Recent content by dipole

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    Replacing a discrete charge density with a continuous one

    Hello, it's been a while since I've done any proper electrostatics, but I have a problem where I have a bunch of discrete point charges within some volume V bounded by a surface S. I am wondering if it is possible to replace the discrete charge density in my volume V by some continuous surface...
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    Graph of wikipedia articles about physics

    You could easily generate this graph yourself - wikipedia is free to download. You just have to figure out a way to define what is an isn't a physics article, which might be non-trivial. However, I think you'll learn much more about how humans conceptualize physics then you would about physics...
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    News The Jobs People Do to Protect Us from Ourselves

    So glad facebook will protect me (even though I never asked for it) from all the scary things in the world so I can just continue to live in a bubble of ignorance. Maybe if there are hundreds of beheading videos out there, the problem isn't that there are too many beheading videos, but rather...
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    News Nobel Prize 2018 Announcements

    I'm not denying that historically women were excluded from Science - I think that is pretty factual (as factual as historical claims can be). However, does that mean that we should exclude men from consideration to make up for that today? Even if a deserving women did win this year - how does...
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    News Nobel Prize 2018 Announcements

    Can you give specific examples of women who should have won, but didn't because of some gender based bias in the selection process? Should the Nobel prizes be 50/50 men and women, and if there aren't enough women should we just artificially lower the bar for women in order to boost their nobel...
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    Evolutionary reasons for hypergamy

    Woman are attracted to men who are equal to or above them in the social hierarchy - whatever that may be. In humans, this has evolved as a method of sexual selection, which is equally as important as natural selection. An article about this with some real data...
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    Medical Scientists identify major safety issue with CRISPR

    I was being somewhat facetious, but I can already see headlines and politicians quoting a study like this as a reason not to pursue these gene editing technologies.
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    Medical Scientists identify major safety issue with CRISPR

    Yes, let's not fix the disease killing you now because of a risk that might kill you in twenty years.
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    Would You Rather.... Science Edition

    Definitely a fusion reactor - the positive impact on the environment would be enormous. Supposing you could survive for at least a few weeks, in equal comfort, but will die eventually due to running out of oxygen, would you rather 1. Explore the frozen surface of Saturn's moon Titan beneath a...
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    Excerpts from Letters by Dyson about Feynman

    "It is for the sake of opportunities like this that I want to spend five more years poor and free rather than as a well-paid civil servant..." Great quote.
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    Postdoctoral Work Stress and the Human Cost

    True, but at least there you're payed a decent wage for your suffering.
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    The Scientific Paper Is Obsolete

    Papers should be shorter for sure. As the number of papers increases exponentially, journals should encourage short, concise and far less redundant work.
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    What am I supposed to do during office hours?

    Don't go to office hours just to go... People's time is valuable, don't waste it purposely.
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    Postdoctoral Work Stress and the Human Cost

    Academia is a competitive environment where it can be easy to feel inadequate, worthless and a failure. That's why people should leave it if they aren't happy or doing well.
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    First self driving car fatality

    One question I think is what do we mean when we ask how safe self-driving cars are. I think deaths per mile isn't a very meaningful measure. For example, suppose in the normal use case of day to day driving, a SDC will have an accident at a rate that is 50% less than a human, and let's define...
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