English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Kit Z. Fox

21:00

@rahuldottech is it French?

Færd

@Mitch What's it say?

Will Hunting

@rahuldottech One can use Google Translate, LOL.

rahuldottech

@KitZ.Fox I... don't think so? :P

Mitch

Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory

In mathematics, Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, named after mathematicians Ernst Zermelo and Abraham Fraenkel, is one of several axiomatic systems that were proposed in the early twentieth century to formulate a theory of sets free of paradoxes such as Russell's paradox. Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the historically controversial axiom of choice included is commonly abbreviated ZFC, where C stands for choice. Many authors use ZF to refer to the axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice excluded. Today ZFC is the standard form of axiomatic set theory and as such is the most...

Kit Z. Fox

I can't check on my phone.

rahuldottech

21:01

@WillHunting oh. yeah. that. :P

Kit Z. Fox

And I don't remember what is there.

Mitch

argh... but it links to the section on...

Will Hunting

@KitZ.Fox Let me check for him.

Mitch

Replacement

rahuldottech

> Voici mon secret. Il est très simple. On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essential est invisible pour les yeux.

Mitch

21:01

that's the one that people think is weird.

I know.

All the others seem weird too

Will Hunting

@rahuldottech It is French!

Kit Z. Fox

It's probably "That which is essential is invisible to the eye."

rahuldottech

Okay, got it, thanks to Google:

Kit Z. Fox

Oh. It's the whole quotation.

rahuldottech

> Here is my secret. It is very simple. One sees clearly only with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes.

Kit Z. Fox

21:02

Yeah, close enough.

rahuldottech

Wait. Google spelt essential wrong.

Will Hunting

That is quite a beautiful translation.

Færd

@Mitch Haha.

Mitch

@KitZ.Fox Yep, intestinal bacteria

Færd

I didn't know about that one.

rahuldottech

21:03

@Mitch haha

Tonepoet

Alternatively, @WillHunting would you tell me what the best mathematical dictionary is in your opinion?

rahuldottech

@Tonepoet I've used this for school, although the website is not of the best design: mathematicsdictionary.com/math-vocabulary.htm

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet Ah, I have never consulted a math dictionary in my entire life, so I don't know. But I would say that a term in math can mean different things because of different conventions, and different terms can mean the same things. Moreover, if they mean different things, they can be logically equivalent or not equivalent. So math definitions are complicated, LOL.

Mitch

@Færd because it's .. it's like a fixup. everything else helps construct sets and manipulate them, but I think 'replacement' was suggested because it allowed proofs to go through. Was totally unmotivated other-wise.

supposedly

I'm just repeating what I've read.

rahuldottech

@KitZ.Fox I like it!

Kit Z. Fox

21:06

Usually, it is translated as "It is only with the heart that one can see clearly."

Which is a little more poetic.

Mitch

@WillHunting English dictionaries have enough problems. Math dictionaries are that much worse.

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet Also, you must know that math up to the high school level is very different from math beyond the high school level. It is a whole nother thing altogether.

Tonepoet

@WillHunting I'm not interested in what things mean for that reason. I'm interested in how they should be interpreted.

Mitch

They are really dumb

Færd

@KitZ.Fox Does it sound more heartfelt in French?

Tonepoet

21:07

@rahuldottech From that resource, we have "axiom (postulate) An initial proposition or statement that is generally accepted as true without proof (self-evident truth) and from which further statements, or theorems, can be derived by using logical deduction." So it's a mixture of the primary and secondary definition rolled into one.

Færd

"accepted as ..."

Mitch

@KitZ.Fox Spock says "I don't get it". Uhura says "Oh Spock, you idiot"

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet Well, I think that a math dictionary isn't really very useful to someone who wants to study math, and I am not sure who it will be useful for actually, IMAO.

Tonepoet

@Færd "([S]elf evident-truth)" is still mentioned.

Mitch

@Færd haha heartfelt

Kit Z. Fox

21:09

@Færd yes? The construction "ne voit bien que" is difficult in English. It's roughly "can only see well".

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet Maybe a math dictionary can help an author writing a book about math but not doing math himself, that's all. So it provides a little more technical details than the ordinary dictionary, but is not exactly a math textbook.

Mitch

@WillHunting It's not at all useful. any definitions that are needed are made up on the spot, and then the word means what is defined and nothing else.

Will Hunting

@Mitch You can define a cat as a dog and a dog as a cat, for example.

Færd

@KitZ.Fox Aha. OK.

Mitch

@WillHunting Exactly or a point line plane as chair table beer

Kit Z. Fox

21:10

But it also has the sense of "see true" like...I don't know, how we would say an arrow flies true? Like correct, straight, accurate.

Mitch

or whatever the quote is

Færd

@KitZ.Fox Piercing?

Will Hunting

@Mitch By the way, a very good lecturer said the cat dog example. He is really very good, but he smokes a few cigarettes every day.

MetaEd

@Mitch Sure. I believe that's an axiom of non-Euclidean geometry.

Kit Z. Fox

@Færd not really. I don't know how to define that English meaning of true.

If an arrow flies true, it goes directly to its target. No question that it will miss.

Færd

21:13

Ah.

Mitch

@WillHunting he should pet his cat like that

Will Hunting

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Mitch

by which I mean cat = cigarettes and pet = smoke

Will Hunting

@Mitch Ah, you must have just smoked a few today, LOL.

Mitch

@MetaEd sure. One possible axiom (for one particular geometry).

Færd

21:14

I wonder why there are so many disagreeing true-seeing hearts then.

@KitZ.Fox That's a beautiful sense of true, though.

Kit Z. Fox

@Færd yes, that's why it is more expressive in French and kind of hard to translate.

Will Hunting

And if we think in terms of our language, and we use different languages, that makes us different.

Færd

I started to learn French a few weeks ago.

Will Hunting

Although I think in terms of language, I also think in terms of other things, like pictures.

Kit Z. Fox

"Only the heart sees true." is probably the most accurate translation.

Mitch

21:18

@WillHunting argh...tpyos

Færd

@KitZ.Fox Do you have to deny what the eye sees?

Mitch

@KitZ.Fox The heart sees a lot of falsehoods too

Kit Z. Fox

@Færd you'll be reading St Exupery in no time!

Færd

What is the heart anyway?

Mitch

@Færd It's a boiling mass of plasma at such high density that it initiates atomic fusion producing radiation

Færd

21:21

@KitZ.Fox That's what I was going to say. I want to start learning Le Petit Prince.

Mitch

oops, sorry, that's the sun.

did you say 'heart'?

Færd

Aha..

Kit Z. Fox

@Færd he's one of my favorite authors.

Such a sense of kindness and humility.

Færd

So all his works are as easy as Le Petit Prince is famed to be?

Kit Z. Fox

Nope.

Færd

21:23

@Mitch I do think there's more to us than just particles.

Kit Z. Fox

But he is a good writer, and you can tell that's true even if French is not your first language.

Mitch

argh, I couldn't get the quote right:

>The sun is mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees

which, supposedly, is wrong

yay, science!

Færd

@KitZ.Fox I could tell it reading the translations.

Kit Z. Fox

@Mitch you need the reprise. The sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma.

Mitch

That's the new corrected version

(I've only found out in the past five minutes)

Kit Z. Fox

21:26

Plasma. Forget that song. Plasma. We got it wrong. That thesis has been rendered invalid!

Mitch

@KitZ.Fox That's harder to sing along with

Kit Z. Fox

@Mitch it's jazzier.

Meet the Elements and I am a paleontologist are really excellent sing along songs.

Like a box of paints that you mix to make any shade, they either combine to form a chemical compound or stand alone as they are.

And yes, you can actually sing that.

Will Hunting

I haven't read The Little Prince.

It seems so popular and translated into so many languages, I wonder why.

tchrist

You may hear about the star-studded black bowl with a 360° sunset or even see pictures, but nothing in the world prepares you for the wrath-of-God–sized wall of darkness that comes rushing at you from out of the west at more than twice the speed of sound as if it were some silent shockwave from a dinosaur-extinction event, followed by an impossibly black sun that you can look at with your bare eye like some hole torn from space itself which leads to uttermost annihilation.

No wonder the ancients thought that the end had come.

Will Hunting

That is a very long sentence.

Kit Z. Fox

21:38

@tchrist I am looking forward to that in 2024!

tchrist

Partial eclipse = hm getting a bit dim around here ain't it?
Total eclipse = this is the end of the world

Will Hunting

@KitZ.Fox OMG, that is like so long from now, lol.

Mitch

@tchrist Partial eclipse - if no one had mentioned anything, maybe as much as a passing cloud, if that.

even with a mention, hard to notice

Kit Z. Fox

Practically seven years.

Will Hunting

Just enough for an itch.

Kit Z. Fox

21:40

Dinner time! Ciao!

tchrist

A total eclipse = you look to the west and are sure the asteroid has hit

And then it washes over you and the sun turns black. Doesn't go away. Turns black.

Mitch

where did you see it from? home?

tchrist

Casper

4h north of me

12h getting back

Something like that.

Mitch

oh. so you had a view of the landscape to the west?

tchrist

google.com/maps/place/…

Will Hunting

21:42

I just saw two foxes jumping down from the row, another jumping down to the row and then vanishing from the row. That's how chat appears in my browser.

tchrist

I was just about exactly at that point.

Mitch

Before science "Holy crap! We're all gonna die!"
After science "Holy crap! This traffic is killing me!"

tchrist

It's at 8,000 feet. You can see a long ways west.

Will Hunting

'A long ways' is an interesting expression.

tchrist

The road home that took forever was google.com/maps/dir/…

There is nothing there. No trees. No cell coverage. No towns. No internet. No bathrooms. Just a long, long road through the empty.

I-25 would have been much worse.

Will Hunting

21:45

Oh, so if your car breaks down, you are fucked?

tchrist

I was in bed at midnight exactly.

@WillHunting Welcome to the American West, my child.

Will Hunting

I guess you need to walk to the nearest town then, lol.

Mitch

There are no nearest towns

MetaEd

I've got peace like a river, I've got joy like a fountain, I've got love like an ocean, I've got time flies like an arrow, I've got fruit flies like a banana, I've got ... I can't remember the other thing I've got.

tchrist

You cannot walk to the nearest town. You die. Life is a do-it-yourself project. Those who fail to prepare for such emergencies do not pass along their weak genes.

Mitch

21:46

You can't get there from here, you have to go somewhere else first

tchrist

I take that back. It's not empty.

Mitch

rocks?

tchrist

It has more pronghorns than you have seen in your entire life.

Will Hunting

@tchrist I see. Well, if it were me, I wouldn't go there if I could help it.

tchrist

You can't catch them.

@WillHunting It is awesome beyond compare.

It is beautiful. It reminds you of your place in creation.

Will Hunting

21:49

Hmm, like the ancient cave men.

tchrist

Hardly.

Will Hunting

I haven't really seen any extremely beautiful place in my life yet.

Well, I just need to come to ELU chat and see @MetaEd to see the eclipse, LOL.

tchrist

@WillHunting Mine are numberless beyond measure.

Mitch

@tchrist I've never seen any before ever, so I'm guessing they have at least one.

Will Hunting

@tchrist Hmm, good for you!

tchrist

21:55

> As recounted by the worthy men of faith (but God knows more), in the
earliest days there was a king of the isles of Babylon who gathered
together his architects and mages and commanded them to build a
labyrinth so perplexing and subtle that the most prudent men would not
dare to enter it, and those who did enter would be lost. That work was a
scandal, for confusion and wonder are attributes peculiar to God, not to
men. Over time there came to his court a king of the Arabs, and the king
of Babylon (to make a fool of the simplicity of his guest) forced the

Mitch

@tchrist I never realized how much flatland there is interspersed among the mt ranges. I thought once you hit Denver (or the longitude of Denver) it's all mountains until you hit the ocean.

I guess not.

tchrist

> ...the Almighty has seen fit that I should show you mine, where there are no staircases to ascend, nor doors to force, nor wearisome galleries to traverse, nor walls to deny your passage. Then he untied his captive’s bindings and abandoned him in the middle of the desert, where the King of Babylon died of hunger and of thirst. Glory be with That which does not die

@Mitch Not.

Mitch

@tchrist wow. That's kind of petty.

can't take a joke?

Remind me not to play any practical jokes on that Arab dude

tchrist

@Mitch It was nicer before I translated it.

> Cuentan los hombres dignos de fe (pero Alá sabe más)
que en los primeros días hubo un rey de las islas
de Babilonia que congregó a sus arquitectos y magos
y les mandó construir un laberinto tan perplejo y
sutil que los varones más prudentes no se aventuraban
a entrar, y los que entraban se perdían. Esa obra
era un escándalo, porque la confusión y la maravilla
son operaciones propias de Dios y no de los hombres.
Con el andar del tiempo vino a su corte un rey de
los árabes, y el rey de Babilonia (para hacer burla

When you travel that land, you do so with resources to allow you to easily survive three days without trouble and seven if pushed.

As any traveller from an antique land who lives to tell the tale will teach you.

Færd

> The Institute of Cybernetic Pedagogy at Paderborn (Germany) has compared the length of study time it takes natively French-speaking high-school students to obtain comparable 'standard' levels in Esperanto, English, German, and Italian.[73] The results were:
2000 hours studying German
1500 hours studying English
1000 hours studying Italian (or any other Romance language)
150 hours studying Esperanto.

Will Hunting

22:05

@Færd I am wondering why Esperanto? Is it really useful to learn?

@Mitch I thought you were talking about some chat user at first, LOL.

Færd

@WillHunting What do you mean by useful?

Will Hunting

@Færd In any sense you wish.

Færd

Comparing the studying hours, it looks practical enough to have a super-easy international language that is not the native language of any countries.

Will Hunting

Maybe we should all switch to Esperanto as the only language in the world? LOL.

Færd

You want to study physics abroad? You don't have to set aside two years learning something irrelevant.

@WillHunting No, it's not supposed to supplant other languages, but to supplement them.

Mitch

22:25

@WillHunting haha no that would be mean

Like that Arabic king

LifeOfPai

Hello :) Is this sentence sounds good?
When you keeping the button clicking, the scrolling up/down doesn't change the values, only movements of the mouse right/left (when you stop clicking) .

Tonepoet

23:22

@tchrist And so, we have the Darwin Awards to commend such people for not passing down their foolishness to the rest of us.

Will Hunting

23:47

@Tonepoet I don't like the tone of that website. It makes a mockery of these people who died. They have died and don't deserve that mockery. It's not like they did things to hurt other people...

That website is just so bad...

It is really very bad...

Tonepoet

@WillHunting Perhaps, but it also serves as a medium for cautionary tales that emphasizes the fact that sometimes even the simplest of mistakes can cost you your very life.

Will Hunting

"Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it."

This line speaks for itself. QED.

Can you imagine if your loved one died and people talk about him or her like that?

I will give the author of that line a tight slap if I met him.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…