The h Bar

Brandon Enright

03:09

"We need a (1/sqrt(2))(|Schroedinger> + |Schrödinger>) tag – twistor59"

Possibly the best comment ever made.

David Zaslavsky

05:47

Don't forget our chat session coming up in about 10 hours!

I probably can't be here at the time, unfortunately, but I'll check in if I have good enough reception on my phone

Rajesh D

10:45

Hi

Physics Meta

12:13

0

Q: What can be done about the (current) flood of homework and very basic questions overwhelming our site?

Since quite some time, the amount of new incoming higher level questions is decaying and the number of very basic ones is increasing, but the current inflood of bad homeworks (the good ones I appreciate and upvote) and very basic questions of non physicists and people who have almost no physics k...

OmnipresentAbsence

15:53

Can anyone please enlighten me what is so special about the fine-structure constant. If I've understood it correctly, it is just the coupling constant of the electromagnetic force, which almost equals 1/137 when the strong interaction is 1. Right?

Oh wait, nevermind, I thought the forces where compared to eachother with the strong interaction abitrarily (with that I mean instead of the other forces) being exactly 1. Still don't understand its significance.

David Zaslavsky

Hey everyone... anyone here for the chat session?

twistor59

Hi David, I'm sorta here

David Zaslavsky

I can't stay because I'm on the road again but I was hoping there would be enough chatters to get this going

twistor59

16:08

Apparently not. I'll stick around for a little while and see what happens....

Hi Dilaton, as you can see, the chat is going really, ummmmm, quietly today

Dilaton

Hi @twistor59 ;-) i can peek in a bit bit I have to edit and compile some code etc ...

twistor59

Same as me, I'm at work debugging code....

Dilaton

@DavidZaslavsky have you seen my newest meta question ...?

@twistor59 I was debugging what I did yesterday the whol day, grrrrr :-D!

David Zaslavsky

Yes, I saw it

twistor59

Can't see a recent Dilaton question in meta....

The one about anomalous dimensions?

Dilaton

16:19

@twistor59 nope, the one about the overwhelming really low-level stuff

user54412

stimulating chat session, I see

twistor59

Hi Chris, yes, we're really rocking here

user54412

well, I can't contribute too much either

user54412

at a conference with spotty internet myself

twistor59

@Dilaton on meta.physics.stackexchange.com ? strange I can't see it

@ChrisWhite Interesting conference?

user54412

16:25

meh - AAS general get-together

Dilaton

@twistor59 yep I'd like to see some nice good answers. I think everything for which we would need an additional feature implemented could be difficult in practice ...

user54412

in a few minutes there will be a NASA town hall meeting to discuss budgets and things - that might be interesting if not scientific

twistor59

@ChrisWhite yeah, sounds interesting

user54412

anyone else see this? kickstarter.com/projects/1458134548/…

user54412

I'm waiting for particle experimentalists to start crowd funding their colliders

Dilaton

16:29

@ChrisWhite Interesting ... :-/? What I hear about such things these days is that budget discussions for science means cuts, interesting things have to be abandonned even though for example existing large experimnts do no longer need so much money because they dont have to be built etc... This is not a funny party topic to discuss ...

twistor59

@Dilaton sorry, could you post in a link to your question

user54412

@twistor59

user54412

2

Q: What can be done about the (current) flood of homework and very basic questions overwhelming our site?

Since quite some time, the amount of new incoming higher level questions is decaying and the number of very basic ones is increasing, but the current inflood of bad homeworks (the good ones I appreciate and upvote) and very basic questions of non physicists and people who have almost no physics k...

discussion scope questions

Dilaton

@Thanks Chris :-)

twistor59

@ChrisWhite thanks

user54412

16:31

@Dilaton yeah, probably not fun. But necessary to know what we can expect to be funded over the next decade

user54412

It's actually not clear to me what NASA is funding these days - there's Mars, and that's pretty much it

user54412

we (the US) doesn't build space telescopes anymore, nor do we even launch things into space

Dilaton

Concerning science budgets, maybe different sources have to be for science than governement funding. @ChrisWhite yep it is important. From afar (Germany) I am getting the impression that the US (the governement at least) does no longer want to take part in experimental fundamental physics, astronomy, etc ... You know "big physics" of any kind ;-). That is sad because the already running projects and experiments could just be continued without large additional investments ...

Hi @Qmechanic, nice to see you :-)

twistor59

@Dilaton Re your question It's true about the homework question ratio, but since it's a public site, perhaps not so surprising since the ratio of specialists to "newbies" is very low. I wish I knew what to do about it. TheoreticalPhysics SE didn't get off the ground.l

user54412

@Dilaton I was speaking to someone from Germany yesterday who told me his impression was that Germany (and maybe France) are holding out against the generally failing economic situation in Europe...

Dilaton

16:40

@twistor59 I often think it would be the best to start a new site somewhere (outside the SE network for the physicist community to be able to completely self determine the rules and policies), like TP was but with the level a bit lowered such that already undergrad students could ask.

user54412

...but it's only a matter of time before they are affected enough to begin serious science cuts, given what's happening to the rest of the continent

user54412

is this an accurate perspective?

Dilaton

@ChrisWhite I fear you are some kind of right. At the moment things are going not that bad here, in our German Physics Society we even have news that some new institutes or projects, even fundamental physics ones :-), will be started.

But in the Eurozone we have some problems too, so debt black holes that such money that could be better used etc ... And I suspect throwing money into these black holes is not a unitary process, conversely to information ;-)

twistor59

It's kinda lonely these days without the Black Magic spammer don't you think?

user54412

hmm update on those Hubble-like telescopes donated to science by the NRO

user54412

16:50

looks like they're aiming at WFIRST + exoplanet imager

user54412

but no final decision on the project until 2016 at earliest

twistor59

@ChrisWhite sounds good. I was disappointed about Kepler.

dmckee

@twistor59 What you definitely can do is (1) vote down, (2) close if you have that power and have a decent excuse and (3) not answer those questions.

3

The last is very important because if they get what they came for they will come back.

3

Dilaton

@twistor59 yes, I miss him, I thought he would help me to become a marshal :-P, since I am just a simple deputy at present :-D

twistor59

@dmckee Yes, I do (3), but I don't do enough of (1) and (2). I should do more.

dmckee

16:57

Personally, I treat homework-like questions to the kind of response that will lead smart and able askers to insight, while seeming pointlessly cryptic to the lazy.

Dilaton

Hi @dmckee it would be good if you could write somthing nice, as you just said here for example, to my meta question ;-)

dmckee

18

A: What can be done to improve Physics.SE as an active forum for physics researchers and student's?

As long as users reward simple questions, simple questions will continue to be asked. It's as simple as that. Right now the user base is rewarding physics 101 questions and ill-informed speculations from a pop-sci foundation. Give me a consensus that those question don't belong and I'd be happy...

twistor59

Maybe we should rename the "homework" tag to something more derogatory and hence offputting, so when that gets slapped on your question, it's a badge of shame

dmckee

@twistor59 Definitely not. There are good (for Physics.SE) homework type questions out there. They are just harder to ask than many casual users believe/are-willing-to-put-the-effort-into.

user54412

galex to be decommissioned... :(

user54412

17:04

maybe we can kickstarter it...

Dilaton

@twistor59 tag synomym homework -> crap :-D. Now this is rather meant jokingly, since I agree with dmckee and from time to time I see good homework like questions from which I can learn something too, and these I like and upvote :-)

twistor59

:-) OK guys, maybe there are some good homework questions. But as soon as I see a question with a specific force in Newtons or a specific mass in Kg, I click to the next question. Maybe I should put more effort in close-voting

OK time to go home... bye for now folks

Dilaton

@twistor59 not just move to more interesting questions but do something against the not interesting ones could certainly help ... It was nice to see you here ;-)

Until three or two weeks ago, I just ignored the crap too, but now I have started spouting flags ...

@dmckee yep, I liked this answer.

David Zaslavsky

18:09

1

Q: How is a one position shift of an interferometer fringe pattern defined?

When Michelson and Morley conducted their 1887 interferometer experiment, they were expecting a fringe pattern shift of 0.4 (see the chart at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment). I understand that fringe patterns are represented as series of alternating dark and light bands...

waves interferometry

I edited this question in a way that I think makes it better... perhaps others could look at it

Physics Meta

19:43

0

Q: User talk pages

Sorry if everyone else knows about this stuff, but I can't find any information about it anywhere. I see occasional comments about one user putting something on another user's "talk page". I have some questions for a particular user that don't rise to the level of an official question (but it's...

support best-practices

alan2here

20:39

hmm, can't get an answer despite the bounty or talk to anyone in any chat because everyone is inactive

It's cool, but, come an answer anyway :¬P if you can

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