that one day I google and find a paper by Chris'ssis and xyz(the other mathematician) :P
@r9m lol, I'll show them to you one day. :-)
r9m
r9m
@Chris'ssis okay !!! :D thats good enough for me :-)
@r9m Now I'm writing up the proof to the series I showed you yesterday (the one involving $\zeta(4)$). :D
r9m
r9m
@Chris'ssis okay ! :)
@robjohn i do a mistake, i must show that $<f''(u)(\lambda h+\mu k),(\lambda h+\mu k)><0$, $<f''(u)(\lambda h+\mu k),(\lambda h+\mu k)>=<\lambda f''(u) h,\lambda h>+<\lambda f''(u) h,\mu k>+<\mu f''(u) k,\lambda h> +<\mu f''(u) k,\mu k>$
@robjohn i don't know if it is right
and also i don't know how to see that $<\mu f''(u)k,\lambda h>$ and $<\lambda f''(u) h,\mu k>$ are <0
@robjohn are you there ?
11:23
???
But $x_s,x_n\in{\frak gl(g)}$ and $\varrho$'s domain is $\frak g$, not $\frak gl(g)$, so how do $\varrho(x_s),\varrho(x_n)$ even make sense?
@Vrouvrou I don't see it right off. I was hoping you had seen something like that in class.
no
you have no idea ?
hey
can anyone help me with Mathematica?
11:43
@robjohn ?
hi peeps, a quick question: do all continuous functions admit weak derivatives?
 
1 hour later…
Huy
Huy
@DanielFischer: I arrived at the part of my lecture notes about Sobolev-embeddings. Can you explain to me why compact embeddings are particularly interesting / powerful? I see that embeddings are useful, but what makes compact embeddings more useful?
Why do some people here, when answering a beginning calculus question about limits, insist on using "WLOG" and other terminology?
@Huy Having a compact embedding $j\colon E \hookrightarrow F$ of Banach spaces means that each bounded sequence $(f_n)$ in $E$ has a subsequence such that $(j(f_n))$ is norm-convergent. That's pretty useful.
@r9m as regards the privacy, no one should be able to see your IP on site. One might illegally enter your computer ...
@ThomasAndrews Without loss of generality, to indicate that the cases not explicitly handled in their answer are similar or easy?
13:10
I know what it means.
I know you know.
name dropping?
@skullpatrol You mop up the mess on the floor.
The OP doesn't know what it means, even if spelled out.
proof by intimidation needs scary words
Huy
Huy
13:11
@DanielFischer: I knew that. I still don't really understand its significance. Can you give me an example of an application?
Seriously, @Thomas, I guess in part it's habit, without consciously thinking about whether the OP will understand it.
r9m
r9m
@Chris'ssis how do they see my IP on site ? :o .. I'm noob with these stuff :|
@r9m I'm noob too (but not that noob) ... Just saying, for this risk I protected all my information on this computer. Moreover, for the important stuff I use another computer.
Anyway.
@r9m I finalized the proof. :-)
@Chris'ssis did you see my suggestion in the ELU room?
r9m
r9m
:) 'kay
13:19
@skullpatrol Yeah, thank you for that! I just saw it! :-)
@Huy Applications are not my friends, I don't remember examples. But iirc, a common story goes along the lines of having a family of functions that approximate a solution of an equation, optimisation problem or so, in the embedded space, a compact embedding guarantees (under some conditions on the problem) a weak solution in the larger space (with the coarser topology).
@r9m It's brilliant! :-)
@DanielFischer wording
@skullpatrol Suggestion about what?
r9m
r9m
@Chris'ssis :D !!
Well there is no way I can be cent percent secure .. certain figures of authority in our insti are capable of monitoring my activity on the internet if they want to :P lol .. but as long as I don't give them a reason to do that .. they have more important things to do :P
13:29
Monitoring activities of a mathematician in internet will only reveal a bunch of jibberish.
@BalarkaSen You were talking about women in math the other day, right?
@skullpatrol That was quite a time ago, wasn't it?
yeah. i was.
i've changed my views on that matter however. what are you getting at?
13:33
36 mins ago, by skullpatrol
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/13/interview-maryam-mirzakhani-field‌​s-medal-winner-mathematician
yes, i am well well aware of that.
from your part of the world :-)
oops got disconnected.
and the one from Princeton is also
@skullpatrol what?
yes.
oh yeah
as i said, i've changed my views on that matter quite a time ago.
@skullpatrol You mean Manjul Bhargava? Nah, he is not Indian.
He is Canadian-American. Just of Indian descent.
13:39
@BalarkaSen Not "just", it still means something, my friend
@skullpatrol well yeah i guess so. but i already knew that he would get the Fields. secret agents. you know.
i really expected Soundarajan to get it however. oh well.
:-)
Princeton hired him at the rank of tenured full professor within only two years of finishing graduate school, which is considered a record in the Ivy League.
13:55
@r9m are you there?
r9m
r9m
@Chris'ssis yes .. :)
@Chris'ssis got it :D
@r9m OK :-)
r9m
r9m
@Chris'ssis Nuculer !!! :D
@r9m lolll :-)
r9m
r9m
@Chris'ssis have you seen that movie ? :-)
14:01
@r9m No, not yet.
who knows spectral decomposition for inifinite dimentional Hilbert space ?
r9m
r9m
@Chris'ssis oh ! okay ... its a funny movie :D
@Vrouvrou Maybe I'll watch it one day. :-)
and @r9m ?
r9m
r9m
14:05
@Vrouvrou ? :o
can you help me on spectral decomposition
r9m
r9m
I don't know infinite dim Hilbert space :| sorry
Huy
Huy
14:27
@Vrouvrou: What about it?
14:56
Why is $\frac{x^3}{(x^2)^\frac32}=1$? I think it is $-1$ when $x<0$.
@r9m
rehi @TedShifrin
5 hours ago, by skullpatrol
Hello Professor @TedShifrin
r9m
r9m
@Sush $\sqrt{x^2} = |x|$ .. so I think you are correct :) (sorry I was away for lunch)
@r9m, Ok, thanks! I was confused because WolframAlpha said otherwise!
@r9m, see this
Huy
Huy
15:13
@Sush: wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x^3%2F%28x^2%29^%283%2F2%29 - it clearly says it 1 if we assume $x > 0$.
@Huy, where is that mentioned?
Are you talking about plots?
@Huy, thanks! Your input was simply x^3/(x^2)^(3/2) .
Huy
Huy
Exactly.
Huy
Huy
15:42
I would like to find a constant $C \in \mathbb{R}$ such that $f(x) = 2x^3-33x^2+168x + C$ has two zeroes in $\mathbb{N}/2$. How could I do this?
Is that even possible?
Oh, and $f(x)$ should obtain its local maximum $x_0$ between those two zeroes, such that $f(x_0) > 0$.
Well, one thing that would necessarily mean is the two natural zeroes are both less than the other zero.
But that's about as far as I can take that.
Er, not natural, but you catch my drift.
Huy
Huy
Hm. I tried a more general approach to what I'm looking for.
I want $a,b \in \mathbb{N}/2$ such that $\frac{a+b \pm \sqrt{a^2-ab+b^2}}{3}$ are "nice numbers", i.e. some simple fractions, ideally natural numbers or in $\mathbb{N}/2$.
Is there any non-brute-force way to accomplish this?
16:06
@r9m Nuculer reacter!!
What movie are you talking about?
Hello @Nick.
@BalarkaSen: Greeting BalSensai
To you too Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington.
@BalarkaSen: The implication of that name to me head is very dangerous.
@BalarkaSen: Do you reallly think I look like John Cleese?
Haha, not really.
I was referring to Sir Nicholas, the Griffindor Ghost not any mortal person.
@BalarkaSen: Also quick question, Find three prime numbers which satisfy the following equation $$(p-1)! + 1 = np^2 , n\in \mathbb Z$$
16:16
$(p-2)! = 1 \bmod p^2$. Hmm.
Hint: $p_1$ is one digit long, $p_2$ is two digits and $p_3$ is 3 digits where the first digit is $p_1$ and the third digit is the second digit of $p_2$. Hopefully that wasn't confusing.
$p = 5$ is one.
Yup :D The next is harder and the 3rd is impossible.
5 and 13 fit, by sheer guess-and-check, but I'd be curious to see more elegant methods.
surely there must be other ways than bruteforce, @Nick
16:19
@Fargle: Yipee kay yay.
Actually, just found the third--563. Again, that's guess-and-check. I'm more intrigued by the means than the solutions, actually.
563 returns my computer
@BalarkaSen: See, I wouldn't be asking you for an answer if I had one.
ah, you beat me to it.
More like WolframAlpha beat you to it. :3
16:20
@Fargle PARI is much faster and reliable than W|A
@BalarkaSen: You'r ecomputer can check if 562! + 1 is divisible by 563?!! Wow!!
@Nick PARI/GP can
I am now searching for other solutions. 10^5. None yet.
@BalarkaSen: You won't find any others. Well, if there are others, they're greater than $2\times 10^{13}$. You can't find them.
I wonder how you could determine this by another method. Certainly there's something screwy you can do with modular arithmetic.
I don't claim to be nearly well-versed enough to know what that is, though.
@Fargle: You can actually prove that all prime numbers satisfy: $$(p-1)! + 1 = np , n\in \mathbb Z$$
16:23
Yeah Wilson
That's more or less pretty easy
There are only 3 numbers under $2\times 10^{13}$ that satisfy the condition that $(p-1)! +1$ is divisible by $p^2$. These are called Wilson Primes and it has been proved that there are infinitely many of them.
blows dust off the old copy of Niven-Zuckerman-Montgomery
Well, here's something relevant from NZM.
"$(p-2)! - 1$ is not a power of $p$ for any prime $p > 5$"
How would you go about proving that, @Nick?
Well, they look like Wieferich primes.
@Fargle: I wouldn't. Actually, I couldn't. BalSensai can probably do it elegantly.
16:28
I'd like to try it myself, but I don't even really know where to start.
prove what? infinitude?
i'm not mental, thank you.
@skullpatrol "This is a difficult question. I don't think that everyone should become a mathematician, but I do believe that many students don't give mathematics a real chance. I did poorly in math for a couple of years in middle school; I was just not interested in thinking about it. I can see that without being excited mathematics can look pointless and cold. The beauty of mathematics only shows itself to more patient followers."
I meant the statement of $(p-1)! + 1 = np, n \in \mathbb{Z}$.
@Fargle Oh, that's easy to see with a little group theory.
Is it related to FLT?
Little, not Last.
16:30
Hint : Look at the Sylow p-subgroups of $S_p$
@Nick As far as I know, there is no proof yet, we only have a heuristic argument to expect infinitely many.
I'm sorry, I said some unverified information earlier. The infinitude of Wilson primes is only a conjecture. I apologize for any inconvenience caused.
@Fargle I vaguely recall an elementary proof of this fact by ordering up elts modulo p, but the group theoretic proof is my favorite so far.
Well, I've got reading to do, but at least now I have a project.
@Fargle: FLT is Fermat's Last Theorem. flt is Fermat's Little Theorem. This hopefully clears future confusion on abbreviations.
16:35
Thanks, I wondered how to do that. That's a very mathematician-like way to do it, I should've expected.
@Nick Do you have anything other than open problems to pose?
@Chris'ssis: Is there a similar quote for chemistry. I seem to be failing at it?
@BalarkaSen: Only closed problems and trivial problems. Then, ofcourse, when all else fails, high school problems!
le sigh
@Nick I think that quote might also be true for chemistry. In the end it's about beauty ... :-)
Then when I'm bored, I usually talk about all of life's problems. Like how difficult it must be for girls to wear tampons and why India can't just give Kashmir to Pakistan.
16:40
@Chris'ssis No, it's about interest.
You get to see beauty iff you are interested.
@Chris'ssis , @BalarkaSen: You're both wrong. When it comes to chemistry. It's all about memorization!
@BalarkaSen :D
For those interested and patient enough to learn its poetry.
@skull you got it. mathematics and poetry are the closest subjects, even though one is classified as science and other as art.
you only need a pen and a paper to get the job done.
@robjohn: In reply to the starred post, it's a holiday for most mathematicians. We should really make it's existence known to the public.
@BalarkaSen: Uhuh, but in poetry, your teacher doesn't cut marks for irrationalities in the denominator.
16:45
math is to poetry as a dictionary is to a thesaurus
@Nick wait, they do that? that's a new level of low for the indian education. hip hip hooray.
they say it is not simplified if you have negative exponents
In 12th, if it's a not too smart teacher, he/she won't even give marks for the steps of large 6 mark questions if you get the final answer slightly off the answer key that was given to the teacher who corrected the paper.
define simplified.
idiots. maniacs.
I got 87/100 in my test. All my answers were right. Then why is my score low? Because my algebra was not simplified enough or not simplified right to match the answer key.
16:50
they want an exact match
i can show them exact match if they can give me the answer sheets.
does anybody knows a equation that plotting it results a bottle of water or something like it?
@skullpatrol: No, I think they can comprehend that addition and multiplication are commutative. Other than that, yes.
@Nick Holiday?
@Nick like $x = (1/x)^{-1}$?
16:52
@robjohn: No, I just said that to get your attention. You're the kind of person high in the mathematician ranks that can make something like that happen.
@user2838619 construction of a bottle shouldn't be hard. the idea is to cobble up a bunch of linear abs-forms with two cubics near the edges to get a shape of a bottle.
@robjohn do you like my proportion?-------------------------------------------------------------------------->
math and dictionary are not R-linearly dependent though.
@BalarkaSen thanks, I will try what i can do
@BalarkaSen ok "proportion-ness"
02:00 - 17:0017:00 - 23:00

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