The h Bar

Raphael J.F. Berger

13:00

I mean one could do the Biot-Savart integral, but this is what I want to avoid.

Or what I want to know, if I can avoid it.

Slereah

Apparently Maxwell's idea for his ether theory was that once he had the EM Lagrangian, that would automatically lead him to a mechanical theory of electromagnetism

since that was one of those assumptions of the era

Just split your Lagrangian into a kinetic and potential term and somewhere there is an equivalent mechanical system

Ryder Rude

@PM2Ring very coool

user 726941

Is there anyway of embedding a working clock into the room description?

Ryder Rude

the idea of having fixed stars in the absolute space is very chilling

newton used to call it the absolute rest frame

Slereah

From what I remember Aristotle had even more extreme views

Just thinking that time was literally tied to celestial motion

If the stars stopped turning, everything else would stop

Ryder Rude

13:07

the modern version of this idea is thermal time from Rovelli

it doesnt not make stars the focus. it ties time to motion

Raphael J.F. Berger

Could it be that div(W+grad g) = \Delta g= 0 is what I am searching? That at least would give ma antother constraint.

Ryder Rude

tbf Rovelli's view would at least be consistent with observations. if nothing moves in space, who is to say that time exists

Newton knew of Galilean symmetry and still believed in the "absolute plane of the heavens and stars"

Aristotle's theory is more badass tho. celestial planets as the in-charge of time

it's like something out of Marvel comics

user 726941

40 mins ago, by Slereah

Well this was before television

ACuriousMind

@RaphaelJ.F.Berger sure, that's Gauß law

Ryder Rude

it's like the time stone from Avengers

ACuriousMind

13:14

and the last constraint on $B$ is then the Maxwell-Faraday law

Slereah

Poincaré's "END OF MATTER" chapter is about the ol' theory of electromagnetic mass turns out

ACuriousMind

as I said: Just Maxwell's equations

user 726941

The title was click-bait.

Raphael J.F. Berger

Yes

Slereah

I mean it was a pretty wild idea at the time

PM 2Ring

13:15

@Slereah There was a question with that conception a few days ago on Space.SE

Slereah

and it is still relevant today since that was basically the origin of mass renormalization

@PM2Ring what's the modern opinion on the idea

Can we destroy time, à la Victory over the Sun

ACuriousMind

THESUNTHESUNTHESUN

user 726941

Would "time" exist without light?

PM 2Ring

Would time stop if the earth were to be hit by a space object

Ryder Rude

Penrose says time gets destroyed in the asymtotic future because only massless particles remain the asymptotic future

Amit told me about this

Slereah

13:17

Classic story

Ryder Rude

Penrose ties time to mass-ful particles

Mr. Feynman

Hello hello

user 726941

Hi pal.

Raphael J.F. Berger

So I take J^B determine my strange W vector potential then I add the gradient of a scalaf function g with div(grad(g))=-div(W) then W+grad(g) = B^{ind}?

Mr. Feynman

Are we praising the sun or something here?

Slereah

13:18

after having read Poincaré's book, it's time to read... the other Poincaré's book

ugh

does it never end

ACuriousMind

@Mr.Feynman I was referencing a different video game, but close enough :P

Slereah

This one was written in 1911 so it may have some wilder ideas

Mr. Feynman

@Slereah yes, as soon as you put an end to it

There's no way out

@ACuriousMind which one?

Slereah

There is actually a video game that has a pretty wild story of universe destruction somewhat similarly to Victory over the Sun

store.steampowered.com/app/735290/Genesis_Noir

ACuriousMind

@Mr.Feynman Sunless Skies, specifically its Clockwork Sun

PM 2Ring

13:20

The idea of time somehow being caused by the celestial bodies (typically the Sun) is pretty ancient. It's in at least one Hindu cosmology, but I don't know if they originated it, or adopted it from elsewhere.

ACuriousMind

at some point there's at least a tooltip that's just like "THESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUN"

Raphael J.F. Berger

@ACuriousMind would you agree?

Ryder Rude

I wonder why Newton didnt work on a formula of the electric force

ACuriousMind

@RaphaelJ.F.Berger I'm a bit confused - how do you determine your $W$?

Raphael J.F. Berger

Long story ...

Slereah

13:21

I guess it is an idea that makes sense within the context of the era

Mr. Feynman

@ACuriousMind Oh, I didn't know it but I'm not really into RPG

ACuriousMind

Like, if you handed me your $J^B$ and told me "go find the magnetic field" I'd just plug it into the Maxwell equations

Raphael J.F. Berger

I basically solve some poisson equations.

Slereah

since it was just about the only regular phenomenon

Ryder Rude

it seems like Newton did not really understand his theory. if he worked on an electric force, he would not have made the bucket argument

Mr. Feynman

13:22

Except Bloodborne and some DS

Slereah

@RyderRude Did you actually read any of Newton's books

or any authors of the era

Ryder Rude

@Slereah no. but ive read the bucket argument. it reveals a misunderstanding of non inertial frames

ACuriousMind

so first determining a "wrong" magnetic field $W$ and then "fixing" it in a second step to get the actual magnetic field that's a solution to Maxwell's equation sounds like a circuitous route to me - maybe it works, but why didn't you just solve Maxwell's equations in the first place

Ryder Rude

if Newton had worked on electric forces, he would've known that the bucket was objectively non-inertial. rotation isnt relative

Mr. Feynman

Why is videogames lore so addicting? After I started playing Halo again, I fell into the expanded universe rabbit hole and now I'm here waiting for 10 books full of lore

Ryder Rude

13:24

instead, he proceeded to say the rotation is relative to an absolute space

he was doing too much metaphysics instead of properly understanding his theory

ACuriousMind

@Mr.Feynman I was aware this was a very niche reference when I made it, don't worry :P

PM 2Ring

@Slereah Agreed. But it is a bit disconcerting when someone on a modern science-based site has that mindset.

Slereah

@Mr.Feynman If you fell into Halo lore I'm willing to blame this on you rather than the sociological forces

ACuriousMind

lol

Slereah

@PM2Ring We are little different from our forebears!

Ryder Rude

13:25

@Slereah which phenomenon?

Mr. Feynman

@Slereah Mhh, it seems you don't like Halo (?)

Slereah

I'm not a big shooter fan in general

Mr. Feynman

Oh, I'm mostly a fps type guy :P

But beware, that the Halo lore I'm talking about is not in the games

PM 2Ring

@Slereah True. We mostly just have access to a few more stories and alleged facts. ;)

ACuriousMind

@Mr.Feynman perhaps you're just addicted to lore as such :P if something triggered it, you'd probably also devour e.g. all the D&D lore even though it's not directly related to video games

Raphael J.F. Berger

13:26

Actually I am doing something very different, which is quite difficult and very lengthy to explain, and now these W fell into my hands and I need to understand how they might be related to B^ind and if and how one can determine the one from the other. Actually I have good access to B^ind but I can use the W for another purpose, which is the actual problem.

Slereah

I have seen the video, yes

I read every Halo novel and became the Master Chief of loneliness | Unraveled

►

Raphael J.F. Berger

If you are interested I try to eaplain it.

ACuriousMind

@RaphaelJ.F.Berger It's fine - sounds like you know what you're doing ;)

just wanted to make sure you didn't just skip the much easier step of solving the Maxwell equations from the start

Raphael J.F. Berger

not sure about that though :D

Ryder Rude

Newton was also pushing hard for an absolute rest frame despite literally addressing Galilean transformations in his book

Mr. Feynman

13:30

@ACuriousMind That is possible, I remember having my lore addiction period to Bloodborne too. There must be some element to trigger my interest though. In that case I liked the Lovecraftian touch of the lore, in the case of Halo I like the ancestral feeling about everything coming from some very ancient race once ruling the galaxy which is now extinct

PM 2Ring

@RyderRude Why would Newton do anything with electricity? All of that stuff came after Newton.

Slereah

there were works on electricity before Newton

Ryder Rude

@PM2Ring the existence of the electric force as well as like and unlike charges was known for a thousand years

Slereah

ie. mister Descartes

Ryder Rude

Newton could have worked on a formula

instead he just worked on one force and gave three laws for general forces

Slereah

13:31

He could have worked on many things

why would he work on electricity

a pretty marginal phenomenon back then

Ryder Rude

electric force is behind everything tho

Mr. Feynman

Anyhow, this "lore period" has been quite anomalous as I haven't been so distant from physics for years. It's been like 4 months since I became less eager

Slereah

Easy to say now

Raphael J.F. Berger

I am investigating the topology of J^B but its nasty stuff in part, and I stubmlede across what is called toroidal-poloidal ddecomposition of solenoidal vector fields. Which seems as exactly what I need. Now it turned out that this TP decomposition is numerically not as nice as what I require. Then it occured to me that I can achieve almost the same if I split B^ind into its z-component and the x- and y.

Slereah

that was very much not the idea back then

Raphael J.F. Berger

13:33

Now was thew question since these seem so asimilar if I can obtain the TP directly from B^{ind} without solving Poisson eqs.

Ryder Rude

what did Newton think macroscopic bodies were held together by

it was well known that it took force to break them

Mr. Feynman

@RyderRude are you really saying that Newton did not understand his own theory because he didn't know electromagnetism, which was fully developed two centuries later? :P

Ryder Rude

@Mr.Feynman he had some big misconceptions about his theory like absolute space, bucket argument, etc. electric force reveals the misunderstanding in the bucket argument

ACuriousMind

@Mr.Feynman this is advanced armchair physics: Not only did he not actually read Newton, he also expects Newton to have invented a time machine to acquire a 21st century understanding of physics to then go back and develop his theories based on that

PM 2Ring

@RyderRude You're doing that thing again. Projecting our modern conceptions onto people who lived before those conceptions existed.

Ryder Rude

13:36

@PM2Ring i have read that people knew of like and unlike charges for long

people used to get shocked by electric eels

ACuriousMind

what does some eel shocking me have to do with forces?

that's just how eels work

touch them, get shocked

Ryder Rude

it was just one of the examples given. the main experiment was like slik rubbed on glass

this experiment was known for a thousand years

ACuriousMind

so some magic happens when I rub this pole with a cat fur

what's that got to do with forces

Ryder Rude

it's attraction and repulsion

it's literally what gravity is but twice as more interesting

ACuriousMind

you're so modern you can't even conceive of how much people back then did not have a unifying scientific framework in which everything had to be explained by the same reductionist physical rules

Mr. Feynman

13:39

@ACuriousMind I bet he will on his NG+ run

Slereah

Newton was a 17th century dude

He believed in corpuscules and ethers

and maybe actions at a distance, but that was because he was a rebel

PM 2Ring

Yes, they had some experience with static electricity. (The word "electron" comes from the Greek word for amber). But it was just a curiosity. They had no substantial theories about it, and they certainly didn't suspect its fundamental role in sticking matter together. It was a major breakthrough when they realised that lightning was related to static electricity.

ACuriousMind

he was an alchemist and magician, for heaven's sake!

there was literally zero perceived contradiction between his physical work and also believing in magic

Mr. Feynman

before the 19th century eels didn't shock you as electromagnetism had not been invented. Things were worse in the 17th century before Newton invented gravity. Imagine being blind and floating

Slereah

There was some theories of electricity back then but it wasn't considered a particularly fundamental phenomenon

ACuriousMind

13:41

@Mr.Feynman at least I'm not blind, floating and being shocked by eels!

Slereah

They just thought electricity was some fluid (because they thought everything was a fluid)

Ryder Rude

i understand. maybe I am expecting too much of Newton relative to his time

Slereah

Electricity wasn't that fundamental a phenomenon until they discovered the electron I think

Mr. Feynman

By the way, this kind of thinking is not so different from cancel culture and presentism in history

PM 2Ring

We remember Newton for his mathematics & physics. But he spent a lot of time investigating alchemy. And he probably spent more time looking for secret patterns and messages encoded in the Bible than on all his mainstream science & mathematics work.

Slereah

13:43

also that light was an EM field

Ryder Rude

but it is still correct to say that he did not understand his theory because he believed in the bucket argument and absolute space

he had Galilean transformations

Raphael J.F. Berger

Yes that works now! I have to solve now another poisson equation to determine g but that makes sense for the no-free lunch theorem!

Thank you @ACuriousMind!

ACuriousMind

@RaphaelJ.F.Berger Yay!

Ryder Rude

@PM2Ring yes. i've read about that

he believed in the rest frame

it's not a bad thing to not understand your theory. it is to be expected

Slereah

There are also weird ancient reasons for this

ACuriousMind

13:46

since someone just flagged that: "yay!" is just supposed to be an expression of joy. Is there something offensive about it I'm missing?

user 726941

Sorry, my accident. I wanted to star it :(

Ryder Rude

for e.g. Einstein did not initially understand that the co-ordinates in GR were meaningless

ACuriousMind

@RyderRude What you consistently fail to appreciate is how much of the basic way in which we look at science and the world today should not be taken for granted. We stand, in every direction, on the shoulders of giants - not only with respect to the amount of "facts" we know, but with respect to the very idea of how such scientific facts are supposed to form a cohesive whole

Mr. Feynman

@Slereah oh fudge what have I done

Ryder Rude

this is also well-known

Slereah

13:48

also the very rules upon which science are founded

having to check that things have to work in real life was somehow not that big of a priority for a lot of it

Ryder Rude

Einstien was confused about GR being deterministic. it was a huge misconception

ACuriousMind

Most of the "facts" which we use to form our picture of the universe from the small to the big - that stuff is made out of atoms, that the lights in the night sky are stars and that there a millions of galaxies of stars out there in the void and that all that is governed by the same kind of laws - are barely 100 years old

Ryder Rude

this is not a bad thing. the founders have misconceptions about their theory

Mr. Feynman

the point is that you are justified to have some misconceptions about something that is still being created and would only be clear later

Ryder Rude

@Mr.Feynman exactly

Mr. Feynman

13:50

to be very concise, you make it sound like "ew, X was trash because he didn't understand his own theory"

Slereah

plus as I said

ACuriousMind

The world used to be inscrutable in every aspect and we slowly, steadily unraveled it, and here you go at the end of centuries of hard work and say "idiots, they didn't even understand their own theories"

Slereah

Newton had very good reasons to believe in absolute space

The reason being that in some sense, space is the body of God

Ryder Rude

@Mr.Feynman i'm sorry if i come across as that. i only meant to point out what they did not understand about their theory

but they still made up the theory. making the theory is a far bigger achievement

ACuriousMind

@RyderRude No, it is you who does not understand Newton's theory. When we're "teaching Newton" today, you're not being taught what Newton really thought. You're being taught what useful things we today took away from him.

Go ahead, try reading the principia instead of a modern summary

Slereah

13:53

not a fun task

Mr. Feynman

I think that's something obvious if we're talking about something as complicated as physics. People don't have to understand all the implications and caveats of something just because they did it, even more so if we're talking about aspects of theories that would be under discussion only at later times

Slereah

Boy I hope you enjoy geometry

ACuriousMind

I predict your reaction to be not "this guy doesn't understand his own theory" and more "wtf is this"

Slereah

Having analytic geometry was cutting edge stuff

Ryder Rude

@ACuriousMind i had tried to read it years ago. but i dont remember anything

the language sounded quite confused, yes

ACuriousMind

13:54

confused and confusing are two different things

Mr. Feynman

This is really no different from saying that Romans were not good at war because they didn't use tanks and fighters

Slereah

Given the usual output of @RyderRude I'm not willing to blame Newton on this one

Ryder Rude

@ACuriousMind do you disagree that they had a few major misconceptions about their theory

ACuriousMind

@RyderRude yes

don't get me wrong: the theory isn't "correct" from a modern viewpoint

PM 2Ring

At the start of the 20th century, mainstream astronomy assumed that the composition of the stars and planets was pretty similar. The stars were just bigger & hotter. It was quite a surprise when it was realised they were mostly hydrogen & helium. Of course, helium itself wasn't formally discovered until 1895. ;) It was first detected in solar spectra in 1868.

ACuriousMind

13:56

but it's not that Newton had a "misconception about his theory" - that doesn't make any sense

he was just wrong in some respects

doesn't mean he didn't understand his own theory

Mr. Feynman

@RyderRude As I said above

3 mins ago, by Mr. Feynman

I think that's something obvious if we're talking about something as complicated as physics. People don't have to understand all the implications and caveats of something just because they did it, even more so if we're talking about aspects of theories that would be under discussion only at later times

Slereah

It was also not a particularly unknown point

There were people against the idea of absolute space contemporary to Newton

(and in many other eras really)

absolute and relative space is a pretty old debate

Mr. Feynman

Mhh, it seems Relativisticcucumber hasn't logged here recently

Ryder Rude

i'm saying the same thing that ACM and MrFeynman are saying. the founders are wrong about a few conceptual things

@Mr.Feynman u say it here

@ACuriousMind u say it here

ACuriousMind

if that's your only point you're expressing it extremely badly

Mr. Feynman

13:59

And again, as we're telling you that's not something remarkable, I think it's quite obvious and human

Ryder Rude

and again, this is to be expected, as I've said many times. it is not to call them stupid

@Mr.Feynman aaa i'm literally saying the same thing

please stop disagreeing :)

user 726941

Agree to disagree.

Ryder Rude

it is expected that the founders dont completely understand a newly found theory

Mr. Feynman

I haven't disagreed. I only said that I don't think it is something astonishing

What I mean is: why would you point it out in the first place? To what purpose?

Ryder Rude

to point out what specific things they were wrong about

it is just a piece of history

ACuriousMind

14:03

@Mr.Feynman Many students mysteriously vanish between semesters and equally mysteriously return when they have stuff to procrastinate again ;)

Slereah

@ACuriousMind probably out tanning

ACuriousMind

you can see this pattern in pretty much every activity measure on the site

Slereah

@ACuriousMind what about on the fun stackexchanges

ACuriousMind

by "the site" I meant physics.SE, yes, you're right, the "fun" ones are different

Ryder Rude

SillyGoose and DIRAC have also stopped

ACuriousMind

14:04

this pattern is mostly for the academic ones

Slereah

Let's see their activity patterns

Mr. Feynman

@RyderRude If that's it, suit yourself. My first impression was that you were being sensationalist about it (no offence meant)

Slereah

You're seeing a leaf because SE is stupid but this is a link to the gardening SE

Silly Goose

Squaxk

user 726941

@SillyGoose HONK

ACuriousMind

14:05

but I think every site has the "weekend dip" - regardless of the topic, many people engage with SE primarily while procrastinating at work

Mr. Feynman

@ACuriousMind Well, I logged to the chat just to complain about myself not being eager of studying for a couple of months now, so... :P

@SillyGoose speak of the devil

Slereah

Gardening SE seems pretty low traffic, despite the gripping topics

Mr. Feynman

And I also missed the hBar wit

Slereah

This is the hottest topic this month :

5

Q: Creeping plant taking over the garden

There is some sort of creeping plant that is coming from behind the shed from another house and spreading into my garden. It is an extreme nuisance. It has spread very fast this summer. Half of the fence on one side is completely covered. Its spreads like a web so it is hard to take it off. What ...

creepers

user 726941

LoL

Ryder Rude

14:07

lol

SE has to be the best site

user 726941

Full of creeps :P

Mr. Feynman

It's fun to imagine that each SE community has a version of us each. Gardening SE Slereah would be planting exotic carnivorous plants that would end up devouring him

Ryder Rude

i'm quite active on philosophy too

Loong

@Slereah Did they try Agent Orange?

Mr. Feynman

"I've found this 10.000 years old seed, let's see what happens"

user 726941

14:10

@RyderRude Is that why you're losing interest in physics.

There are only so many hours in a day.

Ryder Rude

@user726941 philosophy is even worse like i saw. not just taken for granted axioms, but also un-testable ones

ive recently stopped philosophy

ACuriousMind

@Mr.Feynman Slereah isn't an experimentalist! He'd be reading about carnivorous plants and the historical weirdos who got devoured by them

3

Mr. Feynman

You make a good point

Ryder Rude

lol

user 726941

@Loong didn't they use that in Vietnam

Loong

14:14

yeah

user 726941

:(

Ryder Rude

There is a plant called gympie gympie. it is also called the suicide plant

ACuriousMind

but unfortunately I have to disappoint you: Most SE sites are much less active than physics.SE, and most SE chats are less active than the h bar

Ryder Rude

but the naming is a misconception. no one has confirmedly killed themselves after getting bit by this plant

ACuriousMind

then again, I mostly hear about other chats when flags are being raised, so I might be biased :P

Ryder Rude

14:15

only MathSE is more active

there is also religion SE and cooking SE. i havnt visited

user 726941

Stack Overflow's chats are rocking.

Slereah

Most SE chats tend to be pretty empty except for a few

It can be a bit discouraging

Ryder Rude

this chat used to be active in 2017 according to history

now many people have left

Slereah

I know, I was there

user 726941

Pre-lockdown

Slereah

14:17

they all died

Loong

I didn't.

Even if it sometimes seems like it.

Ryder Rude

how to make this chat popular

but i dont want it to be flooded with homework

phySE does not promote this chat. there's no link there

user 726941

This ain't Discord, pal.

ACuriousMind

not everything needs to be popular

user 726941

or unpopular

Ryder Rude

14:20

i mean popular upto pre covid levels

not too popular

it seems like many users left SE

ACuriousMind

it's not a Covid effect

user 726941

Monika effect

Ryder Rude

maybe you could link this chat on the main site

but idk. popular would mean declining quality

it is also goood as it is

user 726941

AI effect

ACuriousMind

it's exactly as well-promoted on the main site as meta, and that's intentional

Ryder Rude

14:23

philosophy chat is completely dead

math one is more active than here

ACuriousMind

that's exactly proportional to the activity levels of the main sites

Ryder Rude

but i dont feel like discussing math except for Godel's incompleteness theorem

user 726941

Discord is the place for philosophy.

ACuriousMind

you just need to realize that 99.9% of users aren't interested in either meta or chat, they come here to ask questions and get answers and nothing else - this is the main purpose of SE sites, and it is intentional that most users engage with the sites only in that context

Slereah

@user726941 A real Agora

ACuriousMind

14:25

god I hate discord servers

not the functionality as such, but that they have effectively replaced what used to be open, searchable forums

Mr. Feynman

@RyderRude This chat is fine

Ryder Rude

@Mr.Feynman in 2017, there used to be many users

user 726941

@ACuriousMind I totally agree.

Ryder Rude

i searched a term and some discussion showed up from 2017

Mr. Feynman

@ACuriousMind What I don't understand about Discord servers is why people use them to chat. Discord is good for voice chat or for a gaming party

ACuriousMind

14:28

@RyderRude again, chat activity follows site activity; the site was more active in 2017, too

Mr. Feynman

The only reason I can see is capacity

ACuriousMind

@Mr.Feynman Thing is...what else do you use to chat these days

msn and icq are dead

Ryder Rude

@ACuriousMind was the site the most active around 2010? answers from that time have hundreds of upvotes

Mr. Feynman

ACuriousMind

all social media chats suck

Mr. Feynman

14:29

I'm a bit of a telegram freak, sorry

ACuriousMind

@RyderRude can you perhaps think of another reason why older answers might have more upvotes?

user 726941

YouTube dominates.

ACuriousMind

one would expect this to happen even if activity stayed constant over time

I don't think it's that hard to figure out :P

Ryder Rude

@ACuriousMind one other reason was that the site wasnt as active and hence the same questions remained on the home page for months

user 726941

Twitter is a close second

Ryder Rude

14:30

this is another hypothesis

ACuriousMind

@Mr.Feynman perhaps, but that's mostly on people's phones and doesn't feel like a community to most

@RyderRude nope, still not it

Slereah

@ACuriousMind and yet modern movies are just breaking box office records all the time now!

ACuriousMind

I repeat: You'd expect older posts to have more upvotes even if activity levels stayed constant

Slereah

Gone with the Wind isn't top of the charts!

Ryder Rude

@ACuriousMind another reason is just that over time these questions show up on google searches and people upvote

ACuriousMind

14:31

@RyderRude ding ding ding

Ryder Rude

so more time means more visits

ACuriousMind

just look at the view counts: The most upvoted questions tend to also be the most viewed ones, with certain exceptions

Ryder Rude

but still, the 2010-2012 stuff has an abnormal number of upvotes. im telling u

user 726941

Rep points are being rolled back.

Ryder Rude

@ACuriousMind when did the site peak according to actual stats?

ACuriousMind

14:32

@RyderRude yes because all the simple questions everyone has hadn't been asked yet so every subsequent asking of those simple questions points to the old one as a duplicate

and so people go upvote the original

it's natural: over time, the questions on SE sites have to become more niche on average because all the low-hanging fruit have been asked

Ryder Rude

oh

the older questions are very conceptual in nature

Slereah

data.stackexchange.com/physics/query/161411/…

Looks like the peak was indeed 2017

ACuriousMind

@RyderRude not counting the first lockdown peak, in 2017

Slereah

although on a moving average, I'd say the actual peak is 2021

Ryder Rude

Ron Maimon's answers are from 2010-12

ACuriousMind

14:35

@Slereah that's the lockdown spike

Ryder Rude

many top users have left

ACuriousMind

there's a giant activity spike in the month where most countries started to lock down

Slereah

I don't think Maimon left

Ryder Rude

Qmechanic and annav are still there among the top reputation users

ACuriousMind

@RyderRude ...you realize that's because he was banned from the entire SE network for more than 100 years after that, yes? :P

Ryder Rude

14:36

and johnrennie

@ACuriousMind what? why?

user 726941

@ACuriousMind How many lockdown spikes were there?

ACuriousMind

can't you read

seriously do people never read profiles

Ryder Rude

lemme see

ACuriousMind

if you click on Ron's profile it clearly says he's suspended network-wide until 2292

Mr. Feynman

Question about this. The typical way to go is to note that there is this ambiguity due to the $\phi^\ast\overset{\leftrightarrow}{\partial_0}\phi$ ordering problem and then remove it by postulating the vacuum bears no charge. It turns out this is the same as normal ordering.I wonder what would be the ordering choice to be made on $\phi^\ast\overset{\leftrightarrow}{\partial}_0\phi$ to get it normal ordered directly

Ryder Rude

14:38

he says he left because of censorship

ACuriousMind

@user726941 a giant one in Q1 of 2020 and several smaller ones that aren't as clear

user 726941

Thanks.

ACuriousMind

@Mr.Feynman what do you mean, "normal ordered directly"?

if you want to "normal order" it "directly", expand everything into modes, then get to sorting

Ryder Rude

oh yes. the phySE account says suspended

why was he suspended

Slereah

He has a big personality

user 726941

14:41

Arrogance

ACuriousMind

we generally don't discuss suspensions reasons publicly and also I wasn't a mod back then but honestly if you read through his contributions it's not that hard to figure out :P

what

Ryder Rude

idk. i guessed he said offensive stuff

Slereah

he is the personification of greed

Mammon

Mammon in the New Testament of the Bible is commonly thought to mean money, material wealth, or any entity that promises wealth, and is associated with the greedy pursuit of gain. The Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke both quote Jesus using the word in a phrase often rendered in English as "You cannot serve both God and mammon." In the Middle Ages, it was often personified and sometimes included in the seven princes of Hell. Mammon in Hebrew (ממון) means "money". The word was adopted to modern Hebrew to mean wealth. == Etymology == The word Mammon comes into English from post-classical...

Ryder Rude

@ACuriousMind i've read many of his answers

Mr. Feynman

The ambiguity arises because $\phi^\ast\partial_0\phi$ may be quantized as $\phi^\dagger\partial_0\phi$ or $(\partial_0\phi)\phi^\dagger$ or the anticommutator etc. Isn't the condition imposed on the charge of vacuum the same as choosing between one of these (or other possible alternatives)?

Ryder Rude

14:42

they are all focused on physics

ACuriousMind

@RyderRude hint: he's suspended network-wide, that doesn't happen just because you're a dick on physics.SE

Ryder Rude

i shud read the rules then

ACuriousMind

moderators can only suspend users for up to a year; longer suspensions come directly from SE employees

Slereah

Didn't he post that youtube video about SE

I forget

ACuriousMind

I won't discuss this further, if you can't figure it out, let sleeping dogs rest

Ryder Rude

14:46

i guess he aggressively criticized SE on youtube

ACuriousMind

@Slereah lol, no, I think you're thinking of a completely different user who posted that unhinged video about John Rennie and physics.SE

Slereah

ah yes

Apr 12, 2018 at 13:13, by Slereah

Maimon's ban ends on august 8th 2026

Oh man I guess he did something extra since then

Ryder Rude

what are the list of reasons for network wide ban?

i guess i shud leave it

at least his answers exist

user 726941

yeah, they're not gonna tell us the details

Slereah

Dead men tell no tales

glS

14:52

@RyderRude also, see physics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1376/58382

and directly from the source: qr.ae/pylBKn

(amusingly, he's also banned on quora lol)

user 726941

🙏 thanks

Ryder Rude

he says he was banned for protesting censorship

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