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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!

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5 hours ago, partner555 said:
5 hours ago, malloyd said:

Famous variants include Ernest Rutherford "All science is either physics or stamp collecting" and Terry Pratchett "Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.”

Stamp collecting?

Science, other than pure math, needs data before it can begin constructing theories. Data comes from objects, so to build a reserve of data you must first build up a collection of objects - together with what is known about them. If you collect objects but don't construct or test theories, you're a stamp collector.

Darwin, while aboard the Beagle on his most famous trip, collected 468 bird skins plus various other avian samples along with written descriptions of the whole animals and what he could see of their habits and habitats, but as far as ornithology was concerned he was a stamp collector; it was Gould, an established ornithologist back in London, who made sense of the collection and recognized that Darwin's Finches (from the Galapagos Islands) were a number of closely-related species. Darwin did not have the knowledge to do Gould's analysis; Gould could not have done it without the samples (aka data) Darwin provided. Both were legitimately doing science.

Stamp collecting is still an important part of some sciences - generally those where finding or identifying objects is difficult, and new sorts of objects are still being discovered. Paleontology, genetics, and astronomy, for example. Right now the most popular sorts of stamps in astronomy are exoplanets; we've found enough that there isn't a huge cachet in discovering more of them in general, but there are certain categories that still count for a lot.

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19 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

yeah, i'm not good with remembering text.

I'm not good either, so I'll rather look to verify.

11 hours ago, partner555 said:

I've heard of that. What's the origin of the phrase?

Origin? No idea. It's so obviously true it's likely as old as the respected fields itself. But for little more complete version, see XKCD: Sociology is just applied psychology. Psychology is just applied biology. Biology is just applied chemistry. Chemistry is just applied Physics. Physics is just applied Mathematics.

7 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Knowledge equals power. Power equals energy. Energy equals matter. Matter equals mass.

Information IS energy. See entropy. But this reasoning is funnier.

3 hours ago, Scotty said:
7 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Some topics combine the two, like people who use physics (and very large, very expensive equipment) to try to collect that one last rare particle that they think will complete their collection....

It's like pokemon, gotta catalogue them all!

Except there are more pokemons than isotopes with half live over two minutes, and more isotopes than particles.

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Right now the most popular sorts of stamps in astronomy are exoplanets; we've found enough that there isn't a huge cachet in discovering more of them in general, but there are certain categories that still count for a lot.

Yeah. The inhabited ones, for example, counts huge. :)

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22 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

when it was first introduced it already looked to be the size of a math textbook, and at the time she had i think between four and six confirmed spells. i think she said something about the texts being absurdly detailed..?

I just figured that most of the pages were blank, and they filled in as one's magical repertoire grew.

 

 

Also, simplest solution to Elliot's problem: use a Secret Identity form now, and become his normal self when he gets to the apartment.

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2 hours ago, AFNB said:
On 5/10/2016 at 9:32 PM, InfiniteRemnant said:

when it was first introduced it already looked to be the size of a math textbook, and at the time she had i think between four and six confirmed spells. i think she said something about the texts being absurdly detailed..?

I just figured that most of the pages were blank, and they filled in as one's magical repertoire grew.

thankfully, I don't need to go hunting for the specific page since that was already done, but no that directly contradicts the text of the page.

Quote

"Whenever I get a new spell it grows so I can learn to use it."

Quote

"this book gets bigger and writes itself"

Quote

"It grew fifteen pages last night for one spell."

the choice of words clearly indicates a change in size.

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On 5/10/2016 at 2:36 AM, CritterKeeper said:

There is *always* math.

 

Psych is biology.  Biology is chemistry.  Chemistry is physics.  Physics is math.

I remember that from (among other places) XKCD, but I've always found it an understatement.  When you really look at it, when you dig deep down, even the most complicated results follow as readily, as necessarily, from first principles as the fact that the square root of 2 is irrational.  Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem is truly contingent on nothing not implicit in the pons asinorum.  I would say that math is not only the basis for science, but thought itself, but even this is an understatement.

Consider the number 3.14159265359.  You probably look at that and think, "oh, that's pi," but it isn't - it's a rational number very close to pi.  If in the real world you plugged in that number wherever you needed pi, you'd just about never run into problems, even in very specialized fields.  Sure, there are a few cases where the phases of something-or-other would be noticeably off, but those would be few and far between.  However, consider - truly consider, with all the implications - a world where this number were equal to pi.  I'll skip to the end - you can't.  Once you attempt to pick it apart, you'll find that two is three is ten thousand, because the formulae used to find pi are no more arbitrary than 2 + 2 = 4.

In that way math not only precedes thought, it precedes that which precedes thought.  It precedes our universe, the multiverse, the gods, existence itself, possibility itself, because none of that is meaningful without it.  In that way it even precedes meaning.  "There is always math" is an insult, because of the temporality in the words "is" and "always."  Math precedes time.

In short, whoever told you there would be no math lied.

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4 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

All digital data breaks down to binary mathematics at some level.

The internet is made of numbers.

But.....I thought it was made of tubes.

;)

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42 minutes ago, AFNB said:

I thought it was made of pornography.

Nah, that's a different natural law -- any new technology will have an early but necessary growth stage in which it is used primarily for porn/sex/masturbatioin/etc.

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1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:

Nah, that's a different natural law -- any new technology will have an early but necessary growth stage in which it is used primarily for porn/sex/masturbatioin/etc.

I have just spent the past week looking into the development of gunpowder and this was the exact mental image I didn't need. Thanks, Critter. I now have new meanings for 'blow job' and 'banging hot' I easily could have done without. :danshiftyeyes:

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On Tuesday, May 10, 2016 at 8:06 PM, hkmaly said:

So what? It will STILL be safer than not transforming at all. Also, why don't he go to secret ID - the goth or party one - then go inside, then immediately before something can happen transform to normal?

This is a good plan. I like this plan. :D

I love Dan's facial expressions! n_n His character's faces are so mobile. 

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Wait... has Elliot forgotten that he uses his basic girlie spell to turn into the Goth Chick without adopting her personality every night before going to bed (and probably does every time he takes a shower too)?

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53 minutes ago, Sargon said:

Wait... has Elliot forgotten that he uses his basic girlie spell to turn into the Goth Chick without adopting her personality every night before going to bed (and probably does every time he takes a shower too)?

That still requires him to morph back to normal first, Elliot's probably thinking "Well if I have to switch back to normal to avoid mind altering effects, I might as well stay normal."

34 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Call Nanase

Have her re-inhabit the fairy doll tucked in Elliot's skirt

Have Nanase use her spell to determine how many people are looking at them.

Can she use her other spells while in fairy mode? Aside from the fairy specific ones that is.

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19 hours ago, hkmaly said:

But for little more complete version, see XKCD: Sociology is just applied psychology. Psychology is just applied biology. Biology is just applied chemistry. Chemistry is just applied Physics. Physics is just applied Mathematics.

Stock-market technical analysis, at its best, is statistical psychology.

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16 hours ago, WR...S said:

 Sure, there are a few cases where the phases of something-or-other would be noticeably off, but those would be few and far between.

Computers would not start like that. The calculations necessary for creating working CPU already require both quantum physics and theory of relativity, I'm sure they require very precise π as well.

16 hours ago, WR...S said:

However, consider - truly consider, with all the implications - a world where this number were equal to pi.  I'll skip to the end - you can't.

You can, if you don't insist on parallel lines not crossing. I mean, "world where this number were equal to pi" sounds very similarly to description of non-euclidean space.

11 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:
12 hours ago, AFNB said:

I thought it was made of pornography.

Nah, that's a different natural law -- any new technology will have an early but necessary growth stage in which it is used primarily for porn/sex/masturbatioin/etc.

Not ANY. Only the ones which will be successful. For example, Betamax was never used for porn. That's why there are more people who own VHS than people who know what Betamax is.

6 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Call Nanase

Have her re-inhabit the fairy doll tucked in Elliot's skirt

Have Nanase use her spell to determine how many people are looking at them.

... that's almost paranoid. Also, good idea.

5 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

That sets aside thoughts of baseball that might arise when Nanase finds herself tucked into Cheerleadra's waistband...

Ok. Step 1, get Nanase from waistband. Then call Nanase.

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(Holy za, are quotes a pain on this new system.)

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Computers would not start like that. The calculations necessary for creating working CPU already require both quantum physics and theory of relativity, I'm sure they require very precise π as well.

It's true that IC manufacture requires extraordinary precision, but that the tolerance at any step, let alone any step involving pi, is less than 0.0000000000007% is something of which I'd need more substantial evidence to be convinced of than "because Einstein and quantum."

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

You can, if you don't insist on parallel lines not crossing. I mean, "world where this number were equal to pi" sounds very similarly to description of non-euclidean space.

You can come up with geometries where the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle isn't equal to pi, but that doesn't mean that pi is different, only that the circle is different.  The difference in the circle will have other consequences precisely because pi is still the same.  (And, in fact, you can't have that ratio be a constant other than pi, because non-Euclidean geometries are still locally Euclidean, meaning that as the circle gets smaller the ratio approaches pi.)

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8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Not ANY. Only the ones which will be successful. For example, Betamax was never used for porn. That's why there are more people who own VHS than people who know what Betamax is.

 

 My father owned a Betamax with quite a lot of prerecorded porn videotapes (most of which were purchased retail).

 

1 hour ago, WR...S said:

(Holy za, are quotes a pain on this new system.)

It's true that IC manufacture requires extraordinary precision, but that the tolerance at any step, let alone any step involving pi, is less than 0.0000000000007% is something of which I'd need more substantial evidence to be convinced of than "because Einstein and quantum."

You can come up with geometries where the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle isn't equal to pi, but that doesn't mean that pi is different, only that the circle is different.  The difference in the circle will have other consequences precisely because pi is still the same.  (And, in fact, you can't have that ratio be a constant other than pi, because non-Euclidean geometries are still locally Euclidean, meaning that as the circle gets smaller the ratio approaches pi.)

It has nothing to do with the engineering tolerances and everything to do with the underlying physical principles--i.e. the fundamental behavior of electrons, photons, and electromagnetic fields. If the value of pi is different, then so is the strength of interactions between particles and fields. For example, if we increase the value of pi by just two percent, then the Sun would be six percent denser for the same mass. Since fusion in stars scales with the fourth power of gravitational pressure, this would make the sun burn its fuel about 25% faster, which would mean that the Earth in its present orbit would be near boiling.

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5 hours ago, WR...S said:

(Holy za, are quotes a pain on this new system.)

If you highlight a section of text, a "quote this" flag should pop up that you can click an place only the selected text in your post field. Even if you select text inside another quote, it will remember who posted what.

 

 

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7 hours ago, ijuin said:

It has nothing to do with the engineering tolerances and everything to do with the underlying physical principles--i.e. the fundamental behavior of electrons, photons, and electromagnetic fields. If the value of pi is different, then so is the strength of interactions between particles and fields. For example, if we increase the value of pi by just two percent, then the Sun would be six percent denser for the same mass. Since fusion in stars scales with the fourth power of gravitational pressure, this would make the sun burn its fuel about 25% faster, which would mean that the Earth in its present orbit would be near boiling.

Yes - in fact that was kind of my point - but if you read the post the post I was responding to was responding to, I was talking about humans at that point.

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

If you highlight a section of text, a "quote this" flag should pop up that you can click an place only the selected text in your post field. Even if you select text inside another quote, it will remember who posted what.

I tried that.  For some reason it kept quoting a completely different part of the post.

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25 minutes ago, WR...S said:

I tried that.  For some reason it kept quoting a completely different part of the post.

Strange, I know it's kinda finicky in that the "quote this" doesn't always appear after you highlight a chunk, but never had it quote anything other than the highlighted text.

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On 11/5/2016 at 8:36 PM, Scotty said:

That still requires him to morph back to normal first, Elliot's probably thinking "Well if I have to switch back to normal to avoid mind altering effects, I might as well stay normal."

He can return to male and turn into Goth Chick somewhere  under good cover. If he changes to normal form and stays that way while he walks to the building, he's giving potential witnesses plenty of time to memorize his face and clothes.

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