The h Bar

@BernardMeurer I do solemnly swear that I shall never, ever (repeat ad infinitum) ever share my private key with anyone, not even my imaginary friend or parents

Bernard Meurer

@Mew How is that meaningful here?

Swapnil Das

@Mew How's your site?

Bernard Meurer

@heather Very good

Mew

it's easier

Bernard Meurer

2:09 PM

@ACuriousMind Good idea

@Mew hotmail isn't encrypted afaik

heather

::reading::

Mew

I just wonder what secret messages you are sending to each other

Bernard Meurer

and if it is it's some proprietary bullcrap

Mew

that needs to be encrypted

@SwapnilDas that site is going well it has 40 questions now

heather

if you know, they wouldn't be secret, would they? =P

Swapnil Das

2:10 PM

Great.

All answered?

Mew

most are

heather

eesh

that's long

@BernardMeurer, so wait, is this the thing that will be broken as soon as quantum computers get big enough? is this RSA encryption, or another type?

Bernard Meurer

Now, your first mission is:
1. Give me your public key (`gpg -k`)
2. Using my public key encrypt me a message

Yep, this is RSA

Mew

@heather there quantum cryptography protocoles that can be used then however

Bernard Meurer

The best we currently have

heather

2:12 PM

okay

Mew

that can check fo easedropping

heather

::goes to check public key::

Swapnil Das

@Mew I might be adding some more, and they'll be hard. Be ready.

Mew

@SwapnilDas excellent

I probably won't be the one answering the questions (too busy)

heather

@BernardMeurer, should I share it here, or via unencrypted email...?

Mew

2:12 PM

but I'm sure3 someone will

Bernard Meurer

Your public key can be public :)

heather

oh...duh

Swapnil Das

I'm doing that probably in Late December. Near 20s

Mew

ok

heather

wait...@BernardMeurer, my private and public key look the same...

Mew

2:14 PM

so if we know your public key, we can deduce your private key

now that you have revealed that info to us

Swapnil Das

Lol

Bernard Meurer

@heather You sure?

heather

I haven't revealed that info too you guys @Mew

Bernard Meurer

gpg --list-secret-keys

heather

@BernardMeurer, yes, I'm sure

Bernard Meurer

2:15 PM

@Mew Stop being stupid

Mew

@BernardMeurer make me

Bernard Meurer

@heather Uhhh, is it exactly the same or just similar?

heather

exactly the same, neither is too long

Bernard Meurer

That's impossible

heather

so i double-checked every character

and they're the same

Bernard Meurer

2:16 PM

OH GOD

ACuriousMind

lol, heather broke gpg

Bernard Meurer

I FORGOT

@ACuriousMind DELET MY MESSAGE

WITH THE PUB KEY

OH GOD

Manolis Lyviakis

does any1 know a good interractive math forum for undergrad lvl?

Bernard Meurer

FUCk

heather

?

Bernard Meurer

2:16 PM

ILL BE BACK

ACuriousMind

lol

heather

@ManolisLyviakis, math.se

Bernard Meurer

I HAVE TO REENCRYPT EVERYTHING

Mew

chill out dude

ACuriousMind

@BernardMeurer done

heather

2:17 PM

@BernardMeurer, you shared your other key, didn't you...?

Bernard Meurer

Jesus

Yes, lol

oh gosh

tsk tsk

lol

Making a new pair, I forgot I didn't have my aliases here

Manolis Lyviakis

2:18 PM

i dont understand the language

:P

@heather

heather

@ManolisLyviakis, what do you mean?

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis it is English

Manolis Lyviakis

math.se

heather

@ManolisLyviakis, you can ask any level of question on there...

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis don't you have google translate

ACuriousMind

2:19 PM

@ManolisLyviakis Uh, don't you mean Mathematics?

Manolis Lyviakis

??

ACuriousMind

That there is a link to some...Swedish homepage, I think

heather

i'm very confused about your problem right now

Manolis Lyviakis

i need a good interactive math forum for undergrad lvl to keep my motivation high this one here is more like question-answer site

heather

$Mathematics$ Mathematics

Associated with Math.SE; for both general discussion & math qu...

12

38

^math chat room

Manolis Lyviakis

2:20 PM

ye ok agreed

but the topics oten are high lvl

often are*

heather

in the chatroom?

Manolis Lyviakis

and sometimes i just wanna see a topic that i havent thought of

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis ok how about scale free topological networks?

heather

no, sometimes they discuss highschool level stuff w/ me, and you'll see all sorts of interesting conversations on there

Swapnil Das

@ManolisLyviakis like?

Mew

2:21 PM

that can be intersting

heather

@ManolisLyviakis

you definitely want the chatroom

Manolis Lyviakis

scale free topological networks? hahaha

Mew

yes

you know it already?

you want harder?

Manolis Lyviakis

i thought more like differential geometry

Mew

oh

Manolis Lyviakis

2:21 PM

no i want easier :P

Mew

na scale free topological networks is easy, don't judge a topic by it's name

that is to scare off the masses and for donating money

hahahaha

Lol.

lol

btw im a big fan of kenshin @mew

Mew

2:22 PM

yeah it's awesome hey

Manolis Lyviakis

@Mew

Swapnil Das

@ManolisLyviakis Which yr student?

heather

@ACuriousMind I think instead of having a normal shadow, I have compiler, interpreter, and linux errors

Manolis Lyviakis

im on my last year

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis did you know that if you take a random group of numbers say the populations of each country

Swapnil Das

2:23 PM

Ohk. Thanks.

Mew

then most of the numberts will start with the number 1

and the next most common starting number is 2

heather

eesh, all of you guys are so far ahead of me

Mew

and then 3 and so forth

Manolis Lyviakis

im a greek so ehre universities are 4 years standard time

ohh

no i didnt

Swapnil Das

Same in India.

Mew

2:24 PM

yes it applies to random numbers where the numbers can be over several orders of mangitude

Manolis Lyviakis

wtf

why

Swapnil Das

I'm -3 year UG.

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis it is Benford's law en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford's_law

it can be explained by thinking about exponentials

ACuriousMind

@heather Well, in this case, you apparently just made @BernardMeurer post his private key and didn't do anything wrong as such :D

Manolis Lyviakis

there are 11 numbers that start with each number

for the first 100 numbers

shoudnt be equal or something?

Mew

2:25 PM

@ManolisLyviakis yes you'd think at first glance that each nubmer should have an equla chance

Bernard Meurer

I revoked the old key

heather

@ACuriousMind, yeah, but I think I still kind of messed up creating my own keys =)

Mew

but this doesn't apply when considering random numbers that can span over multiple orders of magnitude

such as heights of animals

Manolis Lyviakis

ohh

Bernard Meurer

And assigned a new one to the things

Mew

2:26 PM

or populations

Manolis Lyviakis

you mea

Bernard Meurer

phew

Mew

or bank accounts

because

Manolis Lyviakis

$2^2^2$

$$2^2^2$$

heather

@BernardMeurer, close call

Mew

2:27 PM

it's because any quantity that increase exponentially, e.g $e^{kx}$

heather

@ManolisLyviakis, to get mathjax, use the link in the top right where it says "for mathjax, see..."

Mew

will increase more rapidliy as the number increases

and thus most time will be spent at say 100

but then less time at 200

and then less time at 300 (because it is bigger now ti increases faster)

Manolis Lyviakis

i got mathjax

heather

hmm, why isn't the $2^2^2$ showing up properly...

$2^2$

Manolis Lyviakis

dont know

heather

2:28 PM

oh, wait

$2^{2^2}$

Manolis Lyviakis

i can see urs

heather

got it

$2^{2^2}$ @ManolisLyviakis

Manolis Lyviakis

how?

ohh

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis so do you understand that for say an increasing quantity, most time is spent at 100, then less at 200 and less at 300

(if it's increasing exponentially that is)

Manolis Lyviakis

most time spent?

Bernard Meurer

2:29 PM

There

is this physics?

My new public key

what...!?

@ManolisLyviakis no it's maths

it's benford's law

heather

that's a looooong key

Manolis Lyviakis

2:29 PM

what does in math mean most time spent?

heather

mine's only 10-15 characters

but then, something's obviously messed up with mine

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis "time spent" is an example to illustrate the conept, but the concept applies to even scenarios without time (e.g populations, money etc.)

Bernard Meurer

That's your private key

try and do

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis so just to illustrate the example first, suppose the number of bacteria is increasing at an exponential rate

Manolis Lyviakis

ohhhhhh

Bernard Meurer

2:30 PM

sudo apt-get install kgpg

Manolis Lyviakis

i got it

Bernard Meurer

It's a neat little GUI

Mew

Then the number of time the population spends at 100-200 is more thatn 200 to 300, and similarly the time spent from 1000-2000 is more than time spent from 2000-3000

Manolis Lyviakis

suppose i have an exponential function it is more possible to give nummbers starting with 1

Mew

exactly

@ManolisLyviakis now if we have some quantity that spans multiple orders of mangitude (e.g. height of animals, bank accounts etc.)

Manolis Lyviakis

2:31 PM

yeah but that is not the possibilty of picking random numbers

Mew

then this can usually be modelled by exponential function

and thus u are more likely to find 1 as the leading digit

Manolis Lyviakis

yes by any population eatc

ohh im ok with that

heather

@BernardMeurer, installing

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis if I tabulate all the populations of each country

you should see this apply

Manolis Lyviakis

i though u where saying if i start picking numbers

Mew

2:32 PM

(or maybe populations by city is better for greater sample size)

Bernard Meurer

Oh god I almost had a heart attack

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis no it has to be numbers that have some meaning

Manolis Lyviakis

random numbers i get more with 1 leading digit

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis if I take the GDP of many countries you should see the same pattern

Manolis Lyviakis

yes

Bernard Meurer

2:32 PM

@heather In the meantime gpg --armor --export [EMAIL] is what you use to export your pubkey

Manolis Lyviakis

exponential growth

ohh

still its really cool

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis and note that this relates to "scale free topology" too

which one day you may understand :)

heather

but i thought my pubkey wasn't right because it's the same as my private key..? @BernardMeurer

Manolis Lyviakis

haha i almost thought it was some magical unexplained numberish weird thing

and got me more excited hahaha

heather

package installed

Mew

2:33 PM

@ManolisLyviakis many people do think it is (even mathematicians sometimes don't grasp it)

and when it was discovered peopel thought this too

and then the explanation came about later

Manolis Lyviakis

but it is not the same thing as picking random numbers

ohhh

they treated the numbers as random

so no explanation

Bernard Meurer

@heather Run that command, you'll see your correct pubkey

It's huge

heather

okay

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis they looked at random numbers like GDP by state

Bernard Meurer

then just copy and paste it here

Manolis Lyviakis

2:34 PM

ye

which is not hahaha

Mew

and saw it started with a 1 more often

exactly

Manolis Lyviakis

so cool

nice to know

heather

goodness, that's huge!

Mew

@ManolisLyviakis any quantity that spans multiple orders of magngitude should be roughly distributed exponentially

Manolis Lyviakis

math exhange should have an add button for friending

Mew

2:35 PM

yeah

heather

will I get an email with it, or...? because I can't copy and paste between the linux and chrome sides of my computer

Manolis Lyviakis

so we could have more talks like this one

heather

one moment, I'll figure out a way

Mew

yea

i gtg now it's getting late here in Aus

Bernard Meurer

Oh, then just use kgpg

heather

2:36 PM

@ManolisLyviakis, math chatroom = like hbar

Bernard Meurer

it can export to an email

heather

okay, just type kgpg?

Mew

but if you type @Mew in this chat I'll usually see it within a day or so

laterz all

Bernard Meurer

Yeah, it's a program like chrome or anything else

it's a gui

heather

"session d-bus connection created before QCoreApplication. Application may misbehave."

Bernard Meurer

2:38 PM

Did it open anyway?

heather

no

=/

Bernard Meurer

Then kill it and try again

It did that to me too

heather

kill it?

ACuriousMind

"Application may misbehave"...naughty application!

2

heather

like, exit out of the terminal?

Bernard Meurer

2:39 PM

crtl+c

heather

doesn't seem to be working

maybe i'm just doing it wrong

Bernard Meurer

Nah, it didn't work a couple times for me too

run htop

press F3

search for kgpg

if you find it press F9

then 9, and enter

this will kill the process

heather

wait, so i ran htop and pressed F3

and now i'm in a new menu

and not sure where to look for kgpg

Bernard Meurer

Hm

heather

there's a "meters", "display options", "colors", "columns", and then submenus for each

Bernard Meurer

2:46 PM

That's F2 menu

press F10 to go back

heather

ah, okay, i think i did it now

do i exit htop, then, and try running it again?

Bernard Meurer

Yep

heather

it gave the same error

Bernard Meurer

Why are you starting it from the commandline?

heather

i thought i was supposed too

i just got it to run though

Bernard Meurer

2:52 PM

Sigh

Oh

Yay :)

heather

=)

Bernard Meurer

Idk what's up with it, guess it needs a patch

heather

"Welcome to the kgpg assistant!"

do I just follow it's instructions?

*its

Bernard Meurer

Yep

Qmechanic

4

Q: What is a manifold?

For complete dummies when it comes to space-time, what is a manifold and how can space-time be modelled using these concepts?

Thoughts on whether to migrate to Math.SE or not? It already has at least one migrated duplicate on Math.SE. Perhaps we should concede that this question is going to be asked over & over on Phys.SE in the future. So we might as well keep this question on Phys.SE as a (should we say) 'bookmark'.

heather

2:55 PM

do i "generate new key" or "start kgpg automatically at kde startup"? @BernardMeurer

Bernard Meurer

@heather Export your PGP key

No, use the one you generated already

and don't autostart it

On the list you should see your key there

heather

okay, i think i have it set up now

@Qmechanic, isn't it a bit inconsistent to leave it here?

Bernard Meurer

@heather Export your pubkey then

ACuriousMind

@Qmechanic Since it would be duplicate, migration seems inappropriate. However, keeping it also seems inappropriate after we migrated the exact same question over to math.SE in the past.

Bernard Meurer

@heather Export to some keyserver, tell me which

ACuriousMind

2:59 PM

I would prefer to close it as off-topic, stating a duplicate already exists at math, but I most of all would prefer some close voters from the community do that instead of mod action

Mathematics

Transcript for

$Mathematics$ Mathematics