@robjohn I apologize for asking an English grammar question in a math chat room and especially making you type out so much, but at the same time I would like to thank you for your answer, you have cleared up my question completely.

@Daniil Emacs <3.

How is probabillity defined?

Using a probability measure.

As what will probably happen ;-)

I was thinking "Prefferable outcomes / possible outcomes"...

that's the classical definition

Is that definition always correct?

I know sometimes it can be impossible to define the number of outcomes, and the number of prefferable outcomes. But still

Hi Brian

Hullo. Anything interesting going on?

Nope, just move along

Yeah, well, I already saw that I missed Theo.

@BrianMScott My discussion with Robjohn as shown above got a bit heated :-(

@N3: well, you couldn't really use it for "pick a random number from the interval [0,1]". You need something else (uniform distribution). But someone who knows probability better than me should explain that

Oh Lordie. I wonder why he picked today to bring that up again.

@Skullpatrol The subtract discussion? It didn’t look horribly heated. By the way, I don’t think that I encountered the use of opposite to mean negative until I was an adult; at the very least it’s a usage that has become more common in the schools since I was a kid.

@BrianMScott: Vote to delete that too please.

@anon It’s dead now.

@anon WTF? LOLBBQ! : D

Long live Chuck Norris :-)

I used to have the old halloween question favorited, and it would show up purple in my fav list because it was deleted, but now it doesn't show up at all in my list.

math.stackexchange.com/questions/76564/…

Odd. The page says I favorited it! Let me check my list again.

Maybe we should delete the new Chuck Norris question as well? I can't vote.

I voted to delete.

@Srivatsan Flag it as offensive, I did that as well.

Yes, that's what I was thinking. Don't you need like 15k or 20k for that though? :(

Five of those flags and it's gone, maybe less.

I’d understand ‘a subtract b’, but I consider it incorrect.

Oh, flags = illicit delete votes, gotcha.

Offensive and spam flags are de facto delete votes, yes.

@BrianMScott Thanks

Thanks Asaf. Flagged.

@AsafKaragila Two down, one to go. I don’t normally like to delete, but I can’t see that this one serves any purpose.

@BrianMScott Exactly; no point served by the post.

Probably the last flag was mine.

@BrianMScott Something just occurred to me about "a subtract b" being incorrect; why is it then correct to say "5 subtract 2?"

For me it isn’t: it’s ‘5 minus 2’ or possibly ‘5 less 2’, though that sounds quite old-fashioned to me. With youngsters I might expect ‘5 take away 2’.

@BrianMScott As I said to Rob: I agree it does sound odd, but I was just wondering if there was a grammatical reason as Rob explained that part of it to me.

Mostly just that a verb doesn’t fit in that syntactic slot: it wants a preposition. (Yes, minus is a preposition.)

Oh, it's a preposition! that explains it.

I bid you all a drunk evening.

I will see you after the hangover or so.

@AsafKaragila have a good one :-)

One??

I intend to have a good four or five.

If you cap but continue getting upvotes, will those upvotes at least count toward your tag scores?

No :(

How do you know, @Kanna?

I had got 44 upvotes on abstract Algebra while I capped on a day I got 18 votes on a question. I had to forfeit 5 upvotes here.

Yes, but I'm not talking about reputation but rather tag scores, the number associated to various tags in one's profile.

@anon Yes, My tag score should have been 44 but it is 39 now.

That's annoying.

True.

That sounds like a bug, I think

Yes, in fact I can almost hear it chirping.

@rob: A question: I got a chat message while I was away; how do I reply to it now? One way is to painfully scroll through the older messages till I find this one. Any other way?

This seems to indicate that votes, even above the rep cap, count for badges.

The only way to reply is in the here-and-now or future, you can't project comments back in time on the transcript. I don't understand how searching for older messages is a "way" of replying to older messages...

@tb Good luck with what you're doing! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

@rob Thanks

@anon Uh.. I don't follow you at all.

@Srivatsan :3200943 <- add that at the beginning of your message

@robjohn Heh, I can't believe I didn't think of this. Awesome, thanks.

@anon It makes me happy, since I've gotten 6 upvotes since capping :-)

Wait, chat messages can be made in reply to specific chat comments in a coded way? I'm not sure I follow the discussion here.

@anon OK: let me rephrase my question: suppose you have the link to an old message. How do you reply to it? Try doing it, and I think you will understand the difficulty.

@anon yep :-)

Derp.

@anon Yes. E.g., this message is a reply to your "Wait, chat messages can be made in reply to specific chat comments in a coded way? I'm not sure I follow the discussion here." It is also a reply to you, but this is a side-effect (or that's how I see it).

@Srivatsan Okay. I can't believe I've been here for months and never caught on to this.

@anon like this :-)

It is a useful feature.

What's $l_n^p$?

like $\ell^p$ but with $n$ coordinates only

Ah, thanks.

But that is equivalent to l_p, no? Because all norms are equivalent...

You mean with $n$ coordinates instead of just one?

hm?

@MattN Were you addressing me?

If $\ell^p$ are sequences then $l^p_n$ are sequences of $n$-tuples?

$\ell_n^p$ is $\mathbb R^n$ with a specific norm.

@Srivatsan Anyone : )

@MarianoSuárezAlvarez Yes, thanks.

or, at least, I would use that notation for that. Only a mind reader can tellwhat the OP means...

I cannot even make sense of what he wrote in his attempt...

@MarianoSuárezAlvarez Is it $\mathbb{R}^n$ or sequences in $\mathbb{R}^n$?

@MarianoSuárezAlvarez nor can I :-)

@MarianoSuárezAlvarez Me neither. I just caught myself thinking: "Oh well. Let's wait and see what the answer will turn out to be." : )

@robjohn I see. That introduces a new twist in the notation.

Hmm, I seem to have a SEF C1 level (in English) according to our English test.

Someone should just ask the guy...

Done.

@JonasTeuwen SEF C1? What does that mean?

@MarianoSuárezAlvarez what?! and miss this wonderful opportunity to discuss what he meant with no real basis?

@Srivatsan en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

I'm quite surprised.

@JonasTeuwen I ctrl-F'ed "SEF" and got no hits.

@Srivatsan Well, you should ctrl-F for C1 8-).

Plus it's a typo, it has to be CEF 8-).

Great, nice. Congrats!

Curious: Why do they use "C" to indicate "proficient" and "A" to indicate "basic"? "Usually" (whatever that means), it is the other way round.

Well, I wanted to improve and they can only offer me one course. One in fluency.

Not sure.

@Srivatsan Before you disappear from the chat or I sleep, I'll wish you a happy journey and a pleasant stay here at India

@KannappanSampath Thanks. I will around for a day at least anyway.

@Srivatsan: you are going to India? when and for how long? If you don't mind me asking :-)

@robjohn (I mentioned it to you long back.) 6 months approximately.

@Srivatsan Approximately 6 months back or stay at India for 6 months?

@Srivatsan that's a long time.

@robjohn :)

@KannappanSampath Stay there for so long.

@Srivatsan ?? (Just wondering!!)

The study goals for that course are: "Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express themselves fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices."

I'll think I'll do that if my advisor wants to pay for it 8-).

@KannappanSampath I use ?? to mean I didn't get the comment. But it seems you want to know why I am going.

@Srivatsan No. That comment looked like an assertion first , then like a question and then like a retort and then like asking me back without a question mark and so on.... and hence "??"

I just finished reading the answer you gave me the other day, just wanted to thank you again @BrianMScott.

@KannappanSampath I'm glad I could write a comment so ambiguous that it looked like a question, a retort, a question without a question mark, among other things. =)

I am staying there for (blah).

@Srivatsan You want (blah) or are you trying to get away from (blah) :-)

@Gigili You’re very welcome.

@robjohn dear god, it seems everything I say is ambiguous. I am staying there for six months.

@Srivatsan I know :-) I was just extending the ambiguous atmosphere :-)

@Srivatsan You were not ambiguous.

@robjohn But I would like a few blahs if I can get hold of some.

@Srivatsan and bring back some whatnots for Asaf. I don't know if he's had any from India.

May be I should apologise because, I started this thread for no reason, that I can now think of ! Sorry @Srivatsan

@KannappanSampath No, not at all. :-)

I should bid goodbye sometime soon anyway.

@Srivatsan cu

@robjohn Not rightaway, Rob. :=) As I mentioned, I am here for at least a day.

@Srivatsan yes, but... oh, you are bidding goodbye today for when you leave for India. I thought that you were bidding goodbye to go to class or something

Doh!

@robjohn What made you change your gravatar back to the "mean square?"

@Skullpatrol I didn't realize that all chat was one. I made the other gravatar for Mathematica chat, and then found out that it would appear here, too.

@Skullpatrol I guess I could change it back to the knotted Möbius strip

At least I think that grey tube is knotted.

Your "mean square" has an excellent psychological affect as you add more to your comment it gets larger and more meaner looking!!!

:3207765

@Skullpatrol If you refresh now, you should see the other gravatar. but remember to reactivate your MathJax bookmark :-)

@robjohn Hmm ... I like both equally ;-)

May I know how are the numbers in the Chat profile calculated, @rob

@KannappanSampath which numbers?

@robjohn 15.7k in your profile, 2271 on mine and so on..

@robjohn The psychological affect of the increasing meanness of the square is cool.

In main site, they are rep points, here?

@KannappanSampath I think they are rep points here, too. Are they not?

kannappan: total rep

in each stackexchange site

I think.

Then, that should be 2452, @mk

(for me)

@robjohn Oh, you're into Mathematica? 8-).

@Kannappan: It's rounded..

@JonasTeuwen I used Mathematica to generate this gravatar.

oh wait

I have a veeerry short Mathematica question (no need to answer): i.imgur.com/Vi8Ed.png what is the expkamax[k_] := expkamax[k] = ... good for? Especially the second term.

@JonasTeuwen It looks as if it generates a diagonal matrix with $\cosh(k a_{\rm{max}})$ on the diagonal

Yes, but what does expkamax[k_] := expkamax[k] do?

ah...

expkamax[k_]:= defines a function, and expkamax[k_]:=expkamax[k]= does the same thing, but caches the values it has computed so it doesn't compute them again

Ah! Right! :-).

Hm, a kinder face of Didier :-)

@Srivatsan that's not him

@Ilya ??

"collaboration is getting more and more important" - Are we moving asymptotically (a hundred years from now?) to the point of all agreeing to learn Esperanto as an auxiliary language? Huh??

@Ilya What did you mean it's not him?

With me he was always much stricter:( and I don't recognize him in these new words

@Ilya - I have seen more of those kinds of comments: hence my comment "a kinder face..."

@Srivatsan kinder sounds funny since it may be referred e.g. to kinder surprise or a kindergarden

@Ilya : D

@Ilya : D

We designate the slope of a line by m because the word slope starts with the letter m; I know of no better reason.

What is this?

Humour?

@Ilya kindergarten btw. It's a common mistake, at least among us nonnative speakers.

nonnative speakers think that «slope» starts with an m?

@MattN Then "I know of no better reason" part could have been dropped!

@KannappanSampath Maybe it's supposed to be an even better joke when you finally realise that the second half is unneeded for the joke. =)

This and This are the same questions showing different sequence of steps!

@Srivatsan Argh! That's painful!

@KannappanSampath No, it’s needed to make the compound statement say in effect ‘I have no idea why’, but in a humorous way.

@DylanMoreland: Have a minute? I want to know if there are methods other than the radius of convergence of the series, because I'm not good at it.

:-)

@KannappanSampath Proof by example!? I can't accept this...

@Srivatsan I do know and I also have a spellchecker. My point is that with t it sounds weird. With d it sounds right

Er, I think I lost you somewhere.

Modified Version: It is not true that I can appreciate Humour! =)

Seems I have to wait more to get response to my question.

Proof. Suppose it is true. It contradicts this example. Hence, the conclusion.

"Zero score accepted answers: more than 5 and 20% of total." What does "20% of total" mean? Total of what?

(GUESS)

20% of my total accepted answers? That doesn't sound right. It's too high a number..

20% of the all the answers you have given.

Hm, meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/67397/…

Hm, you were right!

@Gigili I don't see any other way, offhand.

But you know the radius of convergence of the geometric series. That more or less solves this problem.

Modulo some important theorems.

@Dylan How are you doing?

@Dylan: can you please take a look at this and this? And hi!

I guess you should also check at the boundary. The behavior there might change. But that's two points.

@Srivatsan I was going to suggest category-theory but Asaf explicitly disallows that.

any algebra related tags?

Certainly one first sees this construction in commutative algebra. So that and abstract-algebra aren't out of place.

How about universal-algebra? I don't know anything about it either, but Arturo's answer is based on this.

That, I know nothing about.

@DylanMoreland Actually, I first saw it in general topology!

It seems like Arturo mentions this.

@BrianMScott Ah! That's interesting.

@Srivatsan I mean, now that he's gotten some good answers I don't see the harm in putting category-theory on it. It seems like the most natural thing.

yeah, makes sense.

Sorry I'm not much help.

If I were asking, I would probably place category-theory and commutative-algebra on it. But that's just an opinion.

Actually, you were. I will just ask a few others and retag later.

@Brian: any suggestions?

Nothing that hasn’t been mentioned.

Hmpf. I'm still not completely drunk.

@BrianMScott Ok. And how about the three tags mentioned? universal-algebra, category-theory and commutative-algebra.

@Srivatsan They seem okay. The problem is that it’s a very general construction that comes up all over.

I am mildly unsober.

Ah. That is an argument against commutative-algebra, I suppose.

Thanks, Dylan and Brian.

Thanks for being vigilant on tags.

@AsafKaragila Nice.

@AsafKaragila What did you have?

Is it?

1.5 liters of Tuborg and a shot of arak.

Alcohol = $\heartsuit$

Hah.

@AsafKaragila Perhaps, but after enough of it you may find someone disposing of you with a $\clubsuit$, or worse yet, a $\spadesuit$.

@BrianMScott Being 70% liver I don't think I have this problem when only drinking alcohol.

@AsafKaragila 70% liver and 60% water makes for an interesting composition!

@BrianMScott That's what happens when you drink a lot with BMI ~18 to support it :-P

Someone told me that I look like Calimero with my new haircut.

Not me :-)

Calimero = Jonas?

Nah.

@robjohn Yes, like I have just come out of an egg...

@JonasTeuwen That kind of a haircut, eh?

Let me upload a picture.