The h Bar

Slereah

06:00

PHP? No, not at all

It's barely a programming language and it's really poorly done

I mean it's fine if you need to do a website

Sir Cumference

hmm...would you say JS is worth learning for fun?

I know it well, but I'd like to hear your opinion

Slereah

Well

I have laughed at JS a lot

Sir Cumference

OK, what's a good/useful language to learn on my spare time?

Slereah

APL is the best, obviously

Cows

If you laugh at Js, it is because you have not done real js

John Rennie

06:02

@SirCumference for fun or for the job prospects?

Cows

I bet you have not done real php either

Slereah

Ahahah

Someone's sour

Sir Cumference

@JohnRennie Well, I'm not too focused on getting a job, but mainly something I can make use of on my own now

Cows

You probably have the knowledge of a baby

programming wise

Sir Cumference

For example, I use JS all the time to make userscripts

Cows

06:03

none of you are coders

John Rennie

@SirCumference C#

Slereah

I've got a degree in it :^)

Cows

I don't care

Slereah

Doing actual coding, that is

Cows

you have baby coding skills

Slereah

06:03

Not doing websites

Cows

I have done real coding stuff

Sir Cumference

@Slereah ...

Be glad you have a chat to write that on

Cows

I don't just code sites and you know what real sites are harder to code than any cs thing youve done

I'd know

because i've done both for companies

Slereah

Ahahah

My sides

Cows

@Slereah i know it is hard to believe bu JS is the hardest language to master

John Rennie

06:05

Few of the people I know who work in the industry would agree that Javascript is a well designed language.

Sir Cumference

@Cows what

Cows

functional programming is hard

it is not a joke

Slereah

Ahahah

He thinks JS is even close to a functional programming language

Cows

you need to know a lot of stuff

Sir Cumference

@Slereah >_>

Cows

06:06

forget C, and assembly bull **\

Sir Cumference

I don't know what he's on about with "JS is the hardest language to master", but...

Cows

promises, prototypes, currying etc

Sir Cumference

jesus, the hate for JS here is real

Slereah

Yes, I've programmed in LISP before

I know what a functional language is

Cows

programming patterns etc

are you kidding me

when was the last time you wrote some hard core code?

Sir Cumference

06:07

@JohnRennie Because it only has "var" and "let" (both of which are incredibly similar)?

Slereah

Last year

I was writing neural networks

Cows

well then stay quiet then

Sir Cumference

@Cows Chill

Cows

nenenene js is easy. . . please

Sir Cumference

@Cows It is a good language for beginners imo

Cows

06:07

hehe

John Rennie

@SirCumference JS was originally designed as a quick and easy method of providing extra functionality to web pages, so no great thought was given to its construction.

Cows

@SirCumference omg are you high

you must be so old

Slereah

Wew lad

Sir Cumference

I'm...18

Slereah

I'm having quite a giggle

Cows

06:08

people like you hailed the oop because it solved the diamond problem

this is 2017

make no mistake about it

Slereah

I never cared much for OOP

John Rennie

Everyone was taken by surprise by the extraordinary growth of the web and the use of JS, and it (and the DOM) have grown in a rather uncontrolled way. Hence the mess it's in.

Slereah

I mean it has its use

Sir Cumference

Dude are you gonna support your claim that it's a difficult language?

Slereah

But I never cared for using it for everything like some people

Cows

06:09

yes

Sir Cumference

Was it your first?

Cows

@SirCumference it is the string theory coding

Sir Cumference

That makes a difference

Cows

I learne C, C++, Java, and then I went pro.

I learned LAMP

Sir Cumference

@Cows C is lame

Cows

06:10

them MEAN

then MEARN

Slereah

C is alright

It's fine for programming close to the machine

None of that garbage collection or whatever else

John Rennie

@Cows I'm beginning to wonder if you are deliberately provoking the other chat members for your own amusement. If so please stop.

Slereah

A poor tactic, I would say

Cows

no I am a Full stack web dev

Slereah

Pretending to be dumb is not the best method of trolling

John Rennie

06:11

@Kaumudi.H morning :-)

Cows

I am serious as a heart attack

Sir Cumference

@Kaumudi.H Howdy :)

John Rennie

@Cows you are a few more posts away from a suspension. Take note.

Sir Cumference

@Cows That's...screwed up

John Rennie

Cool it guys.

Cows

06:12

@JohnRennie I am sorry, quite passionate about code

user228700

Morning, folks! :-)

Cows

programming convos can be heated

Slereah

The best language is obviously INTERCAL

user228700

Reporting to you from God's own country.

John Rennie

@Cows all of us have our interests, that we are passionate about, and that's a good thing. But it isn't a reason to pick a fight.

@Kaumudi.H you're in England!!!

Slereah

06:14

Well yes, India is part of Her Majesty's Domain

Sir Cumference

@Slereah HQ9+ is best language

John Rennie

@Slereah erm ... :-)

Slereah

The best language is the one I wrote

esolangs.org/wiki/Lazy_Bird

Cows

@Slereah nice! :D

Sir Cumference

@Slereah I'd like to know your inspiration

Slereah

06:16

Although I still would like to implement that one, someday

esolangs.org/wiki/%CE%9B%CE%B9%CE%BC%CF%80

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H God's own country with a slightly intermittent internet connection?:-)

Slereah

@SirCumference the inspirations are literaly in the first line

Sir Cumference

Wow

I am illoiterate

user228700

@JohnRennie Yes. I was just trying to set up my mum's hotspot :-)

Yashas

How do I convince someone about the usefulness of hyperbolic functions to solve integrals?

Slereah

06:18

Find an integral with a solution that's a hyperbolic function

Cows

@Slereah all together programming in general is fun. We can all agree on that :P

Slereah

Programming's fairly boring

But I need to eat

Yashas

@Slereah need an example

in JEE Preparation, 46 mins ago, by Kunal Pawar

@Yashas What'd be the relevant portion of hyperbolic functions we'll need to simplify integrals?

Slereah

Not much money to be made writing about non-Hausdorff manifolds

Cows

@Slereah I do it to eat too.

I use php artisan to make sites lol

user228700

06:20

Balmy day, here. So much more greenery!

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H Cooler than Chennai?

user228700

@Sir: Dude, are u still writing them exams?

Sir Cumference

@Kaumudi.H Well now I'm studying

Imma pull out the book :)

user228700

@JohnRennie Only by a bit.

Cows

@Slereah have you directly used some of your manifold knowledge in code at some point?

user228700

06:21

@SirCumference Wokay!

Slereah

Not in the slightest

The most math I've ever used for coding was probably when I was doing some machine learning

user228700

@JohnR: BTW, the situation with the hotness of my laptop is escalating.

Slereah

It involved DERIVATIVES and PROBABILITIES

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H I would guess that the cooling fan has failed.

user228700

Gimme a minute, I will try to clean the fan again.

Slereah

06:22

And MATRICES

that's about the maximal amount of math coding requires

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H Let me dig out my laptop to remind myself how the diagnostics work.

Cows

yeah there some math in ml, especially if you have to write your own algorithm and not use a library

I used to code matrix algebra, but now I just use BLAS libraries

user228700

Gosh, when I put my nose next to the fan, it smells like something is burning inside.

Cows

One of the things I have tried to do in my spare time is write some npm packages for ml, but I usually stop short, and read physics instead

Slereah

I hope you're not writing machine learning in JS

It's slow enough as it is in C!

user228700

06:25

...no amount of cleaning is doing the trick :-(

Cows

I know it is pretty slow

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H Is now a good time to try running the diagnostic tests?

Cows

what is the fastest language? lol C I though C was pretty good. People typically prototype in python, and then write in C or Julia lol

user228700

@JohnRennie How much time dyou reckon that'll take?

John Rennie

10 minutes or so

Fawad

06:28

@Kaumudi.H you have exam?

Slereah

Well writing directly in assembly would be the fastest :p

but that is rarely necessary

user228700

Ah, hmm. Never mind, then. We'll do it in two days.

user228700

@Fawad Yep. KEAM.

Slereah

or wise

Compilers are pretty good these days

Cows

omg assembly is the fastest, but what I think people do is that they write the math in assembly but then the rest in C, i think

John Rennie

06:29

@Kaumudi.H OK. You might want to restrict how long you use the laptop for to prevent it getting excessively hot and being damaged.

user228700

Wokay. I'll switch it off in a few, then...

John Rennie

@Cows I doubt hand assembler would provide much gain over a modern compiler.

Slereah

I've got a friend who still does programming for the Amstrad CPC

He has to code everything in assembler

Cows

yeah they are pretty good

Slereah

it's fairly hard to write a program that will hold entirely on a CPC tape

can't use none of those fancy modern languages, that's too much overhead!

Cows

06:36

Well I enjoyed this conversation. I will be heading to bed now :^)

It's 11:36 pm here

Fawad

@Cows you not legend?

paracetamol

Hullo @JohnR o/

@ACuriousMind Aw, come on! It's for my love of (German) History :3

John Rennie

@paracetamol Morning

paracetamol

@JohnRennie So...um... what's for breakfast?

Fruits? :3

John Rennie

Cereal and coffee - very boring.

Yashas

06:50

-2

A: Why does a magnet loose magnetic strength when heated?

The Creator created an object that would divide and recombine as its nature. The structure of each part was such that it would rupture and repulse its other half creating a negative charge on one end and a positive charge on the other end.When the different charged ends would be attracted to ea...

VLQ or NAA or none?

paracetamol

@JohnRennie I don't find that boring :3 (But that would depend on what kind of cereal...and the coffee too ._.)

Fawad

@paracetamol ":3" means?

paracetamol

@JohnR Just curious, do you cook (hobby)? If so, any idea how I can store fresh mint, coriander and parsley for extended periods of time (from a a couple of weeks to a month)?

John Rennie

Freeze them.

paracetamol

@Fawad quora.com/What-does-the-emoticon-3-mean

Slereah

06:54

@0celouvsky does O'neill prove Stoke's theorem at all?

paracetamol

@JohnRennie ...Bu...but...I want them tender when I'm about to use them! :O

John Rennie

@paracetamol There is a cooking stack exchange, and that's pretty good for any questions about food.

Slereah

Mama mia

paracetamol

@JohnRennie I know, I'm already on it ;)

But I'm a rookie there ._.

20

Q: When, if ever, are dried herbs preferable to fresh herbs?

Sometimes I see a recipe call for dried herbs. If I have access to fresh herbs, should I go fresh instead? Is there any benefit in using dried herbs with some recipes?

41

Q: How to Store Fresh Herbs

What is the best way to store fresh herbs like parsley or cilantro? I find I have about the same luck with them whether they are left in a plastic bag or I put them in a cup of water.

storage-method herbs cilantro parsley

John Rennie

@paracetamol Freezing preserves the flavour, but the texture suffers as they go mushy when thawed. That doesn't matter if you're only using the herbs for their flavour and not as a garnish.

paracetamol

06:56

^ Doesn't deal with mint+parsley+coriander :(

John Rennie

Drying removes most of the flavour.

paracetamol

@JohnRennie Hmm...well, I am going for the flavour (I rarely use 'em as garnish)

John Rennie

@paracetamol then freezing is the perfect solution. Add them to the dish directly from the freezer - no ned to thaw.

paracetamol

@JohnRennie Eh? I thought drying concentrates (and alters) the flavour. O_o

@JohnRennie That sounds good to me ^_^

@JohnRennie Wait...so you do cook! ;D

John Rennie

@paracetamol most flavours are terpenes, or terpene derived, and they are volatile to some extent. When you dry herbs the flavour evaporates away along with the water. Dry herbs are a poor shadow of the fresh (or frozen) herb.

paracetamol

07:00

@JohnRennie That sounds... counter-intuitive. Plus, I wasn't aware that "most flavours" are terpene derivatives :( Lemme run this through Google though...

John Rennie

@paracetamol: re the question you linked: drying increases the density of the herb since plants are mostly water. So weight for weight the dry herb contains more of the flavour compounds (the ones that haven't evaporated away).

But we don't usually add herbs by weight. We add them by eye.

paracetamol

@JohnRennie True that^ Which also confirms...that you like to do a spot of cooking!

@JohnRennie Whoa! I ran a cursory Google search and apparently you're right! Herb flavour/aroma is due to terpenes!

[Side note: @JohnR You're the RO here, so... is it bad... like really bad, if I ask non-physiky stuff around here? You keep responding positively, and I end up interpreting that as encouragement ._.]

Secret

Well, I never said they cannot exist, just that we need to treat them with respect. Concepts that we thought are evil are not always evil in all situations, but the more corrupted it is, the more careful we need to have failsafes before using them

Anything that is capable of social influence is a lot more dangerous than any dangerous chemicals, because the impact can spread for many centuries. Take the idea of patriarchy for example, it does result in quite a lot of supression of the females which is why all the feminist movements break out in order to make the world realise that all pe…

paracetamol

Also, someone seems to have hit upon the moth ;)

2

A: Moth that resembles a leaf. What species is this?

It resembles Pelagodes antiquadraria, which belongs to the moth genus Pelagodes in the family Geometridae. Image Source: FlickRiver

John Rennie

@paracetamol there aren't any rules about what can and can't be discussed. It's a room for physicists to chat, not a room for chat about physics. A quick scan through the chat logs will show all sorts of stuff gets discussed :-)

paracetamol

07:09

^ Yes!! \o/

John Rennie

The only thing to watch for is if concentration on a single topic is beginning to annoy other chat members. If that happens it's polite to back off.

@paracetamol yes, I appear to have acquired some haters :-) Oh well ...

paracetamol

So...can I take advantage of my being "an acquaintance" to ping you for random stuff like this? :3

@JohnRennie But...you didn't post an answer there ;P

It was the Striped Tiger Moth answer they were chewing you out for ;)

Secret

Well, the raw dream logs have a lot more, and I have learnt the lesson people get really confused by them, thus upon advice, I cut a lot of them off in the sharing in the chat to make them concise

As for the issue of DailyMail
> In February 2017, the English Wikipedia developed a consensus position rejecting the Daily Mail as being a reliable source for its articles, deeming its reporting to be "generally unreliable".[151][152] Examples of articles where the subject indicated falsehoods in Daily Mail coverage include the articles about the Amanda Knox case, footballers Paul Pogba and Andre…

paracetamol

@JohnRennie Sure, that is if someone explicitly says so (since I'm not good at picking up subtle hints). Also, if you think someone's finding it annoying, and that I don't seem to be getting the message, by all means...tell me quickly before I screw further >_<

^ Radial Probability Distribution curves

Secret

For me, I also have another way to cut down the use of my adjectives: Using screencaps

John Rennie

07:19

@paracetamol Oops yes.

@paracetamol Yes?

Secret

@paracetamol This room is afaik, the only SE room that allow discussion of absolutely any topic (while maths chat have now allow arbitrary discussions, it tends to stay close to the maths theme most of the time)

(No politics though, as they tend to get messy, but that does not stop some of them went through as long it does not cause a flame war)

paracetamol

Why is it that only certain functions (subshells) have a single maximum, while others have multiple maxima? From my High-school chemistry classes, we were taught to picture (for example) the 1s orbital as a spherical-ish sphere, and subsequent s-orbitals as concentric spherical shells. Which led me to believe that the 2s-orbital/function would throw up a zero (probability) where the 1s orbital is located. But according to that graph, that clearly isn't the case ._.

^ What am I missing here?

John Rennie

> 2s-orbital/function would throw up a zero (probability) where the 1s orbital is located

paracetamol

@JohnR Owing to the limited space I have for "single-comments" that question me seema bit...obscure. If so, I'll re-word it over a space of multiple comments ._.

John Rennie

where the 1s orbital is located doesn't make sense. The $1s$ orbital has a non-zero value for every value of $r$ from zero to infinity.

Secret

07:24

Hint: Think about what they are before being absolute squared, and you will understand why there are nodes

paracetamol

@JohnRennie Slaps face

...hard

John Rennie

The $2s$ orbital has one value of $r$ at which it is zero, so the two orbitals share non-zero values everywhere excpet for one value of $r$.

paracetamol

OKAY....crap, stupid question....wasn't thinking clearly >_< Now that both of you (@JohnR @Secret) mention it, well...thanks!

John Rennie

NB those are radial distribution functions so they are $|\psi|^2r^2$ not $|\psi|^2$.

paracetamol

@JohnRennie \o/

John Rennie

07:26

Note the extra factor of $r^2$.

paracetamol

Wait...

> $|\psi|^2r^2$

John Rennie

Yes.

paracetamol

Ponders over that

@JohnRennie Wait, so how does being a radial distribution function account for that factor? O_O

^My books don't seem to mention anything like it ._.

They just go for Psi^2

(Y-axis)

John Rennie

Suppose you consider some infinitesimal volume $dV = dxdydz$ i.e. a cube with sides $dx$, $dy$ and $dz$.

paracetamol

Mmm?

John Rennie

07:29

The the probability of finding the electron inside that cube is $|\pi|^2dV$

paracetamol

Listens attentively

John Rennie

i.e. the probability density $|\psi|^2$ times the volume.

Does that make sense so far?

paracetamol

^ Alright

@JohnRennie Yeah...it does ;)

John Rennie

OK. The radial distribution function shows the probability of finding the electron at a distance $r$

paracetamol

Yep...

Slereah

07:31

Oh no, non-Hausdorff manifolds do not have unique solutions to the geodesic equation!

John Rennie

@paracetamol So our volume element is a spherical shell from $r$ to $r+dr$, because eveywhere in that spherical shell the electron is at a distance $r$.

paracetamol

@Slereah ಠ_ಠ

Slereah

I'm finding a few theorems here and there but it's pretty scattered

I have to use all my googling skills

paracetamol

@JohnRennie So far so good :)

John Rennie

But the volume of a spherical shell is given by its area times $dr$. And the area is $4\pi r^2$ i.e. just the area of a sphere.

Slereah

07:33

Also there is a nice theorem to define the Hausdorff property

John Rennie

So the volume of our spherical shell is $dV = 4\pi r^2 dr$.

paracetamol

@JohnRennie Yeah..

^^ I'm clear so far ^_^

Slereah

A manifold is Hausdorff if $\forall p, q \in M, \exists f \in C^\infty(M), f(p) \neq f(q)$

John Rennie

The probability of findign the electron in the volume element $dV$ is still $|\psi|^2dV$, but our definition of $dV$ has changed. So the probability is now:

$$ P(r) = |\pis|^2 4 \pi r^2 dr $$

Note we have picked up an extra factor of $r^2$

Slereah

"Unfortunately a non-Hausdorff manifold $Q$ need not admit any nonconstant $C^1$ functions or one-forms (Wazewski [59]; [34]). "

paracetamol

07:35

@JohnRennie Gimme a second with this...

Gets a pen and a sheet of paper

Slereah

Damn, that reference is from 1934

I can't find it by googling and it's from a journal called "Mathematica"

I'm gonna need all my google power

paracetamol

@JohnRennie Alright, I'm good...

John Rennie

It happens because as $r$ increases the volume of the spherical shell of thickness $dr$ increases. In effect there are more ways to put the electron at a radius $r$ as $r$ increases.

paracetamol

^ Yeah.

Super attentive

John Rennie

I mention this because you sometimes see graphs of the wavefunction, and you sometimes see graphs of the radial distribution function and it's important to understand the difference.

paracetamol

07:41

@JohnRennie Well, the wave-function curves and the radial prob. distr. curves look pretty different, so I suppose there's no immediate danger of me mixing them up ;P

Slereah

"A regular, simply connected, one dimensional manifold of class $C^r (r\geq 1)$ (possibly non-Hausdorff) admits a $C^r$ function with nowhere vanishing differential."

paracetamol

^^ But I appreciate the "mention", thanks!

John Rennie

@paracetamol on the other hand generations of students have confused themselves by failing to appreciate the difference :-)

paracetamol

@JohnRennie Maybe I'm just lucky? :3

Anyways, do continue :)

15 mins ago, by paracetamol

> $|\psi|^2r^2$

Tickles @JohnR

Secret

Fun fact joke: I can read multiple conversation streams because I am a highly delocalised wavefunction

In particular, most of my posts are nonlocal

John Rennie

07:48

@paracetamol that's it. I don't think there is anything more to say ...

Fawad

@paracetamol I need help in chemistry. I asked in chat but now I asked on main site. Here it is can you help?

Slereah

So it turns out the french had a whole paper on non-Hausdorff manifolds all along

Those bloody frenchmen

paracetamol

@JohnRennie Wait... but the power: 2r^2 is accounted for! (Or maybe I missed it)

Slereah

"Variétés (non séparées) à une dimension et structures feuilletées du plan"

It feels weird reading french math

John Rennie

@paracetamol ??? The volume element $dV = 4 \pi r^2 dr$ i.e. it contains a factor $r^2$. That's where the $r^2$ comes from.

paracetamol

07:52

^ Yes. But you mentioned : $|\psi|^2r^2$ O_o . Did you mean {|psi|^2} x 4 Pi r^2 ?

John Rennie

I left out the constants because they don't affect the shape of the curve.

paracetamol

@Fawad But... why do you want to prove it?

@JohnRennie Ah ...........

Fawad

@paracetamol recommendig to use chathjax...

@paracetamol i will forget it then :(

paracetamol

^ Oh yeah, @JohnR, you'll have to bear with my lack of experience with MathJax ._.

@Fawad O_O Um... most people don't simply forget Dalton's law...

John Rennie

@Fawad suppose you have $n$ moles of an ideal gas ina volume $V$, then the pressure is $$P = n\frac{RT}{V}$$ Yes?

Fawad

07:55

@JohnRennie yes

paracetamol

@Fawad I never had to prove it... intuitively it makes plenty of sense to me, and that helps me remember it :/

John Rennie

And when we have a mixture of the ideal gases we get an equation for that for each gas: $$P_i = n_i\frac{RT}{V}$$ The parameters $R$, $T$ and $V$ are the same for all the gases.

And since the gases are ideal their pressures just add so $$P_T = \sum P_i $$

And since $R$, $T$ and $V$ are constants we get: $$ P_T = \frac{RT}{V}\sum n_i = \frac{RT}{V}N $$ where $N$ is the total moles present, $N = n_0 + n_1 +$ etc.

So far so good?

Fawad

@JohnRennie $$P_i=n_i \dfrac{RT}{V}\dfrac{n_{total}}{n_{total}}⇒P_i=\dfrac{n_i}{n_{total}}\dfrac{n_{to‌tal}RT}{V}⇒P_i=x_iP_{\text{total}}$$?

$x_i$ is mole fraction of $i$

paracetamol

o_o

1

Q: Proof of Dalton's law of partial pressures: What is it?

How do I prove $${{\displaystyle p_{i}=p_{\text{total}}y_{i}}}$$ where $y_i$ is the mole fraction of the $i^{th}$ component in the total mixture of $n$ components ? Here is what I know Mathematically, the pressure of a mixture of non-reactive gases can be defined as the summation: ${\d...

gas-laws pressure

^ vapour-pressure doesn't seem to be the right tag... so I changed it :3

Fawad

@paracetamol it was part of Raoult's low :/

John Rennie

08:04

@Fawad yes, that looks fine.

Slereah

maths.ed.ac.uk/~aar/papers/exoticsmooth.pdf

The hell is that book

John Rennie

I need to work for a bit. Back in an hour or so.

paracetamol

@JohnR o/

Fawad

This message is intentionally left blank

paracetamol

@Slereah :D

"Exotic Smoothness and Physics"

Slereah

08:19

"Non-Hausdorff manifolds can be quite wild"

paracetamol

@JohnRennie Your brother? The "Bird-watcher"? ;D

Slereah

08:52

I think I got jabref working

Let's fill up the bibliography

I only have about... 3000 references to work in

user228700

09:08

@JohnR: Lunch for what's?

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H haven't decided.

I thought I'd wonder round the shops and see what looked interesting.

user228700

Ah, the usual, then :-)

Slereah

Email sent to Krasnikov

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H I'm not at my best today - yesterday's SF meeting is taking its revenge. So I'll probably end up eating something boring but easy to cook.

Slereah

I hope this address still exists

user228700

09:09

@JohnRennie Ah, OK :-|

user228700

How many people are part of ur club?

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H A dozen or so.

But the meetings are generally smaller as we rarely get everyone attending.

user228700

Ohh, I see...

user228700

And are u one of the founding fathers of this club? :-P

John Rennie

No. I joined after it had existed for a couple of years.

bolbteppa

09:11

Anybody know a stupid dumb example with supermatrices illustrating the gist of them in graded algebras?

John Rennie

I didn't find out about for a long time. I just happened to see a poster for it and came along to see what it was like. And now I've been going for years.

user228700

@JohnRennie Oh, see :-) I tried to start a book club when I was about 9 but failed spectacularly.

John Rennie

I've been in lots of book clubs that have folded. It's rare to find a group who are committed enough to keep the group going.

user228700

The first book we read was an incredibly short one called "500 fantastic facts about mythical beasts". None of the friends near my home (the members) were interested so they all left to cycle around the block after we'd gathered for about 5 minutes :-|

John Rennie

At the moment there are three or four of us who go to every meeting, and we form a nucleus around which the rest of the group aggregates.

user228700

09:14

@JohnRennie Ah, I see :-)

John Rennie

This book?

user228700

Ohhhh, yes! It wasn't about mythical beasts alone! It was called "500 fantastic facts" and the first chapter of that book was on mythical beasts.

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H groups are naturally fragile. It would only take a couple of the core members to move away or lose interest and our group would probably fold. But that's OK because new groups spring up.

user228700

We read a much more recent edition of that book...well, I did anyway.

John Rennie

One of the great things about college is that with so many people of a similar age and interests there is always enough enthusiasm to keep groups going.

user228700

09:17

Yes yes, I s'pose...

John Rennie

The Cambridge SF reading group was huge. We used to get meetings 100 people attending, and we used to get talks from famous authors. Well, famous ish :-)

user228700

Oh, wow! :-)

user228700

This was the one

John Rennie

Cambridge SF society

user228700

Nice!

John Rennie

09:20

BTW, if the cooling fan has failed this is the replacement you'd need. Not hideously expensive.

user228700

Ah, OK. Yeah, no, that's a reasonable price :-)

user228700

GAH, why are young children both annoying af and so so cute?! (My 7 year-old cousin is here)

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H One of the mysteries of the universe.

user228700

Indeed.

John Rennie

Along with why are elder sisters so annoying :-)

user228700

09:23

-_- No need to go there.

John Rennie

:: John backs away hurriedly ::

user228700

:-) Lunch isn't promising but it's almost 3 so I guess I should eat something anyway.

John Rennie

Presumably -_- is the stare of death. My niece is good at that. I wonder if it's something they teach girls at primary school.

user228700

:-P "stare of death" sounds a bit pompous but certainly, yes, that is one way to put it.

John Rennie

It's the stare that tells you you're going to die if you say another word :-)

I tried directing it onto my niece but she just laughed. Clearly she has developed immunity to it.

user228700

09:29

:-)

Slereah

Hey @ACuriousMind

ACuriousMind

mornin'

Slereah

I think for symbols I shall use $\Bbb R_:$ for the line with two origins and $\Bbb R_Y$ for the splitting real line

"Can a Schwarzschild black hole exert long-range neutrino forces?"

The 60's was indeed a weird time for GR

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