@SirCumference there's the BBP formula for pi, which is a fine madness: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

@Semiclassical we'll there's also the decimal expansion, if we're fine with infinite series :P

Last night dream I experienced a phenomena with an inverted Gay-Lussac law

where if you press on a cushion full of air, it gets colder instead of hotter

closest real life example: hackaday.com/2016/08/25/a-refrigerator-cooled-by-rubber-bands

closer: The barocaloric effect cambridge.org/core/journals/mrs-bulletin/news/…

what you cannot have, is barocaloric gas

though gas-gas phase transition is a thing aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.472070

@NovaliumCompany cool :-)

I resisted joining the Goodreads site for a long time, but so many of my friends started using it that I eventually joined.

Can I discuss cool AI stuff with someone?

Based on comments and some text I removed from the question, it sounds like this user is wanting someone to admit that we have no clue what of we are actually talking about in physics

Hi

@SirCumference sure. BBP is just weird since it lets you generate individual digits rather than all digits up to there

physics.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/287194 I think people need to do research before accepting edits like this... I find paper results for "symmetry protected trivial phases" written by Xiao-Gang Wen. I assume he knows what he is talking about when he chose those words.

@AaronStevens Questions like that are always difficult: They're not really about physics - they're about someone grappling with epistemology and philosophy of science in general. It doesn't help that a sizeable fraction of physicists considers that a waste of time and reacts with hostility, so the asker gets reinforced in their idea that they've seen a problem "scientists" just ignore

probably mathematical physicists out there will make some rigorous definitions

but it is unsettling to hear terms like mass, etc. in an intro physics class with no real definition

I don't think a "rigorous definition" is what you need to understand what it means to e.g. "measure" "mass".

Math, on its own, does not relate to the real world

sure, but most things deemed useful in math come from a good idea. if you can come up with some concept, you should be able to formalize it somehow

concepts like "position" can be formalized as elements in Euclidean space

I don't think that's what that question is after

But it's a bit vague so I might be projecting

Hm, the ISQ just says:

and the GUM:

Well, the asker writes this:

> Textbooks always write about how we can measure one physical quantity but never define them.

So they seem to hold the metaphysical belief that there is a difference between knowing how to measure something and knowing "what it is" (=having defined it)

Aha

Hm, the ISQ gives definitions for the quantities, except for the seven base quantities.

For those seven we would probably have to check the SI itself.

Which is why I think the "correct" answer to that question is a philosophical one that explains that science does not need to subscribe to the idea that the entities in its models are "real" and that "time is what clocks measure" is a useful definition even if it doesn't define "what time really is".

\o @nitsua60

et al

please repin:

:(

@ACuriousMind it's a lot more interesting to pretend that what we're doing make sense, if only because the alternative would be to do nothing :P

@JMac I usually reject edits like that. Even if they could be correct. If there is something incorrect in a post then it should be pointed out in a comment.

edits are there to clarify the post, not to change the author's intent

@Semiclassical If what we're doing doesn't make sense, we need to alter our notion of making sense :P

(and changing "trivial" to "topological" very much runs the risk of altering the author's intent)

@ACuriousMind hah

the sense of sense?

reminds me of a jim al-khalili line, regarding the "shut up and calculate" philosophy: 'I prefer the “shut up while you calculate” view, which leaves me free to contemplate the relative merits of the different interpretations when I am not solving Schrödinger’s equation.'

> I've recently discovered LaTeXiT. To celebrate here's Schrödinger's equation

tweeted 7 hour ago

@AaronStevens Yeah, I typically reject them too. I did reject that, and even looked it up to find the term did exist. I'm just always ranting about that queue because I find that stuff gets accepted all the time.

@Semiclassical twitter.com/jimalkhalili/status/1223218705728929792

Should I just roll it back and leave a comment for the editor maybe?

@JMac That would seem to be the right thing here

@Loong could you please share what the SI says?

Looks like the SI only defines the base units and not the base quantities.

thanks

a quantity is that which is quantifiable :P

Guys, what annoys you? What bugs you in this world?

being asked "what bugs you"

m e s a d

I W A N T B U S I N E S S I D E A S

S T U D Y B U S I N E S S E S

T H A T S N O T H O W I T W O R K S

T H E N T H I N K

T H A T I S W H A T I D O

T H I N K H A R D E R

J A M E S , J A M E S H A R D E R

@skullpatrol let's just talk about stuff

what's on your mind?

I wanna juice your hunches and combine them with mine.

do you believe in quantity over quality?

nope

s8m

do you?

I believe more in quality than quantity.

me too pal

how old were you?

when?

now.

I'm talking in terms of "I've forgotten how old you were".

why?

why not?

@skullpatrol what's ur passion?

questions like this

So you like to overcomplicate simple stuff?

no

define "no" in Ligrerian mechanics using vectors in 4 dimensional matrix.

keep it simple silly

kiss

oh god

i'm straight sorry

that is an abbreviation

k.i.s.s.

kirchkoffs initial statement stop

true

whatcha up to?

wanna see my gorilla?

lookin' at the superbowl stats

sure

took a long time until I got it to make that face

coolio

want one?

sure

Let's make FedEx but for animals.

Let's make animal delivery service.

BOOM BUSINESS IDEA

And you can browse animals online

and buy one

omg I'm so evil.

poor animals being auctioned.

lol

like slaves

Let's make human delivery

Let's ship humans.

xDDD

Let's make a delivery service for humans.

yo

where u went?

nowhere

omg I need to goto bed

FedEx but for humans.

@NovaliumCompany me too cya

@NovaliumCompany Distorted insults are still insults. Please don't do that.

you're not going to repin the message?

@skullpatrol Why should we? It was pinned and ran out of its 14 days of being pinned. Anyone who frequents this chat regularly has seen it by now, anyone who doesn't can still see it featured on the main site.

for old times' sake

@ACuriousMind is there any maximum amount of time it can be featured on meta?

@skullpatrol The featured tag removes itself after about one month.

thanks