The h Bar

0celo7

00:02

@ACuriousMind You should type those up.

ACuriousMind

@0celo7 Yeah, not gonna do them soon, though. Currently, my coursework exhausts most of my motivation to do thinky stuff

0celo7

@ACuriousMind I have plenty of other stuff to do before QoGS.

I start at the Senate tomorrow.

Can't wait for 2+ hours of train rides.

ACuriousMind

@0celo7 You bringing reading along for those rides?

0celo7

@ACuriousMind You bet.

Kyle Kanos

02:03

0

Q: Calculating Heat Loss of Urine with Multiple Variables

Before anyone judges or comes to any conclusions I am really just interested in the mathematics of the physics behind this, experimentally I can figure it. I have tried to look for a standard equation for heat transfer and basically came up way more confused than when i started. I am clearly ou...

Seriously?

skill patrol

02:35

now that's what i call pissing around :-)

Kyle Kanos

12:36

Last comment in the thread I posted above (now deleted, so only 10k+ & mods):

> I have a law degree. I didn't come here for legal opinions. This thread is definately explaining to me what Physicists don't know about everything outside of Physics.

I am reminded of the Gorilla Warfare copypaste (warning: lots of "colorful" language in link)

Jim the Enchanter

14:32

Attention all, Jims Bond has been chosen as my new name. This also means my profile pic will be reverting back to the old one

Kyle Kanos

You're welcome ;)

Jim the Enchanter

@KyleKanos Thank you?

Kyle Kanos

I noticed you updated the post with something to the effect of "next time something over takes I'll change it" so I un-upvoted the Enchanter and upvoted (since I hadn't yet) the Bond one

Jim the Enchanter

Ah, I assumed that was HDE, since they commented to alert me to it. In that case, thank you

user 5061

15:01

How could i make this question https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/189566/most-radioactive-objects-in-a-students-room on topic again?

I mean.. i m merely looking for a couple of the most notably radioactive objects inside a typical room. If i try to answer my own question (which i can if i invest time in it) i can name 5 objects and their radioactivity per gram. Is it really that broad? If so what makes it broad?

Jims Bond

Depending on how many objects there are, this question is asking for many short answers. I assume users voted it to be too broad because they anticipate it generating, say, ten or more short answers. But if the answer could be made a community wiki that everyone contributes to, that would probably remove the issue

If you could answer with the 5 objects you refer to and make it a community wiki answer, that might start off the process. I'd be happy to vote to reopen in that case

Kyle Kanos

One of the deleted answers has this to say:

> To me,the question has far too many variables, I don't even know of a "typical" teenager:).

That's how it's too broad & why I voted to close

Jims Bond

Issues like that can be edited out of the question

Kyle Kanos

Basically you're asking, "Make up any room you want with anything in it and tell me what is the most radioactive thing there!"

Jims Bond

We can say common household items

Kyle Kanos

15:12

Even then, it's still a list-based question

List the n most radioactive items found in a house/room

Jims Bond

There's no specific rule against those, is there?

Kyle Kanos

Sure there is:

16

Q: Good list, bad list

The Stack Exchange model does not work well for "big list" questions, and these are banned network-wide for good reason. However, many of the other stack exchange sites allow or even encourage list questions that do not fall under the "big list" category. On the other hand, Physics.SE currently ...

discussion policy books

One of the listed problems is This is a Q&A site, and as such a list item is not an "answer"

Jims Bond

Ok then, this is a bad question

user 5061

Ok so, how many items can you come up with? I can think of food (bananas), old watches with radium, new ones with tritium.. the human body..

Most of them are already listed (one at a time... for some reason).

Kyle Kanos

Kitty litter (clay in it has uranium & thorium)

user 5061

15:18

Hmm never had a cat, but.. is a kids room the appropriate room for that? Also, thats 5 total so far.

Kyle Kanos

well pretty much anything that contains clay or rock will contain some radioactive materials

Jims Bond

And anything living has C-14 and probably some potassium isotopes

ACuriousMind

The skull used for satanic rituals might have strontium-90 in it.

user 5061

Well, i assume pretty much everything has radioactive isotopes

which indeed makes it look too broad.

Jims Bond

Don't forget that teens usually have AC/DC or metallica, etc albums. Many heavy metals are radioactive

Kyle Kanos

15:22

user 5061

However, some can easily be distinguished from others (radium or paint),

hahahaha

Jims Bond

@KyleKanos That's the best response I could have hoped for. Now I am happy

user 5061

As for the Good-bad list post.. 2: No, 5: yes, 6: yes and the rest undefined.

(meant to say radium or tritium* paint)

user 5061

15:42

What if i remove the word "most" and instead i ask of some examples?

Cause i think that if i had asked a question like:

"My teacher told me that human body is the most radiactive object in my room. Is that true?"

i would definitely get someone giving me an example other (more) radioactive objects.

Kind of ironic.

Icosahedron

@0celo7 math.toronto.edu/vschlue/grt.pdf

That's the course that uses Wald and HE.

user 5061

Kind of ironic how i can get the very same answer i m looking for, by changing my question to that.

Emilio Pisanty

17:17

OMG, somebody has much, much, much too much time on their hands

129.81.170.14/~vhm/Table.html

> The table of integrals by Gradshteyn and Ryzhik is one of the most widely used ones.
It is our goal to present proofs of these formulas and put them in some context.

Jims Bond

17:57

I don't think your answer or comments have any basis in reality. — Kyle Kanos 16 mins ago

Hard to be more succinct

Kyle Kanos

The air = many bubbles did it for me

Jims Bond

The lightning = stress fractures in air did it for me

innisfree

18:36

@EmilioPisanty in the age of mathematica, is there still a need for those sorts of integral tables anyway

Jims Bond

@innisfree Let me guess, next you'll be questioning the need for abacuses too?

innisfree

haha. i guess there are things mathematica can't do...

gonenc

@innisfree do people use mathematica, for which you have to pay something like 190 gbt, or is it just a short cut name for a computer algebra program?

Kyle Kanos

People use mathematica

Otherwise there wouldn't be a Mathematica.SE:

innisfree

@gonenc You haven't mentioned option 3: people use Mathematica and don't pay 190 gbt for a license

gonenc

18:43

But why? What makes it superior to other programs

?

@innisfree How would that be possible?

Kyle Kanos

@gonenc Some get it for free from their university

gonenc

besides piracy

@KyleKanos hmm that would be nice if I enrolled in a university :)

innisfree

I suspect that it's massively pirated

Kyle Kanos

You'd have to find a university that actually gives a free-to-use license, rather than a only-on-the-university-wifi license

I got Matlab for free because of the free-to-use license

NeuroFuzzy

@KyleKanos found one! ^^

innisfree

18:45

@Kyle but you could ssh into the university network anyway

Kyle Kanos

@innisfree True, but once you graduate & your credentials are lost, so is Mathematica

Not so with my Matlab, muahahaha!

Of course, Octave works just as well as Matlab and is even more free

innisfree

mathematica is the undisputed champion of computer algebra packages. afaik it doesn't have any serious rivals.

Kyle Kanos

Maxima?

Sage?

gonenc

wxmaxima indeed

:)

Kyle Oman

@KyleKanos "Octave works just as well as Matlab" which is to say not particularly well?

Kyle Kanos

18:47

@innisfree WolframAlpha ;)

gonenc

I use it for all my labour work so to speak :D

NeuroFuzzy

@KyleKanos Now (and keep in mind I'm a mathematica fanboy) you're just making things up. Wolframalpha is terrible compared to mathematica.

You can't do so many things!

Kyle Kanos

@KyleOman Matlab works pretty well for its intended purposes; trying things beyond that is when frustration overtakes functionality

gonenc

@KyleOman I think it means it works almost exactly like Matlab and free both as in free beer and free speech

Kyle Kanos

@NeuroFuzzy That last one was for humor's sake.

NeuroFuzzy

18:48

@KyleKanos Oh. Just checking :)

Kyle Kanos

But I am serious about Maxima (and its variants) and Sage as competitors to Mathematica

NeuroFuzzy

I'm too much of a mathematica fanboy to have a sensible conversation about other competing languages.

Jims Bond

I got my Mathematica license from my university. Still have it almost a year after graduation. Don't tell anybody, I want to see how long it stays valid

Also, Maple is a pretty handy symbolic math program

Not as good as Mathematica, but it works when you need it to

gonenc

BTW I think mathematica connects to the internet to run the calculations is it so?

NeuroFuzzy

@0celo7 Newton's cannon! $\infty$ points to whoever can tell me what this image is supposed to be plus.google.com/+JonLawhead/posts/…

0celo7

18:57

Slugs

Kyle Oman

seals?

gonenc

@NeuroFuzzy Faces of dogs?

at least in some places

NeuroFuzzy

Yeah I would have said a seal/dog... biomass?

Kyle Kanos

@NeuroFuzzy This might be worth a read: ask.sagemath.org/question/8583/…

(Though a little old, so info might be a little dated)

user54412

19:13

@JimsBond One of Mathematica's university licenses explicitly allows those with it to keep the software forever. You're just not entitled to upgrades, or to reinstall it on new machines (so you're basically limited by the lifetime of the hard drive).

user54412

@gonenc Often it connects to a license server to see if you're paying your dues, and it can connect to download packages/data on the fly, but the calculations are generally local.

Jims Bond

@ChrisWhite That could be what I have. If so, then I can live with that

Icosahedron

@0celo7 Did you look at the notes?

@NeuroFuzzy I'm sure everyone noticed this already though there is a small town and two people on a small vehicle, with their friends, in the bottom left.

Emilio Pisanty

@innisfree I'm a perfectly happy user of Gradshteyn and Ryzhik. Still perfectly current even in the age of Mathematica. But this guy has twenty five papers going over the integrals and proving them, just because they're there.

0celo7

19:28

@Icosahedron At work.

Icosahedron

@0celo7 You don't want to be seen reading GR lecture notes while at work.

0celo7

I'm scared to log onto SE on a gov't PC.

ACuriousMind

@0celo7 You probably should only visit politics.SE there :P

Jims Bond

@0celo7 Gov't is all about wasting time. They'll probably promote you for finding such a productive way to be appropriately unproductive

0celo7

It's my first day, I literally have nothing to do.

user54412

19:35

Sounds like most days in most internships.

Icosahedron

@0celo7 How long will you be there?

0celo7

@Icosahedron Long enough for you to finish Shankar.

Icosahedron

The race is on.

0celo7

You have till 5:30 EST.

@JimsBond I'm more worried about logging into a website that might be internally blacklisted.

Jims Bond

@0celo7 If they don't want you using it, they would block it. But why would they not want you logging into a site known for helping to solve work-related problems?

0celo7

19:53

Someone got fired for editing wiki.

Kyle Kanos

Hmm, seems rational to not want to use SE on a gov't PC then

Icosahedron

@0celo7 Most likely for the same reason why every school is IP blocked from editing wikipedia.

skill patrol

20:19

Really? That's interesting.

0celo7

20:50

@Icosahedron Why is that?

Icosahedron

@0celo7 mischief duh

vzn

21:24

A Private View of Quantum Reality on Fuchs/ QBism interpretation, wired mag

> Christopher Fuchs is the developer and main proponent of QBism, an alternative interpretation of quantum mechanics that treats the quantum wave function as a reflection of ignorance.

NeuroFuzzy

21:46

@Icosahedron Oh wow. I didn't see that. So it's clearly a large seal-dog eldritch horror blob crushing a building in front of helpless witnesses.

dmckee

22:44

@vzn Can't say I've ever taken the time to learn how supports think that differs from a hidden variables model. Is there a short-short version?

vzn

@dmckee QBism is based on bayesianism & the idea that probabilities may represent knowledge vs physical reality. not familiar with it myself but seems step in the right direction.

my short elevator pitch for value of QM interpretations (amongst this tough crowd) is that something in it is likely hinting/ pointing to new, objectively real physics. & whoever figures out the details will be the next generation of heroes who get nobel(s).

&, some ppl working in/ esconced/ drenched in science seemingly sometimes (amidst/ steeped in the current dominant paradigm) forget the meaning of the word research...

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