The h Bar

user223506

00:03

@AccidentalFourierTransform maybe... who knows? who cares? Little point if efforts are wasted here (as you stated)

smaude

01:01

Who wants to check out this question? physics.stackexchange.com/questions/307146/…

heather

01:18

it's quiet today.

Bernardo Meurer

@heather Sh

heather

::yells in the library::

Ramanujan

@heather hello

2

heather

@Ramanujan, hello

Ramanujan

I have 168 points but still it is showing to me

heather

01:23

hmm...

one moment

i don't know, to be honest

@Kenshin, what do you think of this?

@Ramanujan, kenshin would be the one to ask, as he knows more about the source code for the site.

my apologies that I cannot help you more. I approved your meta question, as well.

ZeroTheHero

@GPhys: L&L definitely not a favorite as a textbook. The Russian style is very dense and Landau had such intuition that too many statements are presented as obvious.

dmckee

02:46

@AccidentalFourierTransform I do believe that moderator super-powers can fix that. My fingers have their own opinions about how things should be spelled, and I hadn't noticed.

Bernardo Meurer

@dmckee Do you know how to do induction proofs?

dmckee

@BernardoMeurer Easy ones, probably.

You have to show two things:

(A) That what you want to prove is true in some limiting special case.

(B) That is case (n) is true then case (n+1) must also be true.

Bernardo Meurer

dmckee

with the direction leading from the special case to all other cases.

Bernardo Meurer

"Prove using induction that $a_n \in ]0,6[$ for any $n\in \mathbb N_1$"

So I must prove for n=1 which is trivial

dmckee

02:52

So, try to show that $a_{n+1}$ must be positive and less than $a_n$ as long as $a_n$ is positive. Then use the fact that $a_1 = 6$ to set the upper bound. Maybe?

Yeah. Looks like that might work.

@BernardoMeurer $n=1$ is the starting point and, as you observe is particularly easy in this case.

Bernardo Meurer

I just wrote $0<\frac{a_n}{3}(1-e^{-a_n^2})\le 6$

But then I'm not sure how to conduct the proof so to speak

I see why it's true

But I don't know how to "say it"

dmckee

Might be clearer in the form $0 < (1 - e^{-a_n^2})/3 < 1$.

Bernardo Meurer

Hm? How'd you do that?

dmckee

@BernardoMeurer I looked and saw that $a_{n+1} = a_n (\text{some factor})$ and thought 'Ah! We want some factor to lie between 0 and 1, so I'll write it that way.'

Sir Cumference

Hm, question

Has any SE site used public domain images for its design, or have they all made their designs by scratch?

dmckee

02:58

You 'll have to argue that you know that $a_n$ is positive to insure that $(1 - e^\{\dots\})$ is positive but smaller than unity.

Bernardo Meurer

Hm

dmckee

@SirCumference They have a dungeon full of tormented designers. I presume they do them all.

Sir Cumference

@dmckee Welp, I feel like one

It's a huge pain to create a ton of vector images from scratch

dmckee

@SirCumference But you're torturing yourself.

Sir Cumference

And even worse to make them look good

dmckee

03:00

That's different.

Sir Cumference

@dmckee I know, but it's a project that I started, and thus need to see through

dmckee

@SirCumference Yes. Yes it is. That's why you capture and enslave a designer.

Bernardo Meurer

@dmckee Okay, I get the first part of that, but why can you state that the factor has to be between 0 and 1? This is as if you had stated that $a_n=6$ and then divided by it

Kenshin

@heather more reputation is required to send private messages

I haven't updated the text with the new reputation figure

dmckee

Well. You can start with a case where the value is known to be 6. So $e^\{\dots\}$ is less than 1 (because $\dots$ is negative), and thus $(1-e^\dots)$ is less than one.

That makes $a_2$ smaller than six but still positive.

Kenshin

03:02

I think it is 200 rep I will check and update soon

dmckee

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Kenshin

@heather yes 200 reputation is required

2

this was increased to stop users from creating multiple accounts and upvoting to get to the required reputation

this can still be done but the effort to do so has increase4d

Bernardo Meurer

@dmckee What a boring thing to do :/

Sir Cumference

@Kenshin I assume you're talking about qandaexchange

Bernardo Meurer

Thanks for the help!

Kenshin

03:04

@SirCumference that's right

dmckee

Induction proofs are like the drug pushers dream product.

Sir Cumference

See, a rep requirement would make PMing viable here

Bernardo Meurer

@dmckee Lol

Sir Cumference

No help vampires or noobs

dmckee

The first one gives you a high. The second one a little boost. The third one you barely notice, but by then you're hooked and can't quit.

4

Bernardo Meurer

03:07

Gives me low grades that's what it does

koolman

Hii @Kenshin

Kenshin

hi @koolman

koolman

@Kenshin After a long time to come online

Secret

03:53

ugh, I suck at integrating curved trajectories. I need to think carefully on what happens for each second in this system

It is true I assumed the rods are rigid, but with a tangential acceleration, this cannot be circular motion

Secret

04:23

o wait nvm

rob

05:19

3

Bragging time: from now on, when I say something like "I'm speaking with my moderator's hat on," you'll know to take me literally

DanielSank

05:31

O

M

G

I should have run for mod.

Bernardo Meurer

Damn you mods

rob

I also got SE and Physics.SE shirts and stickers

Bernardo Meurer

wtf man

rob

I am like the coolest person on my entire couch right now

Bernardo Meurer

How come I get nothing

I'm the only reason this site functions!

DanielSank

05:32

@rob lkaooiuwoiy98y4329873498yu3 t4p9nt8yne p98yt 0oe9tugy 89yu erpoiuh ert

rob

@DanielSank Translation?

DanielSank

I'll send you Google stickers in exchange for PSE stickers.

Bernardo Meurer

@rob Let me see the stickers!

@rob You don't want to know what he told you

That's russian btw

DanielSank

@rob Oh, yes, in English that's "I envy your stickers, good sir".

rob

@DanielSank Somehow I suspect this translation lacks nuance

DanielSank

05:33

@BernardoMeurer нет, этот не русский.

@rob Well, a translator takes certain liberties, you know.

Bernardo Meurer

@DanielSank If it's not ASCII I ain't reading it

(extended ASCII counts)

DanielSank

rekt

So @rob, how is being a mod?

Champagne and caviar as promised?

Secret

Hey guys, I have a one year old question which I just recently (get through my procrastination and) update it with new modelling details. I'd like to know whether the question looks clear to you for the section after it states "Update"

rob

@DanielSank It's mostly not remarkable.

DanielSank

@Secret Never, ever put an "update" section in a question.

Just edit it.

Nobody cares about the chronological development of the question.

rob

05:38

The flag queue stays pretty empty unless something strange develops over a few days.

Lately our users have been mostly nice to each other.

DanielSank

@rob Yeah, I noticed the tone around here has improved remarkably.

Secret

Well, for that, the issue is Mark have answered the old version of the question, thus I want to briefly acknowledge that in the update so that future users will not see his answer as off. Maybe there's a better way to do so?

rob

I no longer feel bad about letting the close review queue build up since I don't like casting super-close votes

DanielSank

There are noticeably fewer antagonistic comments.

@Secret Leave a comment under that answer.

@rob That's one of the reasons I didn't want to be a mod. It seems like it discourages doing reviews.

rob

@DanielSank Lately at least, when I've peeked into the review queue, the close votes I've cast have been fourth or fifth. I guess the queue is showing me the questions that are nearest to closing before the questions. So that's not terribly different either.

DanielSank

05:42

oh that's interesting!

rob

I think that we're lucky here to have a fairly large community of useful high-rep people.

DanielSank

The fraction of high-rep/total-users is probably high here.

That would make an interesting chart.

rob

@DanielSank That's the kind of thing that I'd like to be able to extract from the SEDE, but not enough to actually wrap my head around the database structure.

Secret

06:01

Ok, advices taken. Be warned. While I do try to treat this seriously at the newtonian level, the question does cover a rather taboo topic in physics. As a disclaimer, my expected answer is a mechanism explaining how the device can fail, although I also consider the slim possibility of a surprise

0

Q: Can energy be extracted indefinitely from a mass dipole/mass negative mass pair in perpetual motion?

Some days ago I have read this short piece of article by Hammond which caused me to revisit the theoretical properties of negative mass. It is known that a pair consists of ordinary mass and negative mass of equal magnitude, known as a mass dipole in some sources, can accelerate indefinitely by ...

My major issue in the modelling is it is not clear how entropy is calculated in such system as the total energy of the driving component is zero

user228700

Hi, everyone.

Secret

finally feel a bit alive by not procrastinating

John Rennie

Morning :-)

Secret

I don't have last night dream (because the weather had been oven like hot recently and causing me to sweat and itch like crazy and cannot sleep well)

However, I do have a pretty awesome previous night dream where I saw some strange type of magic

koolman

06:52

Hii @JohnRennie

John Rennie

07:15

Morning :-)

DanielSank

07:36

Dear everyone,

Please spend time learning to code well.

You will make other people not unhappy.

Sincerely,

Me.

Kenshin

I also have SE t-shirt

it was sent to me when I applied to be a mod once (even though I wasn't elected)

Physics Meta

0

Q: Dealing with StackOverflow influence

When questions accumulate upvotes quickly, they're put on the Hot Network Queue and shown to people on other SE sites. I've always disliked the 'HNQ effect' because of the way it distorts voting patterns in questions. The vast majority of the distortion comes from visitors from StackOverflow, t...

discussion

AccidentalFourierTransform

09:31

I wonder why knzhou deleted that meta post

it looks interesting

@rob you don't look like a Rob

Robs have short dark hair

you're an impostor #NotMyModerator

cool hat btw :-P

John Doe

10:50

Hi all

Swapnil Das

11:00

hi

Hi @yuggib

Actually, I always waited for you to join the lounge for I wanted to ask you a question.

Which branch of math are you doing a PhD in? I mean transition from Physics is hard, no?

Moe

If I could add my two cents here

depending on your area of theoretical physics the transition is not really hard.

A colleague of mine swapped from string theory to algebraic geometry in his phd

Swapnil Das

Oh, Ic.

Moe

So, if you are anywhere near formal qft/string theory the transition to anything geometrical is rather easy.

Swapnil Das

@Moe Are you a Physicist, sir?

Moe

The same goes for "formal" solid state

where the transition into analysis is not so hard.

Swapnil Das

11:07

ohk.

Moe

I am still learning. Currently doing my phd.

In string theory

Swapnil Das

A PhD in?

Wow!

Nice to meet you :)

Moe

Yeah, nice to meet you, too.

And well, I just started my phd ;) I need to finish it first before impressing people :D

Swapnil Das

Haha. What drew you towards the very field?

Moe

Ah well, I've always liked that understanding "math" gives you so much insight into the physical concepts in a theory.

Swapnil Das

11:11

Haha. Hi5!

Though my knowledge and imagination is negligible in comparision to yours :P

Moe

So for example the connection of conservative forces with the poincaré lemma is really cool in my opinion !

Swapnil Das

Oh.

Moe

understanding geometry makes the physics so easy and it is just so powerful that you make so few assumptions and just by following the math get so many exciting predictions (which usually turn out to be true)!

Swapnil Das

Wow. Silly question, does one need euclidean geometry?

Moe

and then I found a really cool advisor for my bachelor thesis in qft (who happened to be a string theorist) and I was "hooked"

eh, well, sure.

So what exactly do you mean with euclidean geometry ?

like, triangles ? :D

Swapnil Das

11:14

Like, do you know Ceva's Theorem?

I don't think Advanced Euclidean Geometry has anything to do.

Moe

ah that kind of geometry :D

Swapnil Das

Yeah :)

Moe

Well, no. I mean that is also "geometry" and in a rigorous formulation it is really interesting. It is a branch of linear algebra and called "affine geometry".

Swapnil Das

oh

Moe

But I always disliked this geometry back in school. I never had a good imagination for this :D

Swapnil Das

11:17

Haha. That happens.

Moe

In string theory one works with algebraic geometry and differential geometry.

Swapnil Das

Seems to be cooler.

Moe

There you want to describe curved spaces

Swapnil Das

I might be learning them after... 9 years?

Moe

But thats harder and you cant really do that without advanced math.

Swapnil Das

11:18

Yeah :D

Moe

Well depending on your current level you could start with differential geometry in school :D

there are some easy introductions into stuff like spherical geometry !

Swapnil Das

Lol. I'm still a tenth grader.

Moe

should be possible for you !

Swapnil Das

Hmm. Maybe.

Moe

if you are interested in it. Spherical geometry is extremly helpful in physics beginner courses and just a good introduction into differential geometry !

But yeah, stay tuned. It really gets interesting if you use the math in physics !

Swapnil Das

11:20

Ahh. Interesting.

I like math. But I would always like to qualify Physics Olympiad before studying anything else :P

Moe

:D thats cool

Swapnil Das

Haha.

Moe

I was always too lazy for stuff like that. Always so complicated calculations and tricks ^^

Swapnil Das

Yeah. But it is helpful as a certificate to carry out further studies/research.

Like, you get admitted to top univs.

Moe

Well, but I have to go. Group is going to get lunch ! cya!

Swapnil Das

11:23

Cya! Same here :D

Moe

Yea, thats for sure.

Swapnil Das

:)

John Doe

@EmilioPisanty So real part of what I wrote $Re[\mathbf{\tilde{E}}] = Re[\mathbf{\vec{E}}e^{i(kz-\omega t + \delta)}] = \mathbf{\vec{E}}\cos(kz-\omega t + \delta)$ where $\mathbf{\vec{E}}$ is real valued since we got it by taking the real part of $\mathbf{\tilde{E}}$. But you are saying that $\mathbf{\vec{E}}$ is not necessarily real, what is wrong the with what I stated? Thanks.

@EmilioPisanty I think you have a typo in your answer. Did you mean "there's no guarentee you can make $\mathbf{\tilde{E}}$ real"?

yuggib

11:40

@SwapnilDas Hi

I have finished my PhD a while ago :-D

I studied (theoretical, high energy) physics in the bachelor and master, and then did a Ph.D. in analysis. Now I am working at the intersection between mathematical physics and analysis.

The transition is not so hard, even if there are many things to learn if one wants to do proper professional mathematics coming from physics.

ACuriousMind

12:18

@yuggib Like...what a proof is? :P

heather

12:32

hello

AccidentalFourierTransform

@heather hi

did your teacher like your video?

Secret

One problem of setting some feeds in the chat is that, there is no easy way to restrict the feed further to filter the low quality hw questions. For example, in my chat, I have a quantum mechanics feed standby to help me better grab some quantum stuff, but some of these are those hw questions which is not the questions I am interested in

It will be good if the feed can be customised as "quantum mechanics" and NOT "homework"

AccidentalFourierTransform

Theorem: physicists don't understand formal theorems.

Proof: left to the reader. Hint: use induction.

yuggib

@ACuriousMind :-D indeed...but that seems not entirely clear to some mathematicians also

Secret

I tend to mix up theorems and propositions

ACuriousMind

12:40

@Secret That's because the distinction is arbitrary :P

Secret

Lemmas are easy, because they always lead to a theorem in a few lines

ACuriousMind

@yuggib I think mathematicians know but sometimes choose to ignore it - the physicist never knew ;)

yuggib

@ACuriousMind that's probably accurate ;-P

heather

@AccidentalFourierTransform yep

yuggib

@Secret Probably most people do not know that there are Scholia as well

AccidentalFourierTransform

12:42

nice :-)

Secret

O that, as far as ams papers go, scholia are a very rare term

yuggib

no, scholia is already the plural :-D

of scholium

they are rare, but still exist in some papers, most notably in the papers/books of Irving Segal

AccidentalFourierTransform

isnt a scholium just a remark?

ACuriousMind

I resolved years ago to only use "definition", "proposition" and "theorem" if I write a definition-theorem-proof style document.

All those other words are completely unnecessary

AccidentalFourierTransform

lemme lament that lame lemma

ACuriousMind

12:47

Meanwhile, rpg.SE gets psychotic again: Fastest way to remove bones from a man

yuggib

@AccidentalFourierTransform no it is far more than a remark

AccidentalFourierTransform

@yuggib what is it then? I've never seen scholium used anywhere

ACuriousMind

It's a pretentious remark, judging by the name ;)

yuggib

@AccidentalFourierTransform it's something that expands and further explains a concept/result

Secret

My habit tend to be prepare a bunch of defintiions and propositions to prove a theorem, and then use these to prove other theorems. If a theorem get too long, I split some of the important parts into lemmas. I also number corollaries in the format a.b where a is the theorem no. it based on and b is the corollary.

Not a very rigoruos mathematicians i am, huh...? lol

yuggib

12:50

but I agree it is a rather pretentious name

AccidentalFourierTransform

so... a long remark? I think Im gonna need a scholium on scholia

bc Im not sure I understand the difference

ACuriousMind

That'd be a scholium scholiorum, probably

AccidentalFourierTransform

scholium scholiorum scoliosis

i think im gonna go have lunch now

ice cream for lunch it is, because im an adult and thats how I choose to live

3

heather

nice

ice cream is the best

user228700

Hi, guys :-)

heather

13:00

@Kaumudi.H, hello

John Rennie

Hi :-)

How are you feeling today?

user228700

:-) In the morning I didn't feel much better but I'm OK now...I think. Thanks.

user228700

How's ur cold?

John Rennie

I'm OK

user228700

OK :-) Quick question: Do u own a kindle?

John Rennie

13:07

As in, not great but well it's just a cold.

I used to use a Kindle but I switched to using an Android tablet.

user228700

Why?

John Rennie

The screen is too small on a Kindle. It's only a 6" screen and you can't see much of the page at a time.

Unless you make the font very small, in which case you can't read it anyway :-)

user228700

Oh, OK. That seems like a minor problem, esp. given that I don't (/don't wish to) own a tablet.

user228700

I'm thinking about asking for a Kindle for my 18th birthday.

ACuriousMind

I've never been able to see a Kindle as something other than a tablet with less functionality

John Rennie

13:10

Lots of my friends use them. In fact my Mum uses one. If you just want to read books they work very well.

@ACuriousMind you underestimate how scary tablets are to the uninitiated.

user228700

It's small, it can hold many thousands of books at a time and no glare. What more can I ask for?

John Rennie

@ACuriousMind Kindle's are idiot proof, even for the more determined idiots :-)

@Kaumudi.H Given the choice of reading on a Kindle or reading on a tablet the tablet would win every tim - by a mile!

But Kindles do work well

user228700

But I don't want a tablet.

John Rennie

I hate to tell you this, but a Kindle is a tablet. Just a very limited one.

user228700

Well, yes, but I don't want a tablet for stuff other than just reading.

ACuriousMind

13:13

@JohnRennie I guess so. I felt really old recently when I visited a friend and his two-year-old daughter can't speak a full sentence yet but has no problem navigating to her favourite cartoon on a tablet.

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H I use my tablet almost exclusively for reading

With just the occasional foray into Chrome if I want to look up something I've just read about.

user228700

.__. What's ur point, then? In what ways is a tablet better than a Kindle?

John Rennie

The screen is bigger and brighter, and any modern tablet is a lot faster flicking around the book.

ACuriousMind

Buying a tablet with a stylus has so drastically reduced the amount of paper I carry around and simplified the organisation of my notes that I don't really want to go back.

John Rennie

I use Aldiko as the e-reader and I find that much nicer thn the Kindle reading app.

user228700

13:16

...right. I'm not getting a tablet tho. They're a lot more expensive. I'm more than happy to ask my parents for a Kindle.

John Rennie

Once you have thousands of books on your Kindle it's a pain finding any particular book.

Kindle's are good. If you enjoy reading then you'll enjoy reading ona Kindle.

user228700

That's all I need :-) They only cost about 5000 rupees.

John Rennie

About £50. That seems cheap. I'm sure they're more expensive than that in the UK ...

ACuriousMind

@JohnRennie There's a sizable set of people who strongly dislike electronic reading compared to physical books

user228700

@JohnRennie What? Really?

user228700

13:19

amazon.in/All-New-Kindle-E-reader-Glare-Free-Touchscreen/dp/…

John Rennie

Wow, that's a good price.

user228700

...there are pricier ones, you know.

John Rennie

OK, I've checked and they are £59.99 in the UK so the price is about the same.

The price has obviously come down since the last time I checked.

user228700

Yep, OK. So yeah, I've decided what I want for my birthday. This one and a T-shirt that says "Holden Caulfield thinks you're a phony".

John Rennie

Google, Google, aha The Catcher in the Rye

user228700

13:24

Yeah! I thought u may have read that book.

John Rennie

@ACuriousMind I much prefer a paper book for textbooks. I have a PDF of Gravitation but it's almost unusable except as a reference. But for fiction I actually prefer the tablet to a book.

thought for food

MIT's OCW helps out IIT entrance exam takers

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H I probably read it at school, though I have no memory of doing so.

user228700

Oh, OK. It's probably one of my favorite books of all time.

John Rennie

I guess it's a good sign when teen memes come from the literary world rather than TV or a vlog :-)

user228700

13:26

It sure is :-)

user228700

I've read that book about 6 times now. Still so good.

ACuriousMind

@JohnRennie Huh. I much prefer a search function and having it available everywhere, especially for a textbook, I think.

John Rennie

I'm afraid CITR falls into that large class of generally contemptible fiction not science-fiction or fantasy.

user228700

Yeah, it's not sci-fi.

John Rennie

@ACuriousMind Search function. Now let me see, doesn't the paper copy of MTW have one of those at the back :-)

user228700

13:29

But contemptible? Again, to each his own.

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H I'm exaggerating for effect.

user228700

:-) OK.

user228700

BTW, my "Have to read" list will shock you.

John Rennie

But I do genuinely have little interest in the touchy feelier end of the literary scale.

user228700

Wanna see? :-P

user228700

13:30

U might throw up.

John Rennie

Go on then ...

I'll get a bucket

ACuriousMind

And my consumption of fiction has been declining since I got out of school. I still enjoy the stories but reading to relax isn't an integral part of my routine anymore

user228700

Thirteen reasons why
Anna and the French Kiss
It's kind of a funny story
To kill a mockingbird
The curious case of the dog at night time
The God of small things
The unthinkable thoughts of Jacob Green
The Great Gatsby
We were liars
Are you there God? It's Me, Margaret
The absolutely true diary of a part time Indian
Boy proof
I'll give you the sun
Nick and Noah's infinite playlist
All the bright places
Warm bodies
World War Z
Everybody sees the ants

This world we live in
The shade of the moon

ACuriousMind

@JohnRennie touchy-feely and SFF technically do not exclude each other, do they? :P

user228700

Oh, crap.

John Rennie

13:31

What? You've just thrown up? :-)

user228700

No, I didn't realise it would take that much space :-P Hang on, lemme edit...

Slereah

Hello

thought for food

hi

user228700

There. So did u throw up? :-P

John Rennie

@ACuriousMind I think I like books to be unworldly i.e. have some hint of strangeness about them. I've been living in the real world for a long time now and I don't really want to spend my down time reading about it.

So touchy-feely is fine as long as there is that hint of the esoteric in there too.

ACuriousMind

13:33

@JohnRennie With that, I totally agree! Escapism is the prime reason I read fiction.

rob

@AccidentalFourierTransform That is so ... wrong

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H I wouldn't criticise anyone's choice of books (apart from possibly to tease them) because reading is such a personal thing.

user228700

:-) Of course. I was only asking about the teasing.

John Rennie

But few of those books would be high on my list. I read and enjoyed World War Z, though that's kind of a throwaway book rather than a deep one.

user228700

Oh, really, a few? Which ones?

user228700

13:36

I watched the movie and thought I might as well give it a read sometime.

John Rennie

Not:
a few of those books would be high on my list
Just:
few of those books would be high on my list

user228700

Ah :-P I missed that.

user228700

Of course. Almost none of them are sci-fi. Well, except maybe just World War Z and the last two books.

thought for food

why not "a few"?

user228700

@thoughtforfood grammarly.com/blog/few-a-few

John Rennie

13:39

I haven't read anything by Susan Pfeffer

user228700

Yeah, I know, I've asked u that before.

Slereah

I'm brushing up on my analysis

The secret is

The triangle inequality

Basically everything is done with it

thought for food

@Kaumudi.H thanks :-)

user228700

Sure :-)

John Rennie

The last book I read was Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin. Very strange.

Slereah

13:41

The current book I'm reading is book 2 of the orthogonal trilogy

It is the best book

user228700

@JohnRennie Ooooh, sounds really interesting!

Slereah

It's a book where the universe has Riemannian signature

John Rennie

I read the first book, but it was a bit flat

Slereah

Oh the story is boring and conventional

It's your classic "We must escape this planet because science"

but the physics is great

John Rennie

I do generally like Greg Egan's books, but he sometimes lets the science get away from him a bit.

Slereah

13:43

He is a crazy man

John Rennie

As I've learned more about physics I find a lot of the hard sci-fi authors get less interesting.

Slereah

Well a lot of hard sci fi is either boring engineering or rather superficial physics

because they can't get too much into details

John Rennie

Have you read much by Ian McDonald?

For example Brasyl is hard SF but done really well.

@Kaumudi.H I can give you a copy when you get the Kindle.

You can use the laptop to copy books on and off the Kindle.

user228700

@JohnRennie Nice! Thanks very much! ::Bows down::

John Rennie

In fact when I used a Kindle I kept most of the books on my laptop and copied them over when i wanted to read them. That makes it a lot easier to organise your book collection.

You just connect the Kindle to your PC with a USB cable and the PC sees it as detachable storage. So just copy the .mobi files as required.

user228700

13:49

Awesome! That makes it a lot easier!

Slereah

I have not

John Rennie

When you have thousands of books on the Kindle it's very slow finding any particular book, so using your laptop for storing the books is a lot easier.

user228700

...I can imagine. It'll be awhile before I have thousands of books and all tho. Something about this whole thing that I don't like is that I have to buy every book.

user228700

...some of which I'll never read again.

John Rennie

I have to buy every book - I'm saying nothing :-)

user228700

13:52

:-) I prefer libraries but they're not reliable.

Kelthar

Quick question guys:
I have a cubic spline using 5 interpolation points. If I then add points on each side of the graph, does the function change for the inner points (That's obvious for polynomial interpolation), but is that also true for the cubic spline? might be obvious but just want to be sure

John Rennie

Anyhow, I have to get to the bank before it closes so I'm off.

user228700

Bye :-) Have a nice day.

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