The h Bar

CoilKid

00:09

@KyleKanos Are you active? I believe you said to use a computer program like something from here -> quickfield.com ?

* to solve my force equations

Kyle Kanos

That does look to be an electromagnetic FEM program

CoilKid

So, is something like that what you suggested?

Kyle Kanos

Seems that way, yes.

CoilKid

Okay, thanks.

Kyle Kanos

Comsol and Elmer were what I really had in mind

But if you've found sometihng else you'd rather work with, go for it

CoilKid

00:21

Hmm

I have no preferences, as long as I can get a free version

Kyle Kanos

Elmer is FOSS, as far as I recollect

user54412

05:50

So Planck has finally written a paper about their polarization data

user54412

They are very noncommittal about BICEP - or at least, one has to read between the lines

user54412

Also, well over 200 authors worked for years on this paper, and it's replete with typos - you would think one extraneous person in the author list would feel morally obliged to at least read the paper they're getting credit for

2

Danu

06:26

@ChrisWhite nopenopenope

Danu

07:27

The dread of being all alone in a city where you don't know anything or anyone

ACuriousMind

10:33

@Danu It'll pass - and it's part of the adventure ;)

Danu

@ACuriousMind Currently adventurously listening to music in my room

I'm living with this older guy (~50) and he's gone most of the time

so I'm all alone in this pretty big house (for a student)

ACuriousMind

Okay, that may not be the optimal setup...when do classes start for you?

Danu

October first

crash course functional analysis lol

for 2 days

then oct 6th regular classes start

ACuriousMind

Functional analysis in two days?...ooof :D

Danu

6 hours a day

plus I'll already have read the first 7 chapters of Reed & Simon

which covers all that I need

I think... unless I don't manage to actually read that ((only near the end of Ch. 4 atm)

ACuriousMind

11:28

Dafuq? That's the most ridiculous edit war I've ever seen. (I flagged for mods and will not do anything else now)

Danu

12:00

@ACuriousMind so wtf was happening there?

So... you were rollbacking the edits someone made to their own question?

ACuriousMind

@Danu I haven't the faintest clue...the OP seems to be of the opinion that they may radically change their own questions (and both of them, too)

Look at their edit - that's not revising the question, that's asking another

I'm pretty sure that's...not encouraged(especially as the questions have comments/answers pertaining to the old version)

Danu

Ah

well... I don't know... flagging seems reasonable

Also, good job apple... updating my iPhone made it die and now I have to do a full restore, losing everything on there

ACuriousMind

Uh...very good. I hope you've backed it up?

Totally unrelated: Sometimes, other SEs just seem...deranged: Whose underwear is this?

Danu

I think I did... just 20 minutes ago luckily

LMAO, Aquaman

I don't even browse other SE's

except math

but there, I last for about 2 minutes of downvoting and flagging before I give up

ACuriousMind

It was in the hot questions...and, come on, there's no way I'm not clicking on a question with that title :D

2

Danu

12:09

Hahahaha

ACuriousMind

@Danu I don't really browse other SEs, either - except for Role-playing Games, sometimes. Some of the GM advice there is really good.

Danu

@ACuriousMind You're into DnD right?

ACuriousMind

@Danu Sort of - I don't play D&D much, rather its German counterpart DSA and some more freeform systems based off FATE (and I apologize for that being likely nonsense to you ;) )

My experience with D&D is mostly playing the computer games using the system

Danu

12:24

Ah, there are video games of it too?

ACuriousMind

Tons :D

Danu

lol, okay

ACuriousMind

The most well known might be the Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate series

Danu

oh well, I try not to spend time playing games

oh, that's from DnD?!

lol

ACuriousMind

@Danu I'd say I try that, too, but I frequently fail (and I don't regret it :P )

Danu

12:27

I've managed - I just made sure to buy a crappy PC and get rid of my TV ;D

ACuriousMind

Haha...well, my gaming PC is one of the few things I really spend money on, so I don't try that hard to keep away from gaming.

Danu

Hahaha, yeah that sounds like a rather half-hearted attempt ;)

I've slowly been trying to switch to hobbies that I can still see as 'productive' even when I use them to procrastinate

Chess being the best example

ACuriousMind

I like to confront people with the notion that I can spend my spare time as uselessly as I want to ;)

Danu

:D of course! For me it's just a personal issue

I spent so much time on these things already (easily more than 5000 hours in about 2-3 years during my teenage years) that by now I just feel mehh when I spend a lot of time on it

ACuriousMind

@Danu I know others with that kind of "burnout" as well...it seems not so uncommon

Danu

12:34

^^ Of course, it makes perfect sense

ACuriousMind

The day I will no longer find joy in playing useless games will be the day I'll call myself a "grown-up"

And I'll probably look with the same sentimentality at my computer as at the toys of my childhood

Danu

Hmm, I never had much sentimental feelings about these things

ACuriousMind

@Danu Oh, I have. I'm not sentimental much otherwise, but when I look, for example, at the warrior figures (from lego and others) I used to play with for hours, epic stories playing out in my head, I wish I could, for some time, go back to that wealth of imagination. Nowadays, they're just plastic figures to me, but back then, they were much more.

Danu

@ACuriousMind Very cute ;)

user1938107

13:49

I noticed some approved edits http://physics.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/56088 , the edits dont seem to make the question clear, such as "
I had a left over a coffee cup this morning, " actually made the grammar worse. Am I missing something or do people randomly accept edits ?

CoilKid

I'm not entirely sure what the edit restrictions are. I know that I am never able to deny an edit. Perhaps I am missing the button, but I don't believe I have the option to say"no".

ACuriousMind

@user1938107 People do randomly approve edits, the "robo-reviewer" problem is well-known and unsolved. Also, there seem to be wildly differing ideas about what constitutes a too minor edit (though that reject option is now gone)

Kyle Kanos

I fixed the edits

@user1938107 Sadly, there are people who don't really read reviews and just approve them

CoilKid

I once had to re-edit my post because the guy doing the editing made a typo while changing my title.

ACuriousMind

@CoilKid It's called "Reject" in the Suggested Edit queue, but I believe reviewing that starts at >1k

CoilKid

13:53

Yup

So I can't

Slightly annoying when the editor makes typos in the editees post.

Kyle Kanos

@ACuriousMind Haha, I did the same exact thing. I saw it was SciFi-Fantasy, so I knew it had to be clean

Danu

16:02

@user1938107 Certainly the latter, regrettably. I try to be slightly critical, but as long as the post is improved somehow I tend to approve. That said, I feel it was a bad decision by the SE-higher-ups to get rid of Too minor

@user1938107 ..and I'm sorry that I slipped up in this case (I was one of the approvers of that edit), I remember seeing the few adjustments he made in the middle of hte post and thinking '...meh, but okay'. Clearly I was wrong ;)

ACuriousMind

@Danu Supposedly the system denies too minor edits itself, and apparently, if you are editing more than 15 or something characters, we should not deny that edit as too minor (which is a reason the invalid edit and custom options have seen a bit more use by me in the last days)

Danu

oh screw that :P I saw one today that only changed don't to do not and shouldn't to should not etc

Also lol what in the heck is that newest question about?!

ACuriousMind

The mathematical relation between quantum tunnelling and gravitational energy is a mystery to me too, I must say.

Danu

I was very tempted to write a snarky reply

ACuriousMind

And what the hell am I supposed to do with an edit that claims to add a missing term from an equation in a book I don't have? I guess that's what Skip was made for...

Danu

16:13

no

Kyle Kanos

@ACuriousMind Check Google Books first, if it's not available certainly use skip

Danu

tell me the book

I probably have it

or access to it

ACuriousMind

@Danu Haha...I'm not that bent on gathering reviewing stats

Danu

;)

ACuriousMind

But as it was Peskin and Schröder, you probably indeed have it

Danu

16:14

certainly

ACuriousMind

Talking about stats, I'm more worried some horrible chain of events will prevent me from completing the Fanatic badge tomorrow

Danu

lololol

Kyle Kanos

I don't think it's there

Danu

already at 250 straight days here

Kyle Kanos

I've got the book, but my 4.27 is different

ACuriousMind

16:17

@Danu I didn't miss a single day since registering :P (tiny voice...that's a good thing, right?)

@KyleKanos Hm...then how did that user think it was there, even writing cf. 4.27 in the comment?

Kyle Kanos

IDK

Maybe it's a different version?

ACuriousMind

Possible, I've no idea how different they are with P&S

Danu

doesnt invariance under edition shifts fall under the symmetry group of QFT?

ACuriousMind

@Danu I think many wish it would, but it has not rigorously been proven.

Danu

@ACuriousMind ...and that's why I'm going to study mathematical physics

ACuriousMind

16:21

Haha...a worthy goal indeed

Danu

There is probably a heuristic argument due to Witten based on the title-text correspondence

ACuriousMind

@Danu I think it says a lot about me that I found that funny :D

Danu

@ACuriousMind In a good way!

My stat mech teacher who works on ST had another nice one

'Witten's work is the first experimental proof of Bose-Einstein condensation in the context of academic referencing'

3

ACuriousMind

That comes on the list of jokes likely to generate blank stares from 99% of humankind, I think :D

I chuckled, nonetheless

Danu

right

I never get to tell anyone these...

Kyle Kanos

16:32

@ACuriousMind: Just checked a classmates copy

It is there

I was looking at their lecture notes that led to the book

ACuriousMind

@KyleKanos That makes sense, and I'm somehow relieved there's not someone going around adding random symbols to equations.

Kyle Kanos

Haha, that would be interesting

Worse if it's a 2k+ rep users whose edits go straight away

ACuriousMind

@KyleKanos I fear that might have given John Rennie or Lubos Motl an April 1st idea...

Danu

17:14

The title of the latest question, Complex Quantum Wave, makes me fear for its content...

Kyle Kanos

It's not that bad

It's a private theory

Non-mainstream, VTC

Danu

I think it's just a restatement of known things

I'm trying to find that great question (with great answers): Why do we need complex numbers

Lubos' answer is relevant here

so I was trying to find that to close as duplicate

Kyle Kanos

Upon actually reviewing it, it is not a private theory

ACuriousMind

...so, now is the time I discover that there is no 5 min grace period for close votes.

Kyle Kanos

@ACuriousMind Yeah, those things are permanent

At least until a week after the last one w/o a close occuring

ACuriousMind

17:18

I mean, I don't have at least a minute to decide "I want to close this thing, but not for the reason I first chose"?

Kyle Kanos

Oh. I'd state it in the comments

Danu

regrettably not

you can flag

Kyle Kanos

That way future reviewers can vote accordingly

Danu

I did this recently

ACuriousMind

I think I'll just pass on this one, I'm still not sure what my exact close reason would be - somehow, that just seems like an unholy-but-not-quite combination of no question detected and check my work.

Danu

17:21

right

Kyle Kanos

Does Lubos disapprove of dark matter?

motls.blogspot.com/2014/09/…

Or is it just the particular ~TeV-massed ones?

Danu

I don't think he's anti DM

Kyle Kanos

That's what's confusing me about his blog post because it seems sorta anti-DM-ish

Oooooo

I see now

He's saying, "For you non-DM-believing few, try explaining this N facts we've observed that are readily explained by DM"

Danu

Oh by the way people, very strange question (perhaps), but I've been dying to know: Who is the mysterious Italian theoretician that promised to cut off one of his balls if LHC did not find any SUSY?

Kyle Kanos

@Danu I thought that was just a joke

Danu

17:33

He must've said it in jest

but who was it?!

Kyle Kanos

I wonder if the guy had the testicular fortitude to do it

Danu

well he doesn't have to quite yet

Kyle Kanos

@Danu Yes he does

Danu

Is it all 100% over at LHC?

I didn't know that haha

Kyle Kanos

It's not 100%

But it's a nail away from the coffin

Danu

17:34

right

not quite yet ;D

Kyle Kanos

As I understand it, the superpartner masses are just too heavy to solve any of the problems that SUSY was supposed to solve

Danu

I really want SUSY to be true aesthetically/philosophically

Kyle Kanos

I guess I'm indifferent enough about it that I don't care

Danu

I don't actually know the theory though

but I bet it's beautiful

Kyle Kanos

I'm soooo close to 10k

CoilKid

17:42

Sorry to interrupt, but does anyone have any keywords to look for when talking about photons? (To distinguish between real and virtual ones?)

An answer of mine has 2 downvotes because the OP was talking abut virtual photons.

Kyle Kanos

@CoilKid On our site? You can take a look at the Search Tips page:

physics.stackexchange.com/help/searching

Danu

the search function of SE isn't that great

CoilKid

Well, I was just looking at "new"

and this one on photons comes up.

Danu

the right way to do it is to use site:physics.stackexchange.com in googling

CoilKid

But it looked like it was about real photons

Seriously, I still can't what he's talking about. How would the search help?

*still can't tell

ACuriousMind

17:48

@CoilKid What question is it?

CoilKid

Ummm.

-2

A: How do charged particles interact?

By trading photons? I'm not sure if I missed something everybody else knows, but an electron(-) stays near a proton(+) because opposites attract. Unless you meant, the photon emitted by an electron moving into a lower energy shell, interacting with the electrons of another atom. To answer some ...

ACuriousMind

@KyleKanos Just 4 days of hitting the rep cap ;)

CoilKid

Sorry, linked my answer not the question

1

Q: How do charged particles interact?

You'll have to forgive me if this question is too wrapped up in "classical" thinking. I've read that electrons and protons interact by trading photons, but this only raises more questions. What determines the energy and direction of the emitted photon? How often can a particle emit a photon? How...

Was it rude of me to start off like that?

With my answer?

Kyle Kanos

@ACuriousMind Yeah, pretty much

CoilKid

sigh

Kyle Kanos

17:51

I hit 154 yesterday and 90 today

ACuriousMind

@CoilKid It is not your fault, but anyone familiar with the popularisation of the concept of (EM) interaction in QFTs can tell that the OP is confused about the (often carelessly thrown about) statement Charged particles interact by exchanging (virtual) photons

CoilKid

Ah, right. Okay. Well, I guess its my fault I thought he was talking about non-virtual particles

hwlau

21:48

@Danu Can you elaborate a bit moreon that?

Danu

@hwlau the joke is that he attracts immensely many citations

hwlau

oh, so it is a joke?

Danu

just like the particles in a B-E condensate all occupy the ground state

yes

hwlau

I don't get it

Danu

Witten never researched B-E condensates, as far as I know ;)

hwlau

21:50

ic :)

Danu

Witten is an immensely famous researcher

he is famous to the point of people citing him just because it's Witten

so he attracts citations, like the particles in a B-E condensate all tend to fall into the ground state

hwlau

So he is not experimental physicist ;)

@Danu The citation count should follow exactly the BEC statistics. Someone might have proved it

Danu

@hwlau You really haven't heard of him?!

Edward Witten

Edward Witten (/ˈwɪtən/; born August 26, 1951) is an American theoretical physicist and professor of mathematical physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Witten is a researcher in string theory, quantum gravity, supersymmetric quantum field theories, and other areas of mathematical physics. In addition to his contributions to physics, Witten's work has significantly impacted pure mathematics. In 1990 he became the first and so far only physicist to be awarded a Fields Medal by the International Mathematical Union. In 2004, Time magazine stated that Witten was widely...

hwlau

scholar.google.ca/citations?user=30JcgzcAAAAJ&hl=en

Danu

and his papers/citations: inspirehep.net/author/profile/E.Witten.1

right

so many >2k citation papers

over 100k citations

hwlau

21:58

@Danu I should know his name from some papers. But yes, I don't know who he is/his background. Nor I didn't hear my college talk about him.

Danu

I guess the worlds of experimental and theoretical physicists are really not the same in all respects...

hwlau

I am not experimentalist

but I agree with your statement

user54412

22:18

Trying to answer GR questions is stressful, mostly because I know that by the time I've written an answer, at least 3 other answers will have been posted and I'll have nothing worth adding.

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