Recent content by Banaticus

Hmm, ok, thanks. I have one data set where the 5-number summary is: 0, 29496, 68552, 124280, 780575. The mean is 80041.24331 and that approximation comes up with 153153.875, so I guess it's a really rough estimate. Sure, why not. If I clearly don't know what I'm talking about, feel free to...

It seems like it should be possible to calculate the mean (usual average) from a 5-number summary of a set of numbers (min, first quartile or Q1, median, third quartile or Q3, and max). You should be able to calculate roughly what a percentile is, then by taking each discrete percentile and...

They refer to the portion of your post quoted immediately above the words "second" and "first" in the post you quoted. The inability of this forum to display a quote in a quoted post can swiftly become confusing, so let me just repost it: Where does the x^{n+1}-1, etc., come from, how was...

Thanks. I got the original formula from http://www.ajdesigner.com/phpinterest/interest_regular_deposits_p.php and it seems to be the same formula that my teacher was using (he didn't mandated anything, he just suggested that we use massive Excel tables to calculate it, so I went out looking for...

Homework Statement If you deposit $deposit into a bank account each year and get y% annual interest, the simple formula is \frac{deposit((1+y)^{years}-1)}{y} How is this formula calculated? What's going on? Let's look at $50, 6% interest, two years. Maybe I'm supposed to be dropping $50 in...

Yes, but where did this convention come from? Even today, orienteering follows the practice that clockwise around a Z-axis is positive. Why did it change? Maybe some pictures will help me explain what I'm asking. For thousands of years, this was the standard convention -- positive angles...

Why would a clockwise (with 0 at the top, as in compass degrees) or a counterclockwise (with 0 on the right as in trigonometry degrees) coordinate system be considered left or right handed?

The idea of a circle divided into 360 degrees that goes clockwise has been around for thousands of years (see orienteering compasses). So, why do radians and angles in trigonometry go counter-clockwise and start off pointing to the right? Was that on purpose?

But that definition of a meter, with its crazy value in seconds (why not something simple like exactly 1/3.0x10^8) was developed to match the length of the platinum-iridium bar, which (despite all their best efforts) is ever so slightly changing. Just like citizens of the United States don't...

Homework Statement This isn't homework, it's just something that I've been thinking about, but I thought that this was the best forum to ask this. The meter was first attempted to be defined as 1/10 millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator through Paris. This seems...

I'm using Windows Vista, but the character map is still around -- I found it by typing "Char" into the start bar and it opened up. After scrolling way the heck down, I found something that looks close -- ϱ -- I'd kind of like a longer tail on it, though, but it'll do for now. Thanks! :)

Is it possible to get a squiggly looking version like the one he's using? Those look too much like a p -- in fluid dynamics, with p's for pressure already in the formula, I'd like to use a character that looks different from a p.

My physics teacher is using some sort of squiggly symbol that he's calling rho for density. It looks sort of like a backwards g. What is this symbol? How can I include it in my Google Docs reports/notes?

So, when the rest of you are making Lewis structures for homework, a lab report or a lab writeup, how do the rest of you format them? Should I break out Windows Paint?

Homework Statement On the tv show H2O: Just Add Water, Rikki is a mermaid who has the power to boil water. In the second episode, she boils away all the water in a swimming pool in a matter of seconds. If the average pool contains about 19,000 gallons of water, at roughly 27 degrees Celsius...