close, but not quite. i was instead arguing that he should realize HE was revolted by spit, not that spit is revolting. see the difference?

so, like this

@DavidWheeler Do you really think he was attempting to make an absolute claim?

Or that he is not aware that his own reaction is stronger than most people's?

when reasoning about "stuff in real life" i generally do not subscribe to the "law of the excluded middle"

I used to go here

it's often hard to know if an utterance is meant to be qualified, or not

So therefore you assume that the meaning of the utterance was intended to be the stupidest one you can imagine?

you're going dangerously close to an ad hominem argument by implying i said what i said because i am stupid

No problem! That's perfect.

That's not what I'm implying. I'm implying that you're assuming that Matt said what he did because he is stupid.

In fact, if he thought his feelings about spit were shared by everone, it wouldn't even have made conversational sense for him to describe them to us.

Is there a pure algebraic construction of the reals from the rationals? And is there a pure analytical construction of the complex numbers from the reals?

i made no such argument...i stated my belief that people often assign a more perjorative meaning to bodily functions than they deserve

@leo What do you call purely analytic?

@leo i think the dedekind-cut construction is as "algebraic" as you can get

@DavidWheeler And why did you find that this belief was relevant to state at that point in the conversation? The only reason I can imagine was that you were implicitly assuming that Matt had chosen to feel the way he did about spit, and could the convinced to feel a different way by reading your arguments.

@JonasTeuwen by analytic I mean something like the Cauchy sequences approach to construct the reals from rationals

i think that you need to introduce "some" algebraic relation to get the complex numbers, or else you just get the euclidean plane

You can just define a multiplication on $\mathbf R^2$, but if that is "analytic"...

@HenningMakholm i do not feel the need to convince other people what i say is true, to feel it is "worth" saying. as to "why" i bring it up? i don't know if i could even begin to answer that question

@HenningMakholm the fact that you bring up "relevance" indicates that you are pre-supposing conversation here has to be relevant to even exist. i disagee, and even a brief perusual of transcripts on most days shows otherwise.

@JonasTeuwen But then you are installing an algebraic structure on $R^2$

@DavidWheeler It's a basic point of communication theory that the act of uttering something during a middle of a conversation implies an assertion that what you're saying is relevant in the context.

@leo There isn't really an algebraic/analytic dichotomy...

some people choose to regard their "physical" selves as somehow "baser" than their "social" selves. i cannot say if Matt feels that way, i honestly do not know him that well. but i did feel that my observations were at least tangentially connected to the "talk floating about"

@leo The reals do not appear to approximate the complex numbers in some analogous way.

@JonasTeuwen, I don't know. My profesor mention that the existence of $\sqrt{-1}$ makes $\mathbb{C}$ rich in some sense (I do not remember well). My profesor of ODE, by the way, so I think he means "reach" in some related

"Existence of $\sqrt{-1}$" makes my toes curl.

@HenningMakholm i think what you are saying is false. non-sequitars happen all the time in conversations, as do random and off-topic observations.

he says more rich differential structure

Complex differentiability is a ridiculously strong condition.

@DavidWheeler Your lecture were neither a non-sequitur nore a random off-topic observation.

That's probably what he's getting at. Just look at the theorems in any complex analysis book; I wouldn't have expected any of them to be true from experience with real analysis.

@HenningMakholm again with the emotionally charged language. most of what i have typed here is in response to questions asked by you. if you do not find these responses to your liking, perhaps you should stop soliciting them.

@JonasTeuwen I see.

@DavidWheeler You were, implicitly but unmistakably, berating Matt for feeling whatever it is he feels, and implying that if he only thought about it a bit clearer, he would be able to feel something different, and further implying that he was a bad person for not already having figured this out. I don't think he deserves that.

@HenningMakholm that is your conclusion from what i wrote. i do not, nor did i at any point, bear Matt any ill-will, and it is of no concern to me whatsoever if he continues or does not continue to feel as he does.

Yes, that is my conclusion. I notice that you have explicitly refused to suggest any other reason for writing what you did.

@HenningMakholm but the impression i get from your tone (please correct me if i am mistaken) is that you feel i should be taken to task for stating my opinions. ironic, that you should exhibit the very behavior you seem to wish to rid me of.

@HenningMakholm my observations were about humanity at large. insofar as Matt is human, they could be construed to be "directed at him", but the same could be said for anyone, even those people not even present in this chat

@leo this looks wonderful! Here's one of my favorite beaches in Provence. I don't know how to tweak this link, but this might give some impression

(I hope it works for you)

@HenningMakholm my discussion was entirely general, and based on my own opinions...yours seems to be directly targeted at me. i am trying to be as open and forthcoming as i know how to in this discussion, while you seem content with innuendo.

@tb looks very nice :-)

Innendo? Let me try to explain my criticism as clearly and forthrightly as I can: You were, implicitly but unmistakably, berating Matt for feeling whatever it is he feels, and implying that if he only thought about it a bit clearer, he would be able to feel something different, and further implying that he was a bad person for not already having figured this out. I don't think he deserves that.

Wait ... I seem to have written something very much like that recently.

berating Matt? is there some specific example of this you can point to?

You, sir, are a swine.

@DavidWheeler I give up.

@HenningMakholm i am perfectly willing to submit this to moderator mediation, should you wish

[You both seem like reasonable people otherwise and I'm hoping that this blows over.]

@DylanMoreland his (Henning's) desire to stick up for Matt (who, one hopes) he feels some sort of kinship with, is admirable. i don't think he hears me saying i meant nothing personal towards Matt.

@DavidWheeler Moderator mediation, what for? Given that I cannot make you see the error of your ways, I shall have to be satisfied by having made it clear to a later reader of the record that your behavior is at least not universally applauded by the readership.

@HenningMakholm i'm not seeking applause. i'm trying to be civil. are you?

@Ace: you figured it out! I wish people would encourage this kind of effort more...

@tb ^^

Hmmm... not that it was enough beer, but I'm not gonna complain.

@AsafKaragila you've done your share of complaining, recently...

:D :D :D!!!

@AsafKaragila You can come here. I have plenty of beer and whisky.

@tb Not even close! :-)

virtual beer for all

They record my classes: collegerama.tudelft.nl/mediasite/SilverlightPlayer/… Ugh! 8-).

@HenningMakholm if you wish to dislike me, that is your perogative. i do rather wish it was for some quality i actually possessed, but oh well.

@DavidWheeler The discussion is over, as far as I'm concerned. The arguments are out in the open, and everyone is free to draw his own conclusion from them.

@JonasTeuwen In a language I don't understand, I am impressed by your proficiency with that thing there.

@HenningMakholm what bothers me is this: i don't think you heard, what i meant to say. i'm not so egotistical as to believe the fault is entirely yours, perhaps i said what i meant poorly, or phrased in such a way as to be mis-interpreted, but the frustration is the same no matter what the underlying cause

@JonasTeuwen And you can't do anything against that? (The link doesn't work for me) But I would seriously dislike being recorded during my classes.

@KannappanSampath You mean the board?

@tb I don't know! Probably I can.

@JonasTeuwen Yes.

@KannappanSampath It is a piece of crap, they will remove it soon!

@JonasTeuwen Oh, they must have spent a lot, no?

100k a piece.

@AsafKaragila So, you can do even worse? :)

This evening I said: Karel, those smartboard are crappy. He said: "Yes, I agree".

emotionally: it feels like this...a personal attack on me, based on a perceived personal attack on Matt. my reaction? surprise.

Or at least I think he did.

goog job @Ace. +1 for type out your solution

@JonasTeuwen Huh, he never said that then?

@leo Thx a lot

I don't remember. But he probably would have said that if he would have said that.

And I would fully agree.

I spended much time.

@Ace That's quite obvious. Keep this trick in mind, it's used all over the place in measure theory...

@JonasTeuwen What is the lecture on?

@KannappanSampath Integral comparison theorem for series.

I started learning TeX this week.XD

I don't see a special trick?

@JonasTeuwen Do you get to save those you write or they are gone as you delete?

@KannappanSampath I can save them.

Plus I can transfer them to another room...

Including my face.

@DavidWheeler Since, empirically, my powers of elucidation are insufficient to communicate to you what I think was objectionable about your lines, what more would you have me do?

@tb, now I'm about to take a course in abstract measure theory. Ergodic theory, Haar measures, Hausdorf measures and that sort of things :-)

@JonasTeuwen You're too much into this. I mean exploiting the infimum in the form of choosing "good sets" up to measure $\varepsilon/2^{n+1}$ and using the summing property of geometric series). This is the only way to get additivity.

Ah.

point out where i specifically targeted Matt as an object of beration?

Why does this tag exist?

@leo Oh, cool! What text are you following?

@Ace good for you.

Ergodic theory is quite kickass. Einsiedler and Ward?

@leo ^^

@DylanMoreland looks like something that was overlooked...

@tb Stein

@DavidWheeler You didn't specifically target Matt. That was implicit.

@leo You could do a lot worse :)

(Read the masters!)

@leo That's nice. I think that most measure theory courses never get to anything interesting and hence everyone ends up hating it.

@JonasTeuwen I have heard that

Oh, Stein. Princeton Lectures in analysis?

But it sounds like your instructor isn't making this mistake.

I loved measure theory.

The first real analysis course.

We used Folland.

Not real analysis, but "real" analysis.

@HenningMakholm and i am saying, no i didn't. you're reading into what i said. you're ascribing motivation to me. how can you know such a thing? it's a contextual inference, not a logical one.

As in true...

@JonasTeuwen Yep. That's the couse textbook. Folland as well

@JonasTeuwen You write neatly, a good quality many of my teachers don't possess.

Very good.

@KannappanSampath Thanks! I think I write like an old lady.

Anyway, good night guys!

@DylanMoreland well, the problem with measure theory is that either it just looks like a technical thing you have to get used to in order to get fancier and more widely applicable theorems or else it looks like a collection of pathologies. It's very hard to bias a course somewhere in the middle of those extremes.

Both books have really hard problems

@JonasTeuwen good night!

@JonasTeuwen Good night.

@Ace, I enjoy LaTeX. The documenst looks pretty good

@tb No, I agree that it would be hard to get right.

@DylanMoreland Are you suggesting to eliminate this tag? I would support such a motion.

@JonasTeuwen, good night!

@leo I love LaTeX so much as I began to use it.

@tb doesn't do that all the analysis?

@Ace This would have been impossible for me to tell... The only minor gripe I have is that you're using quantifiers in your sentences, otherwise it looks great!

@Ace, I agree

That's my broken English XD

@Ace There's a TeX SE as well.

In my head I call it "the church of TikZ" because half of the answers involve it.

TikZ is very good as well

@DavidWheeler What you meant or didn't mean is not even the point. The point is what it looked like, and it looked like a passive-aggressive attack of a kind that I don't like happening here without someone standing up and opposing it. Since the standing-up-and-opposing has now been done (to death, I'm sure someone is thinking), the matter has, as far as I'm concerned, reached a satisfactory conclusion.

I don't know what's TikZ

@Ace It's to draw in LaTeX

@Ace As I said: just write out for all and there exists: it doesn't hurt and is much more pleasant to the eye.

@Ace for example, I used to create all the 2d plots in my documents with TikZ

Agreed, I'll take your advice

@HenningMakholm i can understand that...but i'm not interested in attacking anyone here, indirectly OR directly. i suppose it is a little unfair just to ask you to take my word for that, but i can't think of a better approach

@HenningMakholm I haven't followed the entire discussion in detail but I agree with the sentiment you're expressing in that post. And I am one of those thinking what you express in your parentheses...

@Ace, this is a good source to start with TikZ

@HenningMakholm and me too.

@leo thx

@tb Do you like those problems that give you a few $a_n$ and ask some question from them?

@tb, :-)

@KannappanSampath I'm not sure I know what you mean...

my apologies for making y'all suffer through what has been at best a time-consuming stand-off.

@tb Give you first few terms of the sequence and ask you find an $n$th term or sum of $n$ terms, sum the series (if you can) of an infinite series whose $n$th term is the one you found out.

@tb Believe me, I've been trying very hard to surrender the last word but without sounding like I'm just declaring victory-by-clamming-shut. It's proving surprisingly difficult to do unambiguously.

@leo I thought I'd answered that, but apparently I was distracted: I think measure theory pushes the frontier in that department :)

(Oops, and there went another opportunity. Should have looked at the conversation instead of blindly typing ahead and pressing enter).

@KannappanSampath No, I never liked that kind of problems.

@tb The point is they fail to capture the theoretical ideas, and sometimes can be ambiguous.

Do you agree with this view point?

How is life @DavidWheeler?

@Gigili in truth? terrible. ok, not terrible...just...not great. if you want my standard meaningless social reply: ok

Eva, not great was enough for me! Anyway, I agree with you.

@KannappanSampath It sort of made me think of this...

what is $\tau$ ?

@robjohn $2\pi$?

(apparently not, it was just a reflex)

@tb well in that context, it is a function, so I'd say no :-)

@tb One profesor used to says us that there isn't a notion of integrability that generalize all the current notions. The best that we have at hand is a sort of local generalizations. BTW, there is one of some fellows

Ramanujan tau function? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau-function

@DavidWheeler How is life now?

Considering I agreed with you.

Hint: More than great.

@Gigili why are you so nice to me?

@leo Thanks, but what do I do if I don't have a reasonable notion of distributions around, like on a locally compact group?

@Manishearth My guess is not, but it could be. I'll wait for the OP to reply.

@leo I agree with what your professor said. There certainly is merit to the KH approach, but it looks like a religion to me. I don't embrace the whole constructivity aspect people insist on.

@tb show me a model and I'll agree with you :-)

@tb forgive me, what's KH approach?

@robjohn Set theorists build models to order. (Joel David Hamkins)

@leo kurzweil henstock

@tb Thanks

Off to the store, then to the park. bbl

This user's handle might be a contender for the worst pun in history

I get "nom de guerre", but what's the other side of the pun?

Gnome de guerre?

That's what I suspected...

@Henning: On a completely different note: I just cast my first meta vote in a long time, thanks for this!

What on earth is \operatorname{quo}?

Never seen it before.

Well, it stands for quotient, obviously (as the OP pointed out). It may be because it's quite late, but I feel like insisting... Let me think about it.

"Quotient" is not surprising, but how can that be a unary operator (such as \operatorname produces)?

Is it one of these things that stands for the dimension

like, $W$ is a subspace of $V$ and then $\operatorname{quo} W = \dim V/W$?

That would be horrible, but it's a possibility.

@HenningMakholm I've (ab?)used \operatorname to denote things like \hom

Me too. What are you supposed to do instead?

I don't know. In my own LaTeX I use a two-variable macro. I haven't seen \operatorname before I was forced to use MathJaX.

@tb That’s what I learned as the gauge integral, yes?

@BrianMScott Exactly. Kurzweil-Henstock(-Perron) are the names usually attached to it.

(of course there's also Pfeffer, etc.)

I discovered it back when we still had a real analysis course and promptly wrote up my own introduction to use instead of the text, which did Riemann-Stieltjes.

@BrianMScott I'm sure you're aware of this open letter by Bartle, Henstock, Kurzweil et al, but in case you aren't you might want to have a look.

No, I hadn’t. I’m especially pleased to see Bartle’s name on it: it was his book $-$ which I generally liked a lot $-$ that I was using for the course when I substituted the gauge integral!

Well, Bartle is the only mathematician I knew for things besides gauge integrals before seeing that letter. I knew Schechter's handbook already, but he was always a bit too "missionarisch" for my taste

I’ve never seen it, not being sufficiently interested in the field, but from what I’ve heard, it contains an enormous amount of information.

I first encountered the gauge integral when a publisher gave me an examination copy of a little real analysis text by DePree and Swartz.

Yes, the handbook actually is a very good book. If only he didn't insist so much on the conspiracy on choice... It has one of the most uncharitable reviews I've ever seen.

(I'm excluding the famous ones like the one by Truesdell, of course)

Sorry: it took me a while to work through the slightly convoluted system that gives me access through the university.

I do like the last sentence of the review!

+1 to the reviewer :)

@MarianoSuárezAlvarez It seems like multiple people are misreading this question.

Not you, I don't think.

Yeah :)

It'll sort itself, given enough eyes

I don't think there is an easy argument involving an actual map that will prove that.

because there is a duality involved, and the isomorphism in the statement is the dual of the natural one, which is the one gotten by azarel

It is a bit unfortunate that this was closed as off-topic (not constructive might have been a better choice)

That might be my fault :-/

It was the first option that looked reasonable. I kind of regretted voting at all because he seems pretty interested in a subject that I care about deeply, but the question was bad.

@tb Not constructive would definitely have been a better choice, though I’m pretty sure that I’d not have voted to close it.

@BrianMScott Not constructive used to be subjective and argumentative which would have been even better. I didn't vote, but it is bound to be a controversial question which would attract a lot of attention and a lot of very bad answers. I don't think the question is bad per se, but it is the kind of question that are discouraged (at least that's how I understand the FAQ's what not to ask.

I tend to respond a bit to the tone of the question, and this one struck me as genuine, if a bit clueless.

@DylanMoreland Thanks for posting this comment to the question.

I felt some responsibility.

I have seen several comments like this. Should these be flagged for moderator attention?

like the comment that was deleted?

I guess my comment caused a retraction.

When someone comments on something to get attention on a totally unrelated problem, I assume that would not be proper.

indeed

the best course of action is to act as you did, asking, and then flag

otherwise it is more or less by definition spam

Okay :-)

I hope my comment to that answer was somewhat on topic, being about Krantz.

@robjohn technically I would say it wasn't, but nobody will hold it against you.

@DavidWallace You're right in that it doesn't relate to the question, but I really liked the classes I took from Krantz and the problem is from his book. :-)

Yeah, I got that. I don't think it matters to have a bit of "chatter" among the comments to a question.

Now, if Yannis from programmers.SE was the moderator, it might be a different story :-)

I did think your answer to that question was nice though, I must go back and upvote it.

@HenningMakholm I'm not sure it's culturally acquired since I have it since I can think. Disgustingly but true, parents here might spit on a tissue and then use that to wipe their child's face. If that was going to happen to me I'd either run or use force. So I have this since I can think, possibly before I could even talk.

I am the only civilised person around here : D

@HenningMakholm Thank you Henning : ) I usually ignore people when I think they're wrong and not worth arguing with : )

@MattN You're determined to discuss this, aren't you?

No, not really : ) But I can't leave some of the comments unanswered. : )

I'm late to the party though. They all stayed up late and now that I'm back they all went to sleep : (

@MattN Yeah, I know how that feels.

: )

I don't mean this to sound patronising or condescending, but I believe that part of growing older is learning that it's OK for other people to be wrong.

And also, having children rapidly changes one's attitudes toward bodily fluids (and solids)

hi @Matt and @rob

@Srivatsan Hey there! Nice to see you again.

Are you still back home?

@Srivatsan Hey! : ) How are you? Looks like this chat is going back to the good old times.

Yes, I am still at home (and will be for some time: I will tell you guys when I am coming back :)).

Is your internet restricted there?

@robjohn Restricted and slow. :)

In fact, even electricity is restricted here. =)

@Srivatsan I know how that is. I had really slow internet, but then there was an upheaval with my ISP and now I've changed ISPs and have a much faster connection.

ha

@Srivatsan I unplug my nose in their general direction! (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

@MattN You mean about the electricity? The government claims power shortage. Electricity is cut everyday for about 2 hours in the city.

Oh, I should add: this thing is only in my state.

@Srivatsan ouch! that would be bad.

@robjohn Hmm, yes, but one gets used to it :)

How have you been, Rob?

@Srivatsan that is what the government is hoping for.

@Srivatsan And do you know why there is a power shortage?

@Srivatsan I have a head cold and sore throat, but it only hurts when I laugh (or talk). Otherwise, things are pretty good.

@robjohn I hope not: they promised to restore normal power by the middle of this year... :)

@MattN Not sure if you have heard of this, anyway. Read this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koodankulam_Nuclear_Power_Plant.

I guess, being too reliant on coal, India and my state in particular, has always faced recurring power shortage issues.

India sounds like a good place for solar energy. But maybe that doesn't work because of the rainy season.

@Srivatsan: is there any concern about the glaciers in the Himalayas disappearing?

(From the Controversy section in the link) "Protesters claimed that even advanced countries like Germany have decided to shutdown all its 17 Nuclear reactors through which the country gets 23% of its energy." I wonder how true any of this is... =)

@robjohn No, not about global warming. People are worried that we might have something like en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster

Quite true, I think. Austria for example lives without nuclear power plants, afaik.

@Srivatsan I'm quite sure you will. Idiocy (= greed + evil) of the human race will make sure that there will be plenty more Chernobyls and Fukushimas.

New Zealand has no nuclear power.

@MattN Yes. Only that this doesn't sound too reassuring to those that live in that town. :) They are protesting vigorously, causing the project to stall indefinitely.

but we still have idiots protesting the construction of wind farms.

@DavidWallace Ah. what's the problem with wind farms?

They don't look nice? I don't know, you'd have to ask one of the aforementioned idiots.

@Srivatsan That wasn't supposed to be reassuring : )

@Srivatsan we have a nuclear power station in San Onofre, and it has operated for decades with no problem.

stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/feature-archive/249565/…

Heh.

Recently, one of our major power companies had to cancel a large wind farm project because a group of protestors succeeded in making it far too expensive for them, by dragging them through every available court. The leader of the protestors was a former All Black captain, so people went along with him just because of his popularity.

@MattN - I don't quite understand your deleted comment. Are you asking if it's a trashy tabloid?

Yes, I was. Because it reads like polemics.

But I deleted it because I didn't read all of it.

Actually, it's not too disreputable a newspaper. But every newspaper here prints rubbish occasionally.

@JonasTeuwen I want to watch that video. Can you make it available without Silverlight?

@DavidWallace I hadn't considered the effect on birds (if they have flight paths through a wind farm), but that article sounds more like a chronic corporate complainer than a concerned environmentalist to me.

I think the birds will learn fairly quickly to choose a new route.

Ok, I have to sign out now. (Power will be out soon anyway. :)) See you later.

@Srivatsan Nice to see you again. Come back soon!

@Srivatsan See you later! Have a good night/day!

I have my first "Good Answer" badge :-)

Yay! Congratulations!

It probably seems minor to those who have answers with 40+ votes on an answer, but it has been a long climb.

I was looking at some answers from about a year ago, and they seem to have had more votes then. I know that part is that they've been around for a longer time. However, my older posts are getting only a small dribble of votes. I don' think answers get as many votes in general as they used to.

@robjohn cool! is it the one with an animation?

@robjohn I think I have two of them :-) but almost all of my reputation in Math.se is from just two answers. Frankly, I didn't think either answer was particularly great, but who am I to argue with the masses?