The h Bar

Kyle Kanos

12:01 AM

Whoa: reuters.com/article/2014/08/11/…

Robin Williams died...

Phonon

12:21 AM

yeah

so terribly sad...

:((((

loved the guy so much

dmckee

1:13 AM

@ACuriousMind It is in all the textbooks in the states. I would do without it if I could, though one can argue that the result of Faraday's law can't be a "potential" or "potential difference" because you can't form a real potential when the field has non-zero curl.

I suppose that's why no one has gone after the word with torches and pitchforks yet.

user54412

3:03 AM

@ACuriousMind Very common in my education. The worst part is that the symbol is either multiple characters (bad enough for those of us who appreciate good typesetting) or $\mathcal{E}$, but in the latter case, nearly every professor I had will pronounce it "epsilon" for reasons I can't explain.

alemi

@ChrisWhite I once had a teaching assistant back in the day that pronounced 'eta' as 'squiggle'

user54412

@alemi but... "squiggle" is unambiguously "xi" :P

3

alemi

I guess I was never quite sure what he was shooting for, it might very well have been a xi now that you mention it

It was drawn as a squiggle as well

user54412

I once had a math course where the prof kept writing "Gauß" (but in less-than-legible handwriting, so more like "Gausquiggle") - it took me several weeks to realize whom he was talking about.

alemi

3:38 AM

It's a shame we don't think of azure as a separate color in english.

dmckee

3:49 AM

@alemi I had a prof who used "squiggle" for eta and "more squiggle" for a lower case zeta. We could necver decide if he was putting us on or not...

Kyle

3:59 AM

@alemi one of my professors called xi "squigma"

alemi

5:10 AM

What is happening here: physics.stackexchange.com/questions/129264/… ?

Physics Meta

6:40 AM

0

Q: when "..they trust you in other sites.."

I got 100 bonus they say "...because we trust you on other sites in the network" I just joined Physics SE and haven't even explored other sites. What sites are they referring to , who gave me the bonus and why does he trust me? I could not find an answer.

discussion

Danu

7:17 AM

@ACuriousMind This stuff about Leibniz' work - it's amazing how much debate math.SE has over it. I've seen questions about it before, with heated debates between katz and others over whether it made any sense at all

Danu

7:38 AM

@alemi I don't understand what exactly the guy is asking...

user54412

8:43 AM

That awesome feeling of, having just spent all day and night hunting the most exotic, intriguing, and frustrating bugs, running the test script and getting perfect results, followed by committing everything to github just as the sun comes up.

Danu

Hope you had fun ;)

and... sleep well?

user54412

hmm sleep - I kind of wanted to be in the office in 5.5 hours...

Physics Meta

0

Q: Ask the experts

A lot of the questions on Stack Exchanges become closed because they are not constructive or answers cannot be supported by fact, e.g. what is a good book?. This originates from the fact that many newer users want to know the best way to self learn or good resources due to much frustration in the...

discussion feature-request

Danu

5.5 hours is definitely enough for some good sleep - I just had four hours myself last night ;)

by the way, are all new meta questions simply posted to the chat to promote discussion or something?

user54412

9:00 AM

yeah - I guess the idea is that people who frequent this room are likely to be the experienced users who can answer meta questions

Danu

Okay... I guess

I still don't understand how to run that reconcile app of John Rennie's

user54412

@Danu I just tested, and it seems to work for me

user54412

I had a folder test\source with a file in it, and another test\destination that was empty

user54412

then ran start <path_to_reconcile_executable's_directory>\reconcile -x test\source test\destination

Danu

okay, I will copy that code

let's see

Yes!

thank you so much for your help

I always feel quite embarrased by my lack of computer knowledge, especially around here ;)

user54412

9:17 AM

you caught me on one of my few good days with computers

ACuriousMind

10:35 AM

Is meta down?

I get "server not found"

mother meta, too

Danu

working for me

ACuriousMind

Hm, now chat was down too. It's back, but meta is still inaccessible...what's going on with my connection?

Danu

can we please get 9 upvotes for Lubos so he gets 99999?!

Also, I'm excited for our first 100k user coming up!

ACuriousMind

Won't happen today, unless Lubos get's some accepts, too

Danu

no, no accepts! He has exactly 99,909 now so unless he gets two it'll ruin the nice numbers ;)

ACuriousMind

10:46 AM

He can only get 37 more points from upvotes today, if I read his rep tab right

Danu

oh snap

ACuriousMind

So without accepts, his 100k (and the 99999) will have to wait till tomorrow

Danu

sadface

ACuriousMind

10:59 AM

@Danu: If you're one for milestones, John Rennie hit the Legendary badge recently.

Danu

wow, that is pretty legendary!

I will make a post celebrating both of them once Lubos reaches 100k (if no-one beats me to it)

I think I've never even once hit the limit

Danu

1:04 PM

anyone wanting to contribute? physics.stackexchange.com/questions/130648/…

I know that it's a ridiculous question... but maybe it's worth trying

ACuriousMind

1:15 PM

@Danu I dislike it's very premise. Equations themselves are worth nothing. It is the understanding of their origin and their meaning that makes them the powerful tools they are.

Danu

Yes, I know, but I was interested by the idea of having a short list of all kinds of Lagrangians and then I got a little invested and that's how the ball starts rolling... You don't think I should try?

ACuriousMind

You're free to try - but I see no great usefulness in compiling such lists. If you're having fun with it, go for it, though - I see no damage done either ;)

Danu

that's true...

The thing is that I don't know nearly enough about Yang-Mills theory or the standard model

Danu

1:35 PM

argh... I'll just give up

ACuriousMind

To do what you intended to do justice, you'd probably have to write a book

Danu

Yup... Shall I just delete it? Or leave it like this? It looks terrible right now

Bernhard

hey guys I have a small language question, hopefully you can help me a bit

consider a setup where I have multiple magnets, one with the north facing towards me, the next facing south, etc

Danu

okay...

Bernhard

can I formulate this as "The orientation of the polarity of the magnetic is alternating"?

I have doubts about the word polarity

Danu

1:44 PM

yeah, me too

Bernhard

thanks for sharing doubts :p

ACuriousMind

I'd probably just say "The magnets are alternatingly aligned."

Or "oriented", if you dislike the alliteration ;)

Bernhard

@ACuriousMind alliterations are awesome

thanks

Danu

The magnets are arrange facing me with their north and south poles in alternating fashion

arranged*

slightly more precise

Bernhard

@Danu I am writing it for a paper, thinking about some formulation, so I think your way of expressing it would not work, thanks though

Danu

1:48 PM

oh

Bernhard

@ACuriousMind Alternatingly is not recognized by my dictionary, hmmm, interesting

Danu

then I would just say - The magnets are aligned with their poles faced in alternating directions.

that is simpler, still precise, and gets rid of 'me'

facing*

facing* alternating directions

Bernhard

i like that

Danu

or are arranged as in Fig. 1 ;) haha

ACuriousMind

I think Danu's last suggestion is the best

(Wiktionary knows alternatingly, though)

@Danu But then you'd have to draw the figure

I rather try to avoid having to do that, me and TikZ don't get along well

Bernhard

1:50 PM

I do have that in Fig. 1, hahaha, but like to stress it explicitly as well

Danu

@ACuriousMind I just make a picture using paint.net - never can bother to learn these ridiculous picture packages of TeX

Bernhard

No, inkscape FTW

Danu

inkscape

maybe GeoGebra? ;D

Bernhard

don't know that one, but you should choose one and stick with that

with these tools experience is more important than most feature

thanks guy

ACuriousMind

Alright, I like inkscape, too, but the perfectionist in me is always a bit disappointed when, for example, the fonts in the inkscape pictures look a little bit off from the TeXed ones

Danu

1:52 PM

@ACuriousMind Oh, I'm a huge perfectionist about those things

I do the following:

I compile the letters I want in the pictures in HUGE font

zoom all the way in

copy paste them into my pictures

HAHA

Bernhard

@ACuriousMind, use the LaTeX plugin in inkscape, done.

Danu

I know it's ridiculous

oh, now I'm really interested, @Bernhard! LaTeX plugin sounds great

ACuriousMind

I faintly recall having battled with that, once, too, but I totally forgot about it

Bernhard

It is intended for formulas mainly

Extensions > Render > Latex formula

ACuriousMind

Still, I wish I could do what the TeXers do here

Bernhard

2:00 PM

I am a fan of gnuplot

ACuriousMind

I've had to fight with too many poorly written scripts for that during my lab courses to have anything resembling fond feeling for that thing ;)

Bernhard

if I have a question on gnuplot I ask a question on stackoverflow, one developer of gnuplot is answering question there, he's the king :)

ACuriousMind

Ha, that's nice

Incnis Mrsi

3:47 PM

Hello. Is here some business of the meeting?

Danu

ehm, I'm not sure anyone really participates in those meetings

ACuriousMind

Just look at the amount of people "registered"

And the amount that show up

Jim

what meeting?

Danu

that's a lot of people who registered!

ACuriousMind

Though one stays registered if one registered once, that's kinda unintuitive

Danu

3:48 PM

are there really going to be 25+ people in chat?!

ACuriousMind

@Jim Illuminati. What else?

Incnis Mrsi

Such amounts of connected people and talking people are rather typical for my IRC channels.

Jim

@ACuriousMind Ah, ok then. Just checking

Danu

In this chat it is usually <5

but already we have 6 right now ;) so who knows

ACuriousMind

I've not been able to figure out why MadScientist and HackToHell are always there. Do they just want to be pingable?

Danu

3:50 PM

Let's ask them

ACuriousMind

I'm kinda scared of that :D

Incnis Mrsi

By the way, is it a native Web chat or a Web application over something else?

Danu

@MadScientist and @HackToHell, just wondering what brings you here?

ACuriousMind

And it would take away the mystery

Danu

@ACuriousMind too late now ;)

ACuriousMind

3:51 PM

@IncnisMrsi No idea, honestly

Danu

does anyone want to discuss anything? :P

ACuriousMind

It's still 8 minutes till the session starts. No need to hurry ;)

Jim

@Danu Not me, these meetings always happen at my lunch hour. I'm not giving that up to sit around on chat

Danu

hahaha @Jim

I always thought lunch was overrated

ACuriousMind

@Jim Then I can use the opportunity to spread the plan that everyone rename themselves into a variant of Jim, yes? I've been thinking of ACuriousJim.

3

Danu

3:55 PM

My name leaves no room for funny business such as that!

Jim

@ACuriousMind you are playing a dangerous Jim

Danu

if only I could have come up with something smarter than my actual name..

HackToHell

@Danu Well it's relatively simple.

alemi

@Danu How is "The Proposal" coming?

Danu

I have yet to properly write up a meta post

I've got a rough draft

I was actually wanting to share that - but I don't know how to do that

also, this question physics.stackexchange.com/questions/130686/… seems like it should be a duplicate, but I can't find anything

alemi

3:59 PM

@Danu You could throw it up as a gist or on pastebin or something.

ACuriousMind

@Danu Found one

That the charge is moving through a wire is not really relevant

Danu

ah! Of course, SRT saves the day

David Z

OK, so it's chat session time

What do we have to discuss today?

Danu

we can explain that proposal

if you hadn't seen it in the chat yet, @DavidZ

David Z

Which one?

Danu

4:01 PM

I recently proposed

David Z

Maybe I saw it, but remind me

Danu

that we, as a community, try to set up a number of 'canonical questions' with several 'canonical answers' addressing the question at different levels

examples: Twin paradox, uncertainty principle, higgs mechanism

it's important that each of these has at least 2-3 answers ranging from semipopular to grad+ level

Incnis Mrsi

It is called “FAQ”.

ACuriousMind

(Unconstructive heckling: "The proposal I recently proposed" reminds me, of course, of xkcd/703.)

Danu

sure, something like that

@ACuriousMind ARE YOU MOCKING ME? hah

ACuriousMind

4:03 PM

@IncnisMrsi Aye, we even have a faq tag, but it is woefully underused and the answers are not consistently high-quality enough

David Z

@Danu ah, I see

Danu

There are already a few candidate questions

For instance, Emilio once made one about unit conventions being unimportant

and I remember John Rennie making one about time dilation/space travel

David Z

I think the faq tag dates from the early days of the site when we didn't realize why meta tags are bad

so it arguably shouldn't exist

Incnis Mrsi

With what should such non-topical tags be replaced?

ACuriousMind

So the tag was simply not burninated because no-one cared enough?

Incnis Mrsi

4:05 PM

Some index of postings?

Danu

anyways, the tentative proposal seems to be well-received so far, with everybody who cared to react doing so in a positive manner, so I'm hopeful

David Z

@ACuriousMind yeah, exactly

Danu

I'm in the (early stages of the) process of writing a big meta post about it which addresses most important points in a hopefully comprehensive manner

but now that you're here, would you care to offer your opinion?

bdesham

FWIW that sounds like a good idea to me :)

Incnis Mrsi

What is a meta post? I understand only what means a meta tag, it means: not related to the topic.

Danu

4:10 PM

easy SE site has an associate meta.SE site

David Z

@Danu me? sounds fine... I guess I'm mostly neutral on it

Danu

where one can also post questions and/or answers

ACuriousMind

@IncnisMrsi Something posted here

Incnis Mrsi

Oops. Just a post on the meta site.

David Z

note that the "meta" in "meta tag" has a different meaning from the "meta" in "meta site" or "meta post"

Incnis Mrsi

4:12 PM

Yeah, I already inferred it.

ACuriousMind

How meta is it to explain the difference in meaning between different metas?

Incnis Mrsi

Possibly, analytical philosophy. Hence, an off-topic ☺

ACuriousMind

@IncnisMrsi Nothing's off-topic in chat (except for offensiveness and rudeness)

Incnis Mrsi

Good news. So, what happened to the guy named Ron Maimon at physics.SE?

ACuriousMind

Argh

2

slinks away into corner

Danu

4:15 PM

hahahahha

David Z

@IncnisMrsi you can see what it says on his profile

Danu

he was apparently rude and offensive? :P I think thats what happened to him at quora at least

Incnis Mrsi

From an experience at another site I induced that he often doesn’t hear opposing views.

Danu

I think he can be quite... aggressively persistent in his views

although I only joined physics.SE after his departure

Incnis Mrsi

That he turns guys who oppose his ideas to enemies.

David Z

4:20 PM

I should probably not comment on this, so as not to give away privileged information. But @IncnisMrsi perhaps you can find some non-mod users who were active about a year and a half ago who can fill you in.

ACuriousMind

(In other news: Lubos Motl is one accept away from 100k)

David Z

or upvote

ACuriousMind

(And John Rennie earned the first Legendary badge)

Danu

woopwoooop!

David Z

That's cool

ACuriousMind

4:20 PM

@DavidZ Not today, he's hit the cap already

David Z

Oh, okay

Danu

damnit, the cap!

alemi

@DavidZ, for instance this recent blog post: blog.stackoverflow.com/2014/04/… seems to support the overall notion

Danu

oh well... I didn't really want to upvote his 'disprovnig string theory' answer anyways... sigh

@alemi I saved those links to blog posts you dug up earlier in my draft - they

David Z

I've noticed our rep totals on this site tend to be lower than on other sites of similar age.

Danu

4:21 PM

will also be included in the meta post*

ACuriousMind

@DavidZ Which sites are of similar age?

Danu

@IncnisMrsi basically what I think happened re the Ron situation is that he got into some nasty fights with people - comments were deleted and he felt censored

David Z

I think TeX - LaTeX is just a few months older

Danu

taking with him a host of others

David Z

but they have multiple 200k+ users

Danu

4:23 PM

@DavidZ @ACuriousMind I feel like Physics.SE has exceedingly high standards

David Z

I could see that

Danu

for accepting questions/giving upvotes

often, I see jokes on math.SE with hundreds of upvotes

David Z

It's good, in some ways, but overall I think we would benefit from using upvotes more liberally, where they are deserved

ACuriousMind

I think that our model is inherently more critical and less accessible to people who have basically no knowledge. Everyone can go on TeX.SE and read a great answer about how to format something, but most physics.SE answers presuppose some degree of familiarity with the subject

2

Danu

it's also these informal, funny posts which physics.SE so strictly disallows which garner hundreds of upvotes and many outside views

@ACuriousMind very true - the difference with math.SE here is that we just reject all low-level content

David Z

4:25 PM

Well, I'm not sure "low-level" is quite the word for it, but yeah

Incnis Mrsi

It is sad that “reputation” also constitute an informal hierarchy on the site.

Danu

I personally feel that, even within the physics.SE community, I am stricter than most (thanks to @ACuriousMind I also learned how to view total up/downvotes, and saw that I am among those with the lowest upvotes/downvotes ratios)

Incnis Mrsi

I expected to find some positions not measured in numbers.

Danu

@IncnisMrsi why do you say that? I don't find it that sad. Besides, quality is highly rewarded

David Z

@IncnisMrsi It only does so to the extent that people perceive it to do so

Danu

4:26 PM

users like @ACuriousMind, @alemi and JamalS rose to the 4k+ within a few months

I don't feel like low-rep users are held back, really

ACuriousMind

@DavidZ That's true, but sometimes I think that should equally count for downvotes. They do not hurt that much, and I often see questions whose upvotes are comparable to others, while their clarity, usefulness and reasarch-effort is clearly not

David Z

@ACuriousMind Yeah, I didn't mention it but I agree, the same should apply to downvotes.

ACuriousMind

Then again, to vote on something, I must understand it, which is not a given, considering the many different disciplines

David Z

Basically I think we could stand to vote more liberally in general.

3

Danu

@DavidZ but what advantages would it really bring? Just to lighten the burden a little on those the highest-rep users who do most of the moderation (I'm talking 10k+)

?

David Z

4:30 PM

Well, that is a non-negligible benefit

ACuriousMind

I think it would show participation and interest in the site in general

alemi

More votes would also create more of a gradient, making it easier to sort good from bad

David Z

Yeah, all of that too

Danu

Those are a few good points

alemi

If everything only ever has (on average) 0,1, or 2 votes thats only three levels of quality

Incnis Mrsi

4:31 PM

I may not believe in a system of such kind. These “it claw me, and I will claw thee” systems are inherently flawed.

David Z

@IncnisMrsi not sure I understand what you mean

alemi

I don't think anyone is suggesting you go around up and down voting indiscriminately or based on who you like or dislike, just that if you read an answer, set the prior of clicking one of the two buttons higher

Incnis Mrsi

A mutual admiration.

There is a Russian fable about a cuckoo and a cock who laud each other.

This 10k+ is like a Martian speech to me.

discourse

David Z

So you're saying you don't know what 10k+ means?

It's just referring to users who have 10000 or more reputation, who are able to vote to delete and undelete posts and perform most moderation tasks

Incnis Mrsi

I guess it means > 10,000 of reputation points.

But you are Martians to me. Since you believe in these things.

Danu

4:35 PM

This is getting really surreal

David Z

@IncnisMrsi again, I'm not sure why you're talking about Martians

Incnis Mrsi

Believe that this crap can measure the value.

Danu

@IncnisMrsi I understand that you are trying to make a point against this presupposed authority that 'having a lot of fake internet points on a website' supposedly brings with it

Incnis Mrsi

Which authority? I do not understand the point.

Danu

well

you deny that there is any

alemi

4:37 PM

@IncnisMrsi, please see this stackexchange blog post: blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/10/membership-has-its-privileges for some of the reasons why the site operates in this way

Danu

But it seems to me that you are more joking than serious, since I don't think we are - at all - being unreasonable here.

David Z

To add to what @alemi said, here is the list of privileges along with the reputation levels at which a user gets access to them

Incnis Mrsi

I am aware of privileges. But I looked for an informal positions. But here I do not see hints.

sorry, spurious article

David Z

@IncnisMrsi hm, what do you mean by informal positions?

Incnis Mrsi

Maybe not necessarily hard positions, but some structure.

Some social fabric.

Danu

4:41 PM

Your words remain mysterious to me - perhaps tell us another tale to illustrate? ;)

Incnis Mrsi

BTW it is very jarring that one doesn’t see where these + or − come from.

Danu

Are you perhaps suggesting that the 'social dynamics' of a SE website are inherently wrong or flawed or unsustainable, or a combination of the three?

Incnis Mrsi

I can guess that one −ed my posting to uplift their one, but it’s only a guess.

Yes, it is universally stupid and dangerously open to infections.

Danu

I don't think 'spiteful downvotes' are at all a prevalent thing on this website. Perhaps you'd be surprised at the level of amicality that a great majority of us maintains?

Incnis Mrsi

Guys, I do not intend to insult anybody personally.

Danu

4:45 PM

I know that :) Neither am I, I hope I didn't give you the impression of being insulted either

Incnis Mrsi

By the way, is it apparent that I am not a fluent English speaker?

Danu

slightly, but neither am I so it's okay ;)

I think you might be overly worried about things that have turned out to simply not be as harmful as you think they would be. I think that on this website a high level of fairness is maintained, and that the 'pecking order' really isn't that big a deal.

Incnis Mrsi

I’m interested in development of a system where assessments will be openly readable.

Danu

assessments in what sense

you mean voting behavior completely made transparant?

alemi

Generally, though not entirely, if people have an objection to an answer they will leave a comment along with the downvote, though that is not enforced.

David Z

4:52 PM

By the way, if I may interject: I wanted to bring this up before the chat session ends

2

Q: Closing "Insufficient Effort" questions

Some time ago, John Rennie asked, ...in many cases it looks as if the OP simply can't be bothered to put any effort in. Do we have a policy for closing (or not closing) such questions? The Meta question has received not a downvote (12/0 at time of writing). The answer by Ben Crowell says (e...

discussion vote-to-close

Any thoughts on that?

Incnis Mrsi

In some sense analogous to these + and −, but I distrust to Slashdot-fashioned systems entirely.

Wikis (like Wikipedia) are good that have a separate administrative circuit, but they are bad because do not have + and − at all. Most of wikis.

One shouldn’t blend content assessment with administrations, the thing Slashdot promulgated.

Danu

@IncnisMrsi Honestly, I'm kind of tired of arguing about it. If you think the SE model is terrible, then that's a shame, but I am not the person to talk to ;)

@DavidZ good you brought it up - I will think about it

ACuriousMind

@DavidZ I think about it like this: "I really, personally, would like to have the power to close questions that show no effort. But, since neither me nor my fellow humans can be fully trusted to make that judgement call, and since it has no hope of being remotely objectively defined, no one should get that power."

David Z

@ACuriousMind me too

ACuriousMind

Downvote them and move on, that's the motto

Incnis Mrsi

4:58 PM

@alemi can one trace where a particular “−” came from?

David Z

although there is always some subjectivity involved in closing, by necessity

ACuriousMind

@IncnisMrsi No, that is intentional. Votes are anonymous by design.

@DavidZ True enough, but the no-effort/some-effort/much-effort wars would convert meta into a battlefield, and I have no desire to see that ;)

David Z

Yeah

alemi

@DavidZ They will be deleted eventually if they are unloved: meta.stackexchange.com/a/92006

David Z

Anyway that is the scheduled end of our chat session (though no need to stop chatting!)

We'll be back here in two weeks

alemi

5:01 PM

30 days, -1 or less, no answers

ACuriousMind

@DavidZ Ah, about that session...what is the purpose of "registering" for it, if one stays registered automatically for the next one after it has occured once?

David Z

The chat session is a recurring event, so you get regular reminders of every chat session, every two weeks

i.e. what you register for is the entire ongoing series of chat sessions, not a single one-time event

ACuriousMind

Ah, so it doesn't mean "I'll participate" but "I want to be reminded when it occurs".

David Z

Yeah

Though I guess it is also a public declaration that you may intend to participate

the number of people registered gives an indicator of how much interest there might be in the chat session

alemi

@DavidZ for what it's worth, I've thrown up a couple empty "answers" to try to clarify the communities position on: meta.physics.stackexchange.com/questions/6001/…, I thought that worked well on the bite-sized homework question.

David Z

5:09 PM

sounds good

ACuriousMind

Can you guys also always tell from the frequency of your incoming upvotes that a post has gone into "Hot network questions"?

It's a curious thing - usually, a few hours after the answer is posted, suddenly there's a surge in votes

And, when ever I look, there is it, sitting in the sidebar

Kyle

5:34 PM

Anyone know what best practice is when offering a bounty for an answer worthy of additional reward? Better to just award as soon as you put the bounty up, or leave it up for a week and then award (does it stay on the 'featured' tab either way?)

Danu

@Kyle I think it leaves the tab once you award it - ACuriousMind explained to me that keeping the bounty open is a better idea because it gives a little more exposure, and therefore probably some more upvotes for the answer you want to attract attention to

@ACuriousMind despite not knowing where to look for the 'hot' questions, I can most definitely tell when one of my answers is being featured by the inpouring v(up)otes ;)

ACuriousMind

(I want to note that I said that in the context of a different bounty, since I know which one Kyle is talking about ;) )

@Danu It's in the sidebar on the right, below the favourite and related tags

Danu

6:07 PM

thanks

Physics Meta

6:19 PM

0

Q: Why is Lubos Motl's reputation stuck at 99,996?

I up-voted a Lubos Motl answer and thought I might be the first to humbly see his score the first to tick over past 100K. But it seems to be stuck on 99,996. Is there a reason for this? Maybe the system has gone haywire over a few people thinking the same as me?

bug

dmckee

7:34 PM

@ACuriousMind There is a strong correlation.

user54412

@PhysicsMeta lol - I guess the race is on at midnight UTC

user54412

though someone could always accept an answer of his

user54412

8:06 PM

@ACuriousMind So I was reading this good answer of yours (+1), but I do agree that much group theory can be intimidating.

user54412

I am aware of no class at my undergrad (which I think had all the standard math and physics found in the US) that talked about covering groups and such in this context.

ACuriousMind

@ChrisWhite I haven't learned that in a coherent way, either. But I had one course on algebraic topology, which discusses coverings, one on representation theory, which briefly mention projective reps, and the QM lecture, where those things looked suspiciously as if they were related. Its difficult to get a complete picture of it here, too, but group theory is a powerful tool for understanding everything that relates to symmetries, and much else

user54412

It's definitely a powerful tool, but for some reason it hasn't percolated down to undergraduate course levels

ACuriousMind

8:21 PM

I think it is simply a matter of tradition. Most physicists learn about groups rather late in their studies, and so they automatically think it must be somehow more difficult than calculus or linear algebra. I've never found that to be the case, though, with the basic stuff at least.

ACuriousMind

9:38 PM

Soooo...does anyone know anything about this or do we have to wait for Lubos to bring down the law?

alemi

10:51 PM

I think people over use the engineering close reason. i.e.: physics.stackexchange.com/questions/130739/…

ACuriousMind

@alemi Would you be happier with a homework close reason? That's essentially a word problem as it could have appeared in my school textbooks

alemi

I would be much happier with a homework close reason for that question

Its a terrible question

but I felt compelled to answer in defiance of the engineering close reason

it is a physics question

just a bad one

ACuriousMind

"I compel you by the power of the engineer!"

Yeah, I get what you are saying

But it has two upvotes

alemi

one is me, in defiance

it makes me a little angry. We should be convincing the world that physics can be applied to everyday things, because it can, but all to often if a question is a little too real, people mark it for closure as engineering. Poor form

ACuriousMind

I see your point. And you are one of the people here doing exactly that (the convincing, not the closing). I'm not so cut out for that.

On an unrelated note: Who the hell felt the need to star my "Argh"? :D

I should've seen that coming...

David Z

11:01 PM

@alemi Someone should be convincing the world that physics can be applied to everyday things. But I don't see that as our job here.

alemi

@DavidZ I wasn't trying to suggest it was our only job. But in some way, we represent physics and if we demonstrate no interest in questions having to do with everyday life, it sends a message. Everyday-life questions are also a ton of fun to answer.

And for the most part we do a great job at them.

The ones that survive initial closure that is

ACuriousMind

...I must admit I have no fun at answering everyday-life questions, and find them in principle rather boring. I like some of the answers to them, however.

Ooops. I hang my head in shame.

It was actually me choosing engineering and not homework there.

Sorry, @alemi :(

alemi

No big deal, I've voiced my opinion, and apparently directly at the person I should have.

ACuriousMind

I saw I voted on that question, but you cannot see what off-topic you chose after you chose it, and since you made sense to me, I thought I'd voted homework.

alemi

Though, technically I'm not sure it counts as homework either, as "A "homework question" is any question whose value lies in helping you understand the method by which the question can be solved, rather than getting the answer itself."

ACuriousMind

11:14 PM

Yeah, that is always a bit questionable

Many people asking HW question are actually only interested in the answer

But we don't think there is value in that answer, but only in the method

alemi

It certainly shows no previous effort, but currently at: meta.physics.stackexchange.com/q/6001/51994 the leading response would be to downvote and move on, not close

ACuriousMind

HW closing is distinct from insufficient effort, I think. The IE closing would be applied to questions that could be substantially answered by a short Wiki article or google search, no matter whether the question is HW like or not

The current HW policy clearly states that HW-like questions (essentially: word problems) that show no effort are to be closed

And I think the IE meta post is exactly about what to do if the question we would "like" to close are not HW

alemi

Right. I guess I was just putting a little too much faith in the poster. It didn't feel like it was just copied and pasted from a homework, but when I reread it, it very well might have been.

ACuriousMind

Nah, it's very well possible that they came up with that question themselves and just wanted to know. I've no idea, that's plausible too. But "HW-like question" is independent of whether or not it is actual homework (as commenters never tire to explain)

I think I'm getting tangles in my brain from all this thinking about closing questions

alemi

It's not a big deal. That was just my fear. I imagined someone who was genuinely interested in knowing whether plugging in his laptop would affect the performance of his car. The fact that the question read like a HW question might have been his attempt to show some prior effort by looking up the numbers relevant to him. He may not have known that horsepower is a measure of power, or that at high speed air friction dominates. I just fear that it was an opportunity to help someone.

Meanwhile, I have nothing but disrespect for someone who just copies and pastes one of their homework questions, expecting us to answer.

But I'll shut up now

Physics Meta

11:31 PM

0

Q: What would be a reasonable way to gain attention of Phys. SE members on a question I posted in Math. SE?

I had to compute a Laurent series, and happened to obtain a correct result by certain manipulations that mathematicians (and even many physicists) would completely disapprove. I suspected that there must be a deeper reason for this, and asked it in Math. SE: An outrageous way to derive a Laurent...

discussion

Transcript for