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00:00
Anyone know why some beta sites are suddenly getting designs?
E.g. artificial intellignece
00:20
I noticed that too, perhaps they're trying to attract new users?
Well both AI and QC are sponsored, so I guess they bypass some of the beta limitations
Which kind of sucks for other sites
doesn't sponsorship mean they'll have advertising from that sponsore on their site?
00:41
I always thought StackOverflow sponsored StackExchange @SirCumference
@skullpetrol StackOverflow is owned by StackExchange
Not vice versa?
Nope
I mean SO as a site predates the SE network, but the company has always been called SE afaik
Or at least changed its name to SE Inc. once it began the whole network
interesting
 
2 hours later…
02:29
(removed)
^just like my star on your message about Chair's account being deleted @peterh
12 hours ago, by peterh
Chairs' account is now deleted!
@skullpatrol Sad. Talking about induvidual suspensions is forbidden, but talking about induvidual deletions is not. As far I know, mods can't delete such a high-rep user, so either it was a self-deletion, or it was a CM deletion. The first is more likely.
02:47
perhaps a suspension triggered a self-deletion
I've seen suspended users change their username
03:00
@skullpatrol That is a very sub-optimal solution. I only hide that account in the case of a suspension, but even this I do only because it often creates a fake argument in debates on other sites.
03:28
yeah, when a mod steps in it usually generates more heat than light
03:42
@peterh why isn’t ur name in the list of users..
@pss1 Where, in which list?
@peterh In The list of users.....in physics stack exchange (arranged in order of reputation if chosen!)...
@pss1 I am there. How did you search for me?
@pss1 Ok, I check
@pss1 I am on the 7th page, in the top row: physics.stackexchange.com/…
@pss1 Btw, as far I know, I have no way to make myself invisible in this list (and I also don't have an intent to do)
@peterh Sorry ur profile here showed ...u had 43.9k rep..is it Total of all sites (of SE) rep...so I thought u should be close to the top..considering 43.9k rep as ur PSE’s rep
XD
Hello, to vulgarize light being a wave, does it mean that atoms in space are being "disturbed"?
I mean surely there are no wave like "beings" going through space like snakes, those are just field values right?
04:25
@pss1 I am active on a lot of SE sites
@pss1 Please believe me, netspeak looks really not very well. Would you please read this?
04:44
@peterh yeah!thanks for that! I was neglecting such things here.thought it’s just a chat room after all .Sure I’ll take that into consideration
@Luyw Afaik it is a question like football, everybody has an opinion :-)
@Luyw However, in the case of enough low frequency and enough strong and enough coherent light, probably you can measure it as a sinusoidally changing EM field.
@Luyw the wave is an oscillating amplitude of the electromagnetic field.
The EM field exists everywhere, though its value can be zero. A light wave is just a travelling oscillation in the field value.
05:03
@pss1 No prob, my pleasure.
05:42
@PM2Ring ah! I quit, how it is to be done?
@AbhasKumarSinha how is what to be done?
@JohnRennie It's a question, to find the smallest possible cone that can hold a unit size sphere in itself
@JohnRennie I used Lagrange multipliers, but it's giving answers in form of equations
I doubt 30 deg will be the correct answer
Ah OK. Don't know :-)
@JohnRennie What you don't know?
Don't know how to use Lagrange multipliers to answer the question.
05:48
@JohnRennie Lagrange multipliers are not necessary, do you know other methods?
I'd probably just do it using basic geometry. Draw a cross section and you can relate the cone base and height to the cone angle. Then just calculate the volume and find the minimum.
@JohnRennie I lost everything after cross section.... ?
You know the radius of the sphere is 1 so you can calculate the cone height and the radius of the base for the cone angle $\theta$
(I now realise I didn't draw $\theta$ on the diagram ... )
@JohnRennie Radius of Sphere is independent of Cone height
@AbhasKumarSinha no it isn't, because you want the minimum cone volume and for that the cone edge will be a tangent to the sphere.
i.e. the slanted line in my diagram will be a tangent to the sphere.
06:00
@JohnRennie observe that the height will vary in case the angle theta decreases and the height increases and volume decreases too to some extent
Correct. So you can calculate the volume as a function of theta. Or $h$ or $r$. Whatever is most convenient.
Then differentiate and set to zero to find the minimum volume.
06:22
Jun 5 at 23:44, by PM 2Ring
Here's a fun little calculus problem. Find the cone of minimum volume that contains a unit sphere. Bonus points for determining if it's also the cone of minimum (curved) surface area.
Note that the whole sphere is entirely contained within the cone.
There was a time when I did calculus problems for fun. I dimly remember it. It was a long time ago :-)
I rendered that using POV-Ray a few years ago. That's the correct solution, although the proportions are slightly distorted by the perspective.
06:43
@AbhasKumarSinha Don't forget that the tangent of a circle is perpendicular to the radius. So we get a collection of similar right triangles.
06:55
@AbhasKumarSinha Also, John's diagrams are a little misleading. The axis of the cone should pass through the centre of the sphere.
07:36
There's a fairly minimal version. You can see it in 3D by looking at it cross-eyed.
08:01
@PM2Ring I thought it was fairly obvious that I had only drawn half the cone ...
@JohnRennie Sure, but I just wanted to make it crystal clear for @AbhasKumarSinha
This site gives the following formulae for centripetal acceleration in SR: $a_c = \frac{\gamma^2v^2}{r} = \frac{c^2(\gamma^2-1)}{r}$. How do I go about proving that?
08:24
Ah. Greg Egan has written an article on relativistic disks, rings, and hoops. gregegan.net/SCIENCE/Rings/Rings.html That should be helpful. ;)
09:13
Hello.

I have a question that concerns a research paper "Creation of scalar and Dirac particles in the presence of a time varying electric field
in an anisotropic Bianchi type I universe" by Villalba et al.

The author(s) uses a quasiclassical approach to calculate the denity (probability) of particle creation. This method is based on two main steps, solving the Hamilton-Jacobi equation to obtain the positive and negative frequency modes and solving the Klein-Gordon equation to identify which are positive and which are negative frequency states. I want to know what is the importance of sol
What I have noticed when he solved K-G eq., is the superposition of two solutions each of which is defined in one asymptotic region that is different from the other. And in mathematics, this solution is standard in being able to be decomposed in terms of positive and negative modes.
09:33
The second thing is H-J eq. gives an approximate solution, i.e., in the extremals, while the K-G eq. predicts its solutions in the exact picture.
@PM2Ring just calculate the four acceleration and take the norm. You can do the calculation in the ground frame since the norm is a scalar invariant. You'll need the Christoffel symbols for polar coordinates in Minkowski spacetime.
@JohnRennie Thanks.
 
1 hour later…
11:04
I have a question.
An integer is round if it is greater than 0 and the sum of its digits in decimal representation is a multiple of 10. Find an optimal procedure to compute the N−th smallest round integer.

E.g. If N=2 then Answer is 28 As the first round integer is 19(1+9=10) and the second round integer is 28(2+8=10).
11:36
Hello
12:37
@cattt That looks like a problem from a programming challenge site. Your rank on the site should reflect your coding skills, not ours. ;)
yeah, cheaters never prosper; in the long run at least
12:55
I was right. It's a current CodeChef challenge.
@cattt I suggest you start with a simple brute-force algorithm to print round numbers, and look for patterns in the output. Eg, examine the differences between successive round numbers, and try to show with algebra why those patterns occur.
Is it just me, or is this answer a bunch of hogwash?
13:12
Hey - I don't know if this is the right place, but I'm editing an article on quantum physics, and there's a para I'm doubtful about
It's too edge-case for a question, so is it fine if I throw it in here and discuss for a bit?
OK...just saw the "Don't ask about asking, just ask", so let me give it a go 😜
Basically, the article says that "in quantum physics, rather than looking like a particle, an electron looks something like this" - and shows a picture of a wave function ("position" vs "probability of being in that position")
It specifies that
> The graph you just saw comes from a wave function - but it's not a physical wave like the ripples we see in water or like the sound waves we're familiar with. This is just an abstract mathematical wave, that gives the mathematical description of an electron.
And then, after some description of how to use the function,
> Wave functions describe what the subatomic particles will do incredibly well, but we don't know whether they are a real thing or not. Whenever we try to measure an electron, all we see is a point like-particle, not a wave.
0
Q: Can we ask about book for studying?

SimoBartzI'm starting to study a new topic (spinors) and I don't know where I can study it, is it possible to ask for studying material?

...the implication being that, if taken literally, these wave functions are what make electrons a "wave"
Now my knowledge of this topic is a bit weak, and I got confused by the comment threads on physics.stackexchange.com/questions/43941/particles-vs-waves saying "don't confuse wave-functions with waves"
So my question: is that probability wavefunction the reason everyone says "electrons are a wave", or does the "electrons as wave" description come from some other equation entirely?
13:33
@Hippo wave functions are not real things, they are encoding the probability of measuring a particle in a given place, being more likely or less likely as encoded by a probability distribution related to the wave function of a given system
If we do experiments we find that particles do not follow paths, we can measure them at one instant of time in one place and on measuring them in other places at subsequent instants, the places they are measured are places where we simply cannot say they followed well-defined paths, especially not the well-defined paths that classical mechanics would predict
@bolbteppa ok...so kind of like how a "probability that the mango tree will fruit today" graph is not a real thing, but only a tool to predict when that'll happen?
Right...
Is that (wavefunctions) where the "electrons as waves" idea comes from? Or is it from some other set of equations that assume electrons to be waves?
@Hippo This might help: physics.stackexchange.com/questions/17107/… Or it may add to the confusion. ;) Some of the linked & related questions may also be worth looking at.
A wave function is a thing you use to build up a probability distribution, and it satisfies a 'wave' equation, and behaves like waves do, e.g. generates positive and destructive interference patterns for the more likely places you'd expect to measure a particle as in the double slit experiment, and the interference pattern changing depending on the number of slits open, this is wave-like behavior in the distribution of probable locations you'd expect to measure a particle for sure
In QFT, if you think about it, why in the world would you unavoidably expect the parameters in the theory to be the physically measured parameters, all you need is that they reduce to their usual values in the classical limit
13:50
@bolbteppa okay! I think that answers it. So basically, when people say "electrons are waves", what they really mean is "some behaviours of an electron can be predicted by functions that act like waves". Am I right?
And all the philosophical questions would be people wondering which aspects of the equation to "take literally" and how
Oh and thanks @PM2Ring, I think it does a bit of both :D
I'll give it a read.
14:04
@Hippo right, the real craziness is that if you have to give up the idea that particles follow paths (which is nuts if you think about it), bringing in this wave-like behavior in for where you'd expect to measure them, and then adding special relativity makes things crazier with anti-particles etc
@bolbteppa and we do have to give up the idea that they follow paths, right?
From what I understand, we can say "they could have followed any all these possible paths, but we can't say which"
Haha. I'll take that as a "yes" ;)
14:15
YEAH!!!
$y^{e^{a^{h}}}$
Interactions still happen at a point in QFT.
In contrast with, say, string theory.
@Avantgarde y, e, a, and h =/=0
@Avantgarde Wokay. I think I'm good without sting theory for now :P :P
Just an example.
14:21
I know :)
String theory is something I should cover some time though
@Hippo Not really. Classical trajectories don't work at the quantum level, because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP). In a classical trajectory, the particle has a definite position and definite momentum at each point of the trajectory, but the HUP doesn't allow a particle to have an exact position & an exact momentum at the same time.
3
A: Renormalizability of the Polyakov Action

Jonathan GleasonThe problem with my analysis before was that $T_p/2$ is not the relevant coupling constant. To read off the coupling constant, we must put the action into a slightly different form, in which the kinetic and interaction terms are separate and apparent. To do that, we assume that everything is (r...

@PM2Ring what is Crowlspace? Blog?
@PM2Ring oh right, so it doesn't make sense to say "paths" at all in this context
The conversation remains me of that saying "Does God play dice?" 😂😂😀😉
14:26
@Hippo Alternatively, the Feynman path integral approach says that you have to take all possible paths into account, but those probable paths are weighted (with complex numbers), and they interfere with each other, and mostly cancel each other out, leaving us with a "bundle" of most probable paths.
God plays candy crush.
@AbhasKumarSinha It's sort of a blog. I didn't explore it very far. I just looked around a bit to check if the author is a crackpot. ;)
@PM2Ring ah okay...
Why they prefer Complex Geometry over Vectors for Quantum mechanics?
Instead of a $0$ paths lets go along an $1/0 = \infty$ no. of paths :p
Is it just me, or does MathJax not work in chat?
I'm just rendering it in my head instead
14:32
@Hippo It doesn't work automatically, but you can enable it with userscripts or bookmarklets.
@Avantgarde Einstein never considered Quantum Mechanics, a good approach to science. He thought that Heisenberg principle is foolish and is notably said "God doesn't play dice", referring that probability has nothing to do with science, the Science is something related to certainty which he believed. But after further development in Quantum mechanics, the Hawking quted, most probably a reply to Einstein, "God plays Dice", where as "Does God play Dice?" Is a famous quote and a book.
@PM2Ring oh yes, here it comes :)
@AbhasKumarSinha I'm sure plenty of people would prefer it if classical physics was all we needed, but it doesn't work properly at the quantum scale.
@PM2Ring Didn't get it?
@Hippo The thing that killed classical trajectories is that they don't work for electrons in atoms. If an electron bound to an atom followed any kind of classical trajectory it would have to accelerate, at least part of the time. But charged bodies accelerating in an electric field lose energy by radiating it away. So classically, electrons should spiral into the nucleus, making stable atoms impossible.
14:43
Ohh...that's interesting!
finds a lot of disconnected info bytes falling into place
@AbhasKumarSinha Maybe I misunderstood your question. Classical mechanics doesn't need complex numbers, although they can be handy in some areas, eg electromagnetism. OTOH, QM heavily relies on complex numbers. Of course, a complex number is just an ordered pair, and any algebra that uses complex numbers can be written in terms of vectors, or matrices, instead. But complex numbers are more elegant. ;)
@PM2Ring So are there anyone who approached QM from Vectors than Complex Numbers, I'd like to see how they look.
Help
Running out of science space
@AbhasKumarSinha No idea.
@Slereah Did you try Fahrenheit 451?
14:54
@Slereah Chuck "The East came West" and add more science there ;)
@Loong We use metric in this house
F = 1.8C + 32 :P
Celsius 233 might be the book we're looking for?
@AbhasKumarSinha I know the quote. I saw an excerpt of an interview with Gell-Mann, where he stated that Einstein didn't believe in what they were doing back then (particle physics).
I'm looking for any of penrose's books?
15:00
But, anyone can be wrong. :)
@Hippo Rudy Rucker wrote a short story with that title. It's ok, but not one of his better efforts, IIRC. It's been a few years since I read it.
@PM2Ring wow ok...I didn't know that was actually a thing!
I hadn't even heard of Rudy Rucker, actually :P
@Slereah Install 5th and 6th dimension accessor app, you'll get more space XR
I don't mean to spam, but since we're in this mood: I edit a publication that tries to explain concepts (including physics) using humour and metaphors
That's one of the pieces I wrote; you might find it fun to read :)
It's about how relativity seems really weird and strange, but there are actually so many other weird things we encounter in everyday life, that we just don't notice because we're so used to them
$\LaTeX$
Ah okay, I've a strange problem with latex
When I use my android mobile, so, I've bookmarked the ChatJax code in my browser, but, whenever I run that, I've observed that javascript: part of the code gets omitted and hence the ChatJax doesn't works
I've to manually copy and add it each time, I start MathJAX
15:23
@Hippo Looks good, but I noticed a typo: 299,792,458 kilometres per second. That should be metres per second.
@PM2Ring whoops! Good catch :P
$\forall \epsilon \in \mathbb R : \epsilon >0, \exists \delta >0 ( | x_n - a | < \epsilon \land n>\delta) \\ \lim \limits_{n \rightarrow \infty} x_n = a, \\ \text{ Where } \{x_n\} \text{ is some sequence}$
Yay! Got MathJAX done!
@AbhasKumarSinha Great! What did you do?
@Hippo Got mathjax working on phone
@Slereah my god...
Egyptian and hieroglyphics gon' have to make way
15:29
@PM2Ring what?
@AbhasKumarSinha @AbhasKumarSinha I meant, how did you do it?
@AbhasKumarSinha I had a suggestion about MathJax, but I removed it when I saw that you got it working.
@PM2Ring Please say, I'm still struggling, but got it working temporarily
@Hippo You need to perform some steps, you use mobile? PC? Or what?
I think mobile UI/chat is more elegant and better than PC ones
@AbhasKumarSinha Oh. I just followed the instructions to save the bookmarklet to my Favorites. I use the Samsung browser, but it should work the same as Chrome. Make sure the bookmarklet URI starts with javascript:
@AbhasKumarSinha @AbhasKumarSinha I'm on PC right now, but have a mobile at home that'd it'd be good to enable it on
(Yeah, I use laptops while travelling and mobile at home. I'm weird that way :P)
15:42
@PM2Ring that's the problem, javascript: gets removed automatically
@AbhasKumarSinha No. Mobile chat is missing some features. You can't easily see who the room owners are, and you can't quickly edit a post by hitting the up arrow. And some of the room owner actions are harder on mobile, like moving messages.
@Hippo in laptops, it's easy, just bookmark a page temporary for now
@PM2Ring i use desktop mode for that
@AbhasKumarSinha I know. I'm just following the conversation for future reference with mobile ;)
Is your browser connected to sync? What if you save the bookmarklet via desktop, then sync it to access via mobile?
@Hippo yes that'd work, but you've to do extra thing each time for that
Just add javascript: at the start of script each time
Wait a sec...aren't the bookmarks permanent?
You seem to imply the bookmark vanishes each time you use it
15:49
@Hippo no, just simply clicking bookmark won't work on mobile
oh..ok
@AbhasKumarSinha That's a shame. ChatJax works ok for me on this phone. What browser are you using?
@PM2Ring Chrome Incognito Mode
Ancient Alien Theorists believe that India will be getting it's own time machine before 2030
XD, I'm happy that I'll be alive then
Listen Eminem verse : m.youtube.com/watch?v=it_04dk_97E it's fire 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥, he flows incredibly fast, reminds me of "He flows like a River and stings like a bee", although that was referred to Ali, but, the verse is something which describes that better, word play is fab! 😉
16:25
@AbhasKumarSinha Here's some music from the 70s you might like Miss Shapiro / You Really Got Me, by 801.
@PM2Ring . I haven't heard much old as 70s, but it's coooool! 😀
Female voices like that of Sia or Sabrina are very relaxing
16:50
@AbhasKumarSinha Glad you like it. :) I'll listen to your suggestion a bit later.
Okay, no problem :)
Argh. I was going to have an early night tonight, and it's almost 3AM here. Oh well.
17:07
@Slereah where's your Spivak differential geometries?
Spivac's calculus is a good book
@AbhasKumarSinha to be honest I never crossed paths with the calculus book
just the Calculus on Manifolds and the Comprehensive Introduction to Differential Geometry
Me too, actually, I use coaching material more, most of them are better than books
18:12
@Slereah How much time did it took you to read all of those? Like, a book takes me like 20 days, do you read fast?
 
1 hour later…
19:32
Does anyone know if it makes sense to do a linear regression over a rolling window? I’ve looked, but can’t find any good reading material on such a thing
I don't even know what that means ;)
I went to type out an explanation and I realized it didn't really make sense...oops
I was thinking of having a stream of data coming in and doing a linear regression on the past N seconds to predict the future value, but I think that's just going to be a linear regression on a subset of the data...nothing really special about doing it repeatedly
Now if you were to do a model where you had smaller weights for the old data in the cost function..that might be something. Or maybe I'm thinking of another thing that doesn't make sense to do
 
2 hours later…
21:59
What is the difference between the Schmidt decomposition and the Bogoliubov transformation since every one describes entanglement of states
?
 
2 hours later…
23:54
kind of what I meant by linear regression in a window...it seems not terribly helpful

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