Random Stuff VIII: The Admin Special

[Haelbarde he/him]

I know that, but wells. I just had to use the idea of glowing wells of power to be the preferred method of travel. 

 

But hey, positive spin: if I take the idea in a whole different direction, maybe it could be original.

Hey, C.S. Lewis did wells as a method of transportation between worlds way before Brandon did - Give 'The Magician's Nephew' a read. And aren't Stargates just vertical wells?

 

Brandon using wells for transport is hardly an original idea. What makes them particularly awesome is their association with the Shards, at least as far as we've seen so far. 

Edited April 5, 2016 by Haelbarde

[Straw he/him]

What happened to Shivertongue? He hasn't been around in ages...

Yeah, Shivertongue is sort of a legend for new sharders like me.

[Chaos he/him]

Yeah, Shivertongue is sort of a legend for new sharders like me.

He's a LEGEND?

Oh man, I definitely need to tell him this.

[The Sovereign]

But... But math is the strongest form of truth in the entire universe, and it is human created, knowable, and provable! Isn't that awesome?

 

You just made my life. During my senor year of college I wrote a Pascalian Philosophy term paper on this exact concept.

 

[Chaos he/him]

You just made my life. During my senor year of college I wrote a Pascalian Philosophy term paper on this exact concept.

Some mathematicians might disagree on that philosophical interpretation on what mathematics is (whether it is human created or not), but fortunately such discussion is irrelevant to the core facts of mathematics: math is provable and once it is proven, it is true forever. No science is as strong as that. Mathematical proof is the strongest form of knowledge that exists, period. Even science (second best) requires data and the theoretical equations you get in physics may just be a very good approximation. Math has no issue with that. If a mathematical statement is true it is true forever. Nuclear annihilation, our sun going supernova, or silly people who think math is not important, all of those do nothing to impede upon the truth of such proven statements. And math doesn't require faith either, just a careful examination of definitions and logic.

Tl;dr: even if you don't like math, math does not care and is true regardless of how you feel about it

Of course, I'm a math professor so I'll extoll virtues forever. But it really is quite spectacular. Opinions change. Science does change (and is much better than opinion). Mathematical proofs are true literally forever.

[Citadel16 he/him]

just some random pictures to brighten your day.

 

 

 

this ones for chicken plague

 

 

[Kaymyth she/her]

Some mathematicians might disagree on that philosophical interpretation on what mathematics is (whether it is human created or not), but fortunately such discussion is irrelevant to the core facts of mathematics: math is provable and once it is proven, it is true forever. No science is as strong as that. Mathematical proof is the strongest form of knowledge that exists, period. Even science (second best) requires data and the theoretical equations you get in physics may just be a very good approximation. Math has no issue with that. If a mathematical statement is true it is true forever. Nuclear annihilation, our sun going supernova, or silly people who think math is not important, all of those do nothing to impede upon the truth of such proven statements. And math doesn't require faith either, just a careful examination of definitions and logic.

Tl;dr: even if you don't like math, math does not care and is true regardless of how you feel about it

Of course, I'm a math professor so I'll extoll virtues forever. But it really is quite spectacular. Opinions change. Science does change (and is much better than opinion). Mathematical proofs are true literally forever.

 

I remember fondly the day I accidentally proved that .99999999... (repeating forever) equals 1.  That was fun.  The other students looked at me like I was crazy, and the math prof was all, "Oh. Yeah. That's true, but I didn't intend for you to figure it out because it just confuses people." 

[Orlion Blight he/him]

If math is so great, what's the deal with the Bertrand Paradox?

I view math as a language, a descriptor of what we observe rather than an aspect of the thing being observed. As our understanding of the thing being observed grows more sophisticated, so does the language. Thus, we progress from Newtonian calculus to, say, quantum mechanics.

In either event, we create the language even if we do not create the object being described.

[Pestis the Spider she/her]

I have recently bought myself a bottle of some pretty fancy carrot juice. On the label there was a "fun fact". Fun fact consisted of a picture of a Bird of Prey and description stating that this is a "surprised falcon". The only problem is it's a common buzzard (a Buteo hawk) not a falcon. I seriously don't know how a company can confuse a buzzard with a falcon (they are not similar, seriously) in the age when everyone has this thing called Google. I understand that not everyone recognizes birds, but Google Image search is not that hard... That's so unprofessional of them. 

 

I'm seriously wondering if I should go their facebook page and tell them how stupid they are. I know it's kind of a ridiculous problem, but this "falcon-buzzard" mistake really bothers me a lot. xD

[Silverblade5 he/him]

Just finished donating blood. Took a couple tries, but was successful in the end.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

New Potterverse headcanon: Voldemort's face is flat because he ran into the wrong wall at the train station. 

 

His hatred of Dumbledore stems from the fact that the professor saw him after this unfortunate incident and giggled for three days.  

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Expectation: Butterbeer jello shots. 

 

 

Reality: Polyjuice Potion. 

 

 

Wait a minute—the disgusting consistency, the pink on top…is that Umbridge?

[Arraenae]

I remember fondly the day I accidentally proved that .99999999... (repeating forever) equals 1.  That was fun.  The other students looked at me like I was crazy, and the math prof was all, "Oh. Yeah. That's true, but I didn't intend for you to figure it out because it just confuses people." 

 

How did that happen? 

[Oversleep]

How did what happen? Kaymyth figuring it out or 0,(9) being 1?

[Kaymyth she/her]

How did that happen? 

How did what happen? Kaymyth figuring it out or 0,(9) being 1?

 

Well, I can answer both. 

 

So, the class was Mathematics for Elementary Teachers, and we were playing around with changing decimals into fractions.  The lesson had the first few repeaters, and we worked out that .1111111... was 1/9, .2222222... was 2/9, etc.  I realized that there was something fishy going on here and jumped ahead to .999999...

 

Sure enough, it equaled 9/9, which of course is 1.

 

As it was explained to me later, one of the definitions of two numbers being distinct from each other is being able to find another number in between them.  There is no number in between .999999999forever9itneverstops999999... and 1.  Ergo they are the same number.

 

So yes, math is really cool and logical and all that, but sometimes our translation language for it trips over itself.

[ThirdGen]

Well, I can answer both. 

 

So, the class was Mathematics for Elementary Teachers, and we were playing around with changing decimals into fractions.  The lesson had the first few repeaters, and we worked out that .1111111... was 1/9, .2222222... was 2/9, etc.  I realized that there was something fishy going on here and jumped ahead to .999999...

 

Sure enough, it equaled 9/9, which of course is 1.

 

As it was explained to me later, one of the definitions of two numbers being distinct from each other is being able to find another number in between them.  There is no number in between .999999999forever9itneverstops999999... and 1.  Ergo they are the same number.

 

So yes, math is really cool and logical and all that, but sometimes our translation language for it trips over itself.

 

[Voidus]

Well, I can answer both. 

 

So, the class was Mathematics for Elementary Teachers, and we were playing around with changing decimals into fractions.  The lesson had the first few repeaters, and we worked out that .1111111... was 1/9, .2222222... was 2/9, etc.  I realized that there was something fishy going on here and jumped ahead to .999999...

 

Sure enough, it equaled 9/9, which of course is 1.

 

As it was explained to me later, one of the definitions of two numbers being distinct from each other is being able to find another number in between them.  There is no number in between .999999999forever9itneverstops999999... and 1.  Ergo they are the same number.

 

So yes, math is really cool and logical and all that, but sometimes our translation language for it trips over itself.

I used 1/3 to do it.

eg. 1/3 is 0.333333...

3/3 = 1/3 * 3 = 0.99999999...

3/3 =1=0.99999...

Good old High school. I also proved that every number is equal to every other number but you have to divide by 0 to do that and my maths teacher smacked my head til I stopped insisting that I should be able to divide by whatever I want.

[Kaymyth she/her]

 

The doodles!  The glorious doodles!

[Chaos he/him]

I knew that would be the proof you were referring to, Kaymyth

Also eeee, Vi Hart I prefer the infinite series proof the best. This might because I teach calculus 2 and infinite series right now

[Master Elodin]

Good old High school. I also proved that every number is equal to every other number but you have to divide by 0 to do that and my maths teacher smacked my head til I stopped insisting that I should be able to divide by whatever I want.

What's the proof for that?

[Delightful]

Can I add my name to the Chaos magic system PM please?

[Chaos he/him]

What's the proof for that?

Well, it's not really a proof, because algebra doesn't work if you allow that. Any mathematical operation that allows 1 = 0 is probably not an operation you want.

[Aonar he/him]

What's the proof for that?

 

As Chaos said, there isn't really one, it's more of a logic thing. 

 

If you like though, here's a kind of cool example of how it works that my math teacher showed me; proving that 1 = 2.

 

 

Assume two variables, a and b. a and b are equal. Now, we take those variables through a couple simple transformations, while keeping both sides equal.

 

a=b

 

a^2=ab

 

a^2-b^2 = ab-b^2

 

Now factor both sides.

 

(a+b )(a-b ) = b(a-b )

 

Simplify by removing a-b. [ie, divide both sides by zero, since a and b are equal.]

 

a+b = b

 

As a = b, then:

 

2b = b or 2 =1.

 

You can run similar 'proofs' for any given number, so long as you make sure to divide by zero at some point during said 'proof.'

Edit: Storming smilies ruining my math.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Aonar Faileas

[Kaymyth she/her]

Well, it's not really a proof, because algebra doesn't work if you allow that. Any mathematical operation that allows 1 = 0 is probably not an operation you want.

 

I rather like to think that Paradox from the White Wolf Mage: the Ascension game results from the magic system dividing by zero.  But it's Schroedinger's Zero, so it's only a problem when people notice it.

[Voidus]

What's the proof for that?

Yeah as mentioned it's not really a proof since it requires dividing by 0 which is something you can't do, it'd be like if you 'proved' it by just adding 1 to one side of the equation and not the other.

The actual method though is pretty simple, though sometimes people do what Aonar did and try to hide the division by 0.

Take some x and some y where x and y are any numbers.

x*0=0

y*0=0

x*0=y*0

Divide by 0 to get

x=y