In Which Signatures are Talked About

[jtbell]

Okay... sorry for derailing the thread. Back to business, folks.

More like enrailing it.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Perhaps I can help you out. First, tell me just what is it you are trying to do?

 

[Dembadon]

My avatar is a picture of Cantor dust.

Cantor dust is a multi-dimensional version of the Cantor set. It can be formed by taking a finite Cartesian product of the Cantor set with itself, making it a Cantor space. Like the Cantor set, Cantor dust has zero measure.

Avatar: Sets, being one of the underlying concepts in mathematics, have become more prevalent as I progress in my major(s). I got (severely) distracted one evening reading about Georg Cantor and am fascinated by the questions raised by his research and accomplishments.

Quote: A defining characteristic of my personality is the strong desire to understand. I spend a lot of energy trying to understand what people are saying and what they mean. I'm uncomfortable with ambiguity outside of literary prose or poetry, so I often get frustrated with the imprecision that's inherent in most languages. I believe that is why I love mathematics so much; it is the most precise form of communication available to us.

A favorite of mine:
http://www.jonathanNewton.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/cnhVerbingWeirdsLanguage.gif

http://www.jonathanNewton.net/posts/ -- Comic by Bill Watterson

 

[Ryan_m_b]

My avatar was chosen because of my interest in nanotechnology (and it was the coolest picture I could find that wasn't a stupid cell-sized robot). My signature is from http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm which is an excellent piece (go ahead, read it!). Specifically it relates the story of how a specialist in English Literature sent Asimov a letter berating him for a comment he once made that science understood the basics of the universe. The specialist goes on to say how science constantly changes its mind and gives an example of the people used to think the Earth was flat, then thought it was a sphere, then an oblate spheroid. Asimov's reply was that science doesn't change at the drop of a hat but instead refines its understanding in the face of knew evidence. Furthermore just because the Earth is not flat and the Earth is not a sphere doesn't make them the same level of "wrong" hence the quote