One for the math nerds.

[DeeBye]

I agree that you're not the only person here who posts a lot.  Both Occhi and DeeBye seem to have some self awareness about that, and as a result I trust them to monitor themselves more often than not.
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I know that I post a lot of topics, but I usually try to add a lot of "beef" to them. Instead of just a link and a single-sentence comment, I try to add other stuff like relevant pictures and researched information. Above all else, I try to make sure that my topics are entertaining and/or informative to read. Go ahead and check out my recent thread topics and decide for yourself.

The whole tone of a thread is set by the initial post. If the initial post isn't interesting due to lack of content, it might as well never have been posted. Lots of Doc's recent topics are simple link+comment or link+quote. I've probably been guilty of this practice, but I try to keep it to a minimum. That's a lazy way to initiate conversation.

Here is an example. Buck Owens

I have no idea who Buck Owens is, and I still don't. Consequently, I don't really give a flying fart that he died. Doc had an opportunity to make it very clear to us why Buck Owens was an important person and why his death should be mourned, but he failed.

To Doc: I didn't intend to be this harsh towards you, but I am being as honest as I can. You are a smart guy and your topics can be better if you put more effort into them.

[Vandiablo]

No, but I smell a rat.
Are we being presented with a Pre April Fool's joke, or was Douglass Adams accidentally correct?

Occhi
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Punked! I had the same feeling. And still do. If I had to wager even odds, I'd pick joke over not joke.

As for 42, it has the property that it is
the lowest number that is
the product of 3 distinct primes a, b, c
where any (a+b) does not equal c.
(You don't have a+b=c with {2, 3, 7}, but you do with {2, 3, 5}, the components of 30.)

I'm sure you can see the obvious connections of this property to the real world, and thus the importance of 42.

The "next" numbers of this sort are 66, 78, 102, 105, 110, 114, ...
I look forward to the day when these numbers will also show their amazing meanings.

[jahcs]

As for 42, it has the property that it is
the lowest number that is
the product of 3 distinct primes a, b, c
where any (a+B) does not equal c.
(You don't have a+b=c with {2, 3, 7}, but you do with {2, 3, 5}, the components of 30.)
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I personally like the number 6. 1+2+3=1x2x3=6

[Chaerophon]

True, Deebye. I agree about the Buck Owens thread - I didn't know who he was either. Some context would have been nice there, Doc.

I know that I post a lot of topics, but I usually try to add a lot of "beef" to them.  Instead of just a link and a single-sentence comment, I try to add other stuff like relevant pictures and researched information.  Above all else, I try to make sure that my topics are entertaining and/or informative to read.  Go ahead and check out my recent thread topics and decide for yourself.

The whole tone of a thread is set by the initial post.  If the initial post isn't interesting due to lack of content, it might as well never have been posted.  Lots of Doc's recent topics are simple link+comment or link+quote.  I've probably been guilty of this practice, but I try to keep it to a minimum.  That's a lazy way to initiate conversation.

Here is an example.  Buck Owens

I have no idea who Buck Owens is, and I still don't.  Consequently, I don't really give a flying fart that he died.  Doc had an opportunity to make it very clear to us why Buck Owens was an important person and why his death should be mourned, but he failed.

To Doc:  I didn't intend to be this harsh towards you, but I am being as honest as I can.  You are a smart guy and your topics can be better if you put more effort into them.
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[Jack]

Hail, and well met, Jack!  Care for a Guinness?

Occhi
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Don't mind if I do - on the condition that I may offer you a pint of Real Ale!

Cheers

J

[Occhidiangela]

Don't mind if I do - on the condition that I may offer you a pint of Real Ale!

Cheers

J
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With pleasure, Jack. :D

For VanDiablo:

The "next" numbers of this sort are 66, 78, 102, 105, 110, 114, ...
I look forward to the day when these numbers will also show their amazing meanings.

All I can come up with on those is "get your kicks, on route Sixty Six." Not sure my Math skills can help this effort. :unsure:

Occhi

[Crusader]

If such a formula could be determined, would that mean that there would be a pattern to the madness of the entire 'There's only a probability that the particle is there' thing? If so, would that imply that we very well could be living in a 100% deterministic universe? (Divine intervention aside) Please pardon my ignorance on the subject.
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Sort of,things like the "Particle that is actually only a wave that has no particale in it" thing is a very complex matter. To explain through an 'easier' example: The speed of light is the fastest speed possible according to einstein's formulas. Light, therefore, cannot have a mass, because if it did, it would need infinite energy to accellerate to that point, thus light can have no mass whatsoever, but what is a particle without mass? Light can be proven to be a wave, however, but a wave of WHAT? What is moving in a wave? Welcome to the grand adventure of quantum mechanics, where many dimensions exist (we got 3d(length, width, depth)4d=time but these guys have at least 9 dimensions), where these questions are researched.

As for the "we cannot determine where an object is EXACTLY, but we can guess" thing (electron clouds, for instance), this is another of those big questions. The electron (cloud) is moving around the core of the atom. This is no pretty orbit like the moon around Earth, however, here the laws of nature concerning subatomic particles are at work. Human minds are breaking their heads over this stuff, because it's extremely alien to our mindset. Try Reading Hawking's work, by the time you are at page 25, where he starts about "negative particles" (antimatter, in a way) you totally lost his reasoning because of the complexity of the stuff (no light reading for someone with only high school maths and physics to build on).

However, this thing worked the other way around, from reading the energy levels in one particular type of atom, the sequence of primes could be derived, so this one went from quantum physics, to math, However, the prime numbers are extremely important, and by finding out a formula for them, maybe they can apply that formula the other way around again, apply it to atoms, and determine characteristics that have eluded us to this moment, if we start to better understand the subatomics and quantum physics working at this point, maybe we can come to a point where we can determine the place of electrons in a cloud with 100% accuracy, but such a thing is not dreamt of as possible for now.

[unless]

This reminds me of the movie Pi - searching for a number/relationship that will decipher the pattern inherent in the universe. Very heady stuff.

I strongly recommend Pi for those that haven't seen it. It's from Darren Aronofsky and shares much of the same jarring visual style that he used in Requiem for a Dream.

In addition to the research in the above article, there's of course also Fibonocci Numbers which are seen all throughout nature. There is also a lot of cool research going on right now with fractals and how organisms actually grow into such predefined forms utilizing such minimal amounts of data (i.e. DNA). The human mind attempting to rationalize the chaotic universe all around it is an amazing thing.
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God...as a math student, that movie drove me completely nuts. The math in it is so BS that it makes me pull my hair out.

Example: just after the main character is kidnapped by the orthodox Jews, and they explain their problem to him (searching for the 216-letter name of God), he says that surely, they must have read out every 216-letter combination aloud already? And they respond in the affirmative.

As I recall, Hebrew has 22 letters in its alphabet (giving or taking a couple here wouldn't matter). The reality here is this:

Take every human being who has ever lived (just over 12 billion). Have each of them speak one 216-letter word per second (which is clearly impossible, but we'll let it slide). Without any duplication, it would still take many times longer than the current estimated age of the universe to complete this task.

The idea that a small sect wearing funny hats could pull this off in a few millenia is beyond absurd, it's insulting, particularly in a movie that purports to be about a mathematician. GRR!

I mean, if it were really hard math, I could understand it, but this could be figured out by anyone with a basic grasp of algebra and a decent calculator in about twenty seconds. The idea that this supposed "genius" mathematician would believe it for a moment is the equivalent in both plausibility and intellectual merit of a scene in which a police psychologist interviews a deranged killer, and begins to loudly and vigorously gnaw the flesh off his hand fifteen seconds into the Rorschach test. It's dumb and insulting, and yes I'm done ranting now.

Sorry about that.