Featured Forum Members 2

[Modal Seoul]

Hey, just throwing this out there, but there are two Captains Domon.

It would be pretty interesting to see one feature on two guys.

[Hemalurgic Headshot]

51 minutes ago, Captains Domon said:

Hey, just throwing this out there, but there are two Captains Domon.

It would be pretty interesting to see one feature on two guys.

Maybe, but not yet. @Chaos first.

[StrikerEZ]

I'm gonna go ahead and hop on the @Chaos bandwagon.

[Erandeni]

I vote @Chaos too.

[Nashan’Elin]

@Chaos!

[Sunbird]

*Jumps on the Chaos bandwagon*

[Delightful]

I vote darkness ascendant and bleeder. 

And captains Domon because I want to understand the plural. 

[Argent]

On 6/2/2017 at 11:48 PM, Extesian said:

Cool answers @Mestiv

I vote for @Argent if he hasn't been previously. 

What's going on?

[+Extesian]

36 minutes ago, Argent said:

What's going on?

We're nominating people each week to fill out a questionnaire on themselves, as was apparently done in the past. I nominated you. But looks like Chaos is the pick, so you have a reprieve mate

(I should note that I'm very happy with Chaos).

[Steeldancer]

Chaos! Besides being a physics teacher, who are you? How were you inspired to start the shard? The website where I waste my life away? 

[Calderis]

47 minutes ago, The Flash said:

Chaos! Besides being a physics teacher, who are you? How were you inspired to start the shard? The website where I waste my life away? 

He seeks entropy and wants to increase it in the universe and has succeeded in people like us? 

[Mestiv]

3 hours ago, The Flash said:

Chaos! Besides being a physics teacher, who are you? How were you inspired to start the shard? The website where I waste my life away? 

He's a math treacher AFAIK

[Jondesu]

2 hours ago, Mestiv said:

He's a math treacher AFAIK

What's the difference? 

[Silverblade5]

10 hours ago, Jondesu said:

What's the difference? 

One teaches theory. The other teaches applications.

[Chaos]

23 hours ago, The Flash said:

Chaos! Besides being a physics teacher, who are you? How were you inspired to start the shard? The website where I waste my life away? 

17 hours ago, Jondesu said:

What's the difference? 

Physics is the study of the universe and the forces that govern it. It is basically the study of the rules of the universe. 

Mathematics is not the study of the universe. It is the study of all universes and no universes all at once. It would not matter how our universe, or any other universe, acted. None of that matters to the truth of mathematics.

I do not care what anyone's religious beliefs are, or whether they believe in capital-T Truth. If you do, cool. But mathematics is the highest form of knowledge humans have created. (Math is created, too, not discovered, so it's actually quite astonishing that humanity can create such amazing, powerful things.) Once something is proven in the context of mathematical proof, it is true forever. We will all die someday. The Earth will be absorbed by the Sun as it expands, and then the Sun will die. The universe may yet die. But none of that matters if I prove something mathematically. It's true for all eternity. Nothing can take that away from us. 

If you are not familiar with mathematical proofs, the idea is very simple. You take hypotheses, and then from those hypotheses, you take small steps that you know to be true. Once every step you take is true, you get to your conclusion. And well, if every step you took on this path is true, then your conclusion is true! You're done. No person, god, or alien can ever take that away from you that you know a fact. (Some humans might argue with you and say "that's not important", but those people are uninterested in facts and thus are unimportant people.) 

For example, I could say, "If you have a differentiable function, then it is a continuous function." That statement is true. That statement might also not mean anything to you. One thing about math is that it is not designed to be easy to understand, but it is designed to be totally unambiguous. Every statement is precise and people have problems with that. But the thing with math is that you just have a really big toolbox. You have Axioms, simple facts that you assume to be true (they are generally absurdly basic things, and mathematicians spend great effort in reducing the number of axioms), and then you have Definitions, things that people create. What's a function? That has a definition. Someone made it up but it's a word that has a precise mathematical meaning. What's a differentiable function? Well that has a definition, too! What's a continuous function? Defined as well. Those definitions are all practical and concrete. Obtuse the layperson but you can learn the tools to understand the definitions. They aren't easy definitions to understand, but they are precise.

So when you read a mathematical statement all you do is say "okay well that's a lot of words. I need to translate that into more basic concepts." You keep translating those terms until you get to things you understand. Then you go and take small, true steps and when you get to the end, if every step is true, then your conclusion is true. Neat! You can have some really crazy results that don't seem intuitive that are true. A lot of math is you discarding your intuition, because it is wrong. (Humans also have a very hard time with that idea.)

Nothing is more powerful on the scale of knowledge than a mathematical proof. You have true assumptions, you have definitions that you made, and in that context you took steps which are true, so therefore the conclusion is true. Your feelings are irrelevant. If you want to break that, you have to show that one of those steps is not true. Math is tier one on the scale of knowledge and truth. It requires none of your belief (except, again, for very simple axioms) and it is true.

Science is tier two. It's very powerful, because it is also a system that tries to remove biases to determine truth through repeated experiments and the careful analysis of data. But you require data. Math doesn't require data  

Lower than that, there is tier three, which are opinions based on data. You generally do this process a lot of the time. Science is essentially this but very rigorous.

Then there's tier four, which are opinions that have no justification. Ignore them, and cut people out of your life who do stuff like that, because they are unreasonable people. I mean that in all meanings of the word "unreasonable". How do you reason with someone who do not properly justify their statements? You don't. 

Anyway, that's a very long explanation for the difference between math and physics, along with my usual rant about how freaking amazing math is. Isn't it cool? If you're into afterlives, no matter what thing you meet after you're dead, you can say, "I know this to be true," say a mathematically proven statement, and you are correct forever. 

Physics, I find, is much more difficult than math. I actually switched from a physics major to a math major out of laziness, because I found math easier. 

As for your other question, @The Flash, there was a need for some dedicated Brandon discussion, so we made our site long ago. It's quite amazing how many authors don't have a fansite similar to this. But then, fansites are quite a dying thing these days. There are many ways to discuss things on the internet and generally they are not centralized platforms, such as Reddit or Tumblr. I do not think you will see many more sites like this ten years from now (they are expensive timesinks). We'll be here for the long haul though, don't worry  

23 hours ago, Calderis said:

He seeks entropy and wants to increase it in the universe and has succeeded in people like us? 

A very smart scientist (I forget who) sarcastically said the meaning of life was to increase the entropy in the universe. I always liked that quote. Though my handle was just a cool word I picked a long time ago. 

[Jondesu]

@Chaos, that was a really cool explanation. I actually am very familiar with the difference, hence the emoji in my post (it was meant to convey the idea of saying something and then sitting back and waiting for the person it was aimed at to think you were serious and passionately explain how wrong you are, which I suppose it kinda did), but that's awesome that you feel so strongly about what you do.

[Silverblade5]

@Chaos I suddenly have a strong desire to see someone create a magic system based entirely on math.

[Delightful]

@Chaos in the course of my job I speak to 80ish people a week. I have come to the conclusion that most people don't think their opinions all the way through. Some don't have a reason at all. 

[Chaos]

1 hour ago, Silverblade5 said:

@Chaos I suddenly have a strong desire to see someone create a magic system based entirely on math.

Math is why I like Brandon's books. Anything that has concrete rules are good stuff, and is essentially math.

That said, when some people go super in-depth about Feruchemical iron and calculations on it, I really don't care. That's a subject I've never really been interested in, because the answer is just, "yeah eventually magic breaks rules of physics." 

19 minutes ago, Delightfully Smoak said:

@Chaos in the course of my job I speak to 80ish people a week. I have come to the conclusion that most people don't think their opinions all the way through. Some don't have a reason at all. 

I mean, in the defense of the people, it's a constant struggle to make sure you think logically and well-founded in fact. I think the key is that when you are confronted with new information, you should be gracious and not defensive about it, and adequately change your perspective. Easier said than done, but still.

The people who totally disregard blatant facts, though, and are not gracious? Screw those people. At risk of being political, it's like when someone says "climate change isn't real" and you respond with "yeah but what about ocean acidification." I bet they have no clue about it, and instead of researching this concrete numerical data, they just go "herp da derp I don't understand those words and so I will disregard them!" That just makes me want to say, "Well, I'm going to disregard you then."

(Note: don't turn this thread into a political discussion, and if you are reading this and don't know about ocean acidification, do that right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification. Knowledge is pretty cool, guys. Don't support people who are okay with ignorance.)

6 hours ago, Jondesu said:

@Chaos, that was a really cool explanation. I actually am very familiar with the difference, hence the emoji in my post (it was meant to convey the idea of saying something and then sitting back and waiting for the person it was aimed at to think you were serious and passionately explain how wrong you are, which I suppose it kinda did), but that's awesome that you feel so strongly about what you do.

Oh, I see xD This does make more sense in retrospect.

It's really fun to make a speech like that to my students. Sometimes I will digress for five minutes to do that, because it's important dangit. 

[Delightful]

4 hours ago, Chaos said:

Math is why I like Brandon's books. Anything that has concrete rules are good stuff, and is essentially math.

That said, when some people go super in-depth about Feruchemical iron and calculations on it, I really don't care. That's a subject I've never really been interested in, because the answer is just, "yeah eventually magic breaks rules of physics." 

I mean, in the defense of the people, it's a constant struggle to make sure you think logically and well-founded in fact. I think the key is that when you are confronted with new information, you should be gracious and not defensive about it, and adequately change your perspective. Easier said than done, but still.

The people who totally disregard blatant facts, though, and are not gracious? Screw those people. At risk of being political, it's like when someone says "climate change isn't real" and you respond with "yeah but what about ocean acidification." I bet they have no clue about it, and instead of researching this concrete numerical data, they just go "herp da derp I don't understand those words and so I will disregard them!" That just makes me want to say, "Well, I'm going to disregard you then."

(Note: don't turn this thread into a political discussion, and if you are reading this and don't know about ocean acidification, do that right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification. Knowledge is pretty cool, guys. Don't support people who are okay with ignorance.)

Oh, I see xD This does make more sense in retrospect.

It's really fun to make a speech like that to my students. Sometimes I will digress for five minutes to do that, because it's important dangit. 

Well I just have to keep people talking so a conversation might (literally did) go like this:

1) we must look after Syrian refugees. 

2) Muslims in Europe are bad. 

Me: so what about the Muslim Syrian refugees, you said they were welcome in Europe, they should also be banned?

3) I don't know. 

 

Not commenting on or endorsing the opinion itself here but just......that's a basic logical issue. At one point I pointed something similar out to a student and she goes "you're right. I never thought of that". Lady, if I can bring it up in ten minutes of conversation, it's maybe something you should think about. 

[The Sovereign]

It seems to me that @Chaos is getting the nod for the next one, so I'll nominate @Argent for the one after that.

edit:
Hmm @Delightful, it would seem you are an ordinary adjective of delight once again, fancy that. Also congrats on the engagement .

Edited June 7, 2017 by The Sovereign

[Modal Seoul]

6 minutes ago, The Sovereign said:

Hmm @Delightful, it would seem you are an ordinary adjective of delight once again, fancy that. Also congrats on the engagement .

It's actually @Delightful ? Oh! Huh. Name change. Cool.

[Delightful]

5 hours ago, The Sovereign said:

It seems to me that @Chaos is getting the nod for the next one, so I'll nominate @Argent for the one after that.

edit:
Hmm @Delightful, it would seem you are an ordinary adjective of delight once again, fancy that. Also congrats on the engagement .

Thank you . I couldn't quite think of an appropriate WW pun so.....

5 hours ago, Captains Domon said:

It's actually @Delightful ? Oh! Huh. Name change. Cool.

Waaaaiit how long have you been around for?

[The Sovereign]

15 minutes ago, Delightful said:

Thank you . I couldn't quite think of an appropriate WW pun so.....

Not a pun and certainly too long for a name, but I think you'll appreciate the quote anyways... This was always one of my favorites regarding WW:

Quote

“If you need to stop an asteroid, you call Superman. If you need to solve a mystery, you call Batman. But if you need to end a war, you call Wonder Woman.” 

 

[Modal Seoul]

2 hours ago, Delightful said:

Waaaaiit how long have you been around for?

A while. Last time I saw your name, it was Delightfully Smoak.