The h Bar

dmckee

12:49 AM

@Cows But will you tell the person of the apposite sex that you're meeting field theory after you say good night?

Bernardo Meurer

@dmckee Did you click the link I sent you?

dmckee

To y-combinator? Yeah. But the tab is still sitting there. I haven't done anything with it yet.

Bernardo Meurer

@dmckee Here's how I use it:
1. Think of a stack you might want to work with (C, Rust, Python, Linux for me)
2. Write a paragraph explaining how you're good with those for the emails you'll send. Just copy/paste it later, changing company names, job names, etc.
3. grep for those keywords on the page, find the jobs you're interested, copy/paste the posts on a txt document
4. Start sending emails to everyone

Always mention you found them on hackernews, it makes them like you

0celo7

1:14 AM

@BernardoMeurer what did you get on that philosophy essay

Bernardo Meurer

@0celo7 She's still reading it

0celo7

looool

Bernardo Meurer

She said it's too complex, so she needed extra time to grade it

0celo7

@BernardoMeurer do you regret writing a tome?

or a manifesto, rather

Bernardo Meurer

Nah, I like what I created, I think the result was rather cool

And I learned a lot in the process too

I don't care what grade I get

0celo7

1:18 AM

very zen

Bernardo Meurer

@0celo7 It's a surefire way to fail miserably academically and be depressed :)

vzn

← once long ago wrote 10pg philosophy of AI essay when teacher said 3 was sufficient, got A anyway, teacher said "this is too long for this class"

Bernardo Meurer

@vzn I did a similar thing, except I wrote 22 pages and the expected length was 5

And my theme wasn't AI :P

vzn

@BernardoMeurer lol not too different if you cited Turing. bet you will get A but maybe go easier next time :P

0celo7

Honestly I'm surprised it wasn't rejected

Bernardo Meurer

1:26 AM

@0celo7 I told her I was writing a lot, she said she didn't mind

vzn

@0celo7 lol rejections are with journal submissions, not undergraduate classes, esp philosophy ones :P

@0celo7 ps what do you know about zen anyway? (hint: it tends to be about [power of] brevity sometimes) :P

Secret

2:35 AM

[Random]

Try imagine about thinking about nothing

vzn

4:01 AM

If Dating was Like A Job Interview | Comedy Sketch

►

DanielSank

4:11 AM

I would like to know the community's opinion on how to deal with this question:

0

Q: Is Absolute Zero Possible?

Thermal energy is the energy an object due to the motion of it's molecules. This means as long as an objects molecules have kinetic energy, it will not reach absolute zero. Does that mean if there was a complete vacuum, it would be at absolute zero inside the vacuum because there is no molecules,...

The accepted answer is wrong.

..and the question is now closed as a duplicate. I am tempted to flag the whole thing for deletion since it serves no purpose other than to perpetuate misunderstandings about vacuum fluctuations.

(voted to close, but still interested in opinions)

Bernardo Meurer

@DanielSank Burn it to the ground

Anonymous

@DanielSank Mods can't unaccept answers. So nothing much to do. Downvote+ leave a comment on the question (for the OP) and answer (which you have already done)

Anonymous

It's a pity that the newbies keep getting misguided by JD who shows no improvement at all and continues posting nonsense.

DanielSank

Yes I am rather concerned by JD's affect on those who don't know better than to believe incorrect content that sounds right if you don't know better.

Hey @JohnDuffield, based on something you wrote on the main site, I gather that you have a common misunderstanding about zero point energy. I'd be interested in attempting to help you understand some of the nuances, if you're interested.

In particular, zero point energy does not preclude a system from being at zero temperature.

I just noticed something interesting.

When I am ignorant on a point of physics, I'll generally avoid putting forth any opinion on that point. I might say "I think maybe {...} because {...} but I'm not sure".

Generally, the average non-physicist will say "I don't know physics".

On the other hand, there are occasionally people who insist that they understand physics well, but really know very little with any reasonable level of accuracy. Why do these folks exist?

What motivates the state of known a tiny bit of the subject, enough to construct sentences that kind of sound legit to a n00b, but not enough to know that you don't actually know what you're talking about?

Tanuj

4:37 AM

@Blue Hi ! What should be y strategy for maths for advanced ?

Anonymous

@DanielSank Well, I doubt he realizes the multilevels of misconceptions he has about physics. Trying to correct him is like going down a rabbit hole since every alternate sentence he speaks is wrong. And that is what happens when one directly jumps to Einstein's papers without understanding basic physics.

DanielSank

@Blue That's kind of my point.

Consider a binary tree where each node is a logical point of physics.

Anonymous

@Tanuj Practice lots of past papers I guess

DanielSank

A discussion can be thought to be such a tree. At each node, we pose a yes/no question and decide where to go next.

What is the probability that an uninformed individual will hit five wrong turns in a row?

Semiclassical

Depends what probability distribution they're drawing from.

DanielSank

4:41 AM

It's (1/2)^5 = 1/32.

So, if I talking with an unbiased, ignorant person, it's unlikely that they'll argue against reason five points in a row.

Despite this, there are people who seems to argue against reason all the time.

This is clearly not an unbiased random walk down the tree.

It almost seems the individual wants to argue, or wants to believe that everyone else is wrong. There is some prior motive in that person's mind that affects how they engage in scientific reasoning and discussion.

Semiclassical

This seems very unlikely to go anywhere useful, if I'm honest.

DanielSank

Now here's a point: if someone comes to this site with that motivation, are they conforming to site policies?

@Semiclassical I think it's very important. The question of how to deal with entities that consistently produce misinformation wrapped up to be appealing to newbies is important.

2

Semiclassical

I'll note that I disagree pretty much entirely with JD's statements on physics (he has historical points I agree with at times). But a conversation that starts from the standpoint of "you're wrong, stop it" is not intended as a dialogue.

DanielSank

@Semiclassical I'm not talking about JD. Several users have done what I'm talking about.

I am interested in two general questions:

Semiclassical

Ah, I missed the transition.

Tanuj

4:47 AM

@Blue Definitely , but where to study the theory and other conceptual questions from ? What book do you suggest ?

Anonymous

@Tanuj Just revise whatever you studied in the past 2 years. Not much time left to read new books

DanielSank

1) Is it possible to objectively identify {unwillingness to discuss science in good faith}?

2) Is unwillingness to discuss science in good faith a precluding factor to contributing to this site?

Tanuj

@Blue ok. Also , I have a doubt rest mass of photon is 0 . Does everything moving at the speed of light have 0 rest mass ?

Semiclassical

@Tanuj there's not a lot of things to compare photons with in that regard

DanielSank

Let me put this another way: We know that we don't like SPAM posts. For example, a post on the main site that advertises my chocolate cookies is deleted as SPAM. Is posting nonscientific nonsense that sounds like science also SPAM?

Perhaps none of this matters and wrong answers should be handled case-by-case, but when wrong answers that sound right to n00bs show up, I get nervous (especially when they get upvotes and accepted), particularly when repeatedly produced by the same person.

Semiclassical

4:52 AM

(by which I mean, the photon stands alone when it comes to particles moving at the speed of light)

Anonymous

@Tanuj Yes, rest mass of a photon is 0. Which other particle do you think travels at the speed of light?

Semiclassical

((ignoring QFT aspects / virtual particles because that's not helpful))

Tanuj

@Blue no other , yeah. Basically all EM waves constitute photons , right ?

Semiclassical

more like the reverse.

Tanuj

@JohnRennie Hi :) Good morning

@Semiclassical yeah my bad

John Rennie

4:55 AM

Morning :-)

DanielSank

Monsieur le Rennie

Semiclassical

My main activity re: questions has been on the Math SE (and even that's not been in a while), so I'm sitting out the conversation.

Anonymous

@Tanuj Actually I think neutrinos come close, but not sure if they're considered to have rest mass zero. As far as I remember, they had found an error bound for the mass.

Semiclassical

They're not believed to be massless, no.

Flavor oscillations and all that.

Anonymous

@Semiclassical Makes sense

Anonymous

4:59 AM

Lots of websites wrongly claim that neutrinos have a 0 rest mass.

Semiclassical

For a good number of calculations you might as well treat them as though they have zero mass, just to make the math easier. But that's an approximation, not an exact statement.

Anonymous

Experimenting with them is a tough job anyway :P

Anonymous

Ah, yes, true.

user228700

Hello, everyone :-)

Semiclassical

Yeah. I've actually been to two neutrino detectors (both in MN---the UMN has a definite connection to neutrino physics). First one was in a former underground mine, and the detector was big. The second was the new installation they were completing at the time, and it was way bigger :)

That's the new one

Anonymous

5:02 AM

@Semiclassical Wow, cool

Anonymous

@KaumudiH Hi there!

user228700

How's it going?

Semiclassical

and this is the old one:

Anonymous

@KaumudiH Lots of xam's!

Anonymous

I'll log out soon

user228700

5:03 AM

@Blue Ah :-/ Are your semester exams ongoing?

Anonymous

@Semiclassical Which place is that?

user228700

@Blue Lol, OK. Good luck! :-)

Semiclassical

Soudan mine in MN.

Anonymous

@KaumudiH About to start from 25th. Now just class tests

user228700

Ah, I see.

Anonymous

5:04 AM

Soudan Underground Mine State Park

The Soudan Underground Mine State Park is a Minnesota state park at the site of the Soudan Underground Mine, on the south shore of Lake Vermilion, in the Vermilion Range (Minnesota). The mine is known as Minnesota's oldest, deepest, and richest iron mine, and now hosts the Soudan Underground Laboratory. As the Soudan Iron Mine, it has been designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark. == History == In the late 19th century, prospectors searching for gold in northern Minnesota discovered extremely rich veins of hematite at this site, often containing more than 65% iron. An open pit mine b...

Anonymous

Interesting

Semiclassical

Though that lab is no longer operating---the lease the UMN had with the state dept of natural resources expired

Not sure if they've preserved the lab, though I imagine so

vzn

@DanielSank -1 "wrong" answer(s) & write a better answer and see how many votes it gets :)

Semiclassical

"Unfortunately, tours of the lab are no longer being offered, as the lab is being decommissioned, although the "online tour" links on this website will show you what it used to look like. "

from soudan.umn.edu/outreach/visitors.shtml

so the Wiki page is out of date