Recent content by onomatomanic

A very "meta" idea crossed my mind today, and I'd like some feedback. Apologies in advance in case the half-formedness of said idea results in a meandering post. The specific connection I made was that the creation-versus-evolution "debate" could be characterized, at its most basic, as the...

Given a list of values, one calculates the arithmetic mean of those values which are greater than the arithmetic mean of all values. Is there an established name for that quantity?

"Circumference" is superior to "perimeter" in that it denotes or at least connotes the idea of length of a boundary, and not just the boundary as such. Personally, I usually try to pick the option whose etymology best fits the desired meaning, all else being equal - mainly just for the heck of...

The (at least somewhat) established adverbial form is "circumferential". And while "equi-" isn't as specific as one might wish in general (an "equipotential surface" is one which is defined by equal potentials across it, rather than with reference to something else), it should serve well enough...

I doubt it. Coinages are elevated to the status of "name" by being widely used, generally speaking, and to some extent that holds even in a field like this. The reason we have "incircle", and not just the descriptive compound "inscribed circle", is ultimately simply that they're frequently...

Heh. The actual reason has to do with those non-essentials I omitted because they have no bearing upon the problem in its abstract form. What it boils down to is that the point of this optimization is to improve efficiency (a ruler with fewer sections is computationally "cheaper" than one with...

Hello board, in the course of a data processing project I'm working on, this challenge presented itself, and it's a bit beyond my firm grasp. Stripping away the non-essentials, what we have is this: Construct a binary ruler of length L=(2^n)-1 units, subdivided into the least number N of...

Climatology for Worldbuilders I've only had a glance so far, but the material seems to be extremely thorough.

Well, the formula would still be the same, you'd just have to find a new way of calibrating it. The easy way to do that would be to look at typical temperatures for a real planet with the appropriate conditions, just as I looked at Earth. Unfortunately, there isn't any such planet, that I can...

Sorry, I lost track of this thread. 1) To get a rough estimate of how much the day-night temperature gradient changes with day-length, we need an estimate of the equilibrium difference, that is to say, the difference between dayside temperatures and nightside temperatures if Earth were...

Formulae only turn values into other values. As in, v = d/t only gives you a speed v if you know the distance d and the time t already; otherwise, it's nor very useful, except in the conceptual sense. That's behind what we've been saying above: First of all, you need to make up some values to...

Oh, okay. Now, the analogy makes a lot of sense. I guess I fell prey to anglocentric thinking there (and I'm not even a native speaker, either). :-p Agreed. They'd be able to do some things much more easily than was the case for our ancestors, by recycling raw materials. No need to learn...

True for Earth, not necessarily true for planets in general, and likely nothing that simple can be said about seasons on a moon. It could, but you probably don't want it to: If the moon has a surface structure similar to Earth, which is the only obvious way to get anything like Earth-like...

Yes, that's all I meant by "a lot more than halfway there". It took historical hunter-gatherer culture millenia to go from becoming sedentary to utilitizing basic technology (that is to say, the kind that doesn't require supporting technology for the manufacture of the components it uses), like...

I agree, that would make for a lovely premise. A bit like the "pyramids must have been built by ancient visitors from outer space" nonsense, but translated to outer space itself, which makes it a good bit less nonsensical. :smile: