What is the newest installment of 'Random Thoughts' on Physics Forums?

[valenumr]

The point is, that the English world has the most complicated breakfast and still calls it fast. In French it is little, and in German early. Neither of them is near as time-consuming as sausages and beans or pancakes.

I precook a bunch of bacon in the oven once a week. An egg take two minutes.

 

[WWGD]

My main beef ( at least recently) is the overload of the term 'Entropy' : I recently heard it mentioned in regards to how much you can deviate from the normal/standard spelling or pronunciation and still have a high probability of being understood. By this definition, English has low Entropy , in that you can mangle words and spelling and still likely be understood. The opposite in Chinese, in that slight misspellings/mispronounciations have a small chance of being understood.

I also have a beef with vegetarians. They don't like it. ;).

 

[Ibix]

The opposite in Chinese, in that slight misspellings/mispronounciations have a small chance of being understood.

In a conversation about difficulties in foreign languages, a lady who used to live in China told us that in at least one Chinese dialect the words for "nine" and "penis" differ only in intonation. She noted that if she wanted nine of something she always asked for ten and threw one away.

 

[WWGD]

In a conversation about difficulties in foreign languages, a lady who used to live in China told us that in at least one Chinese dialect the words for "nine" and "penis" differ only in intonation. She noted that if she wanted nine of something she always asked for ten and threw one away.

So what's the deal with the line: " Number Nine, Number Nine,..."?

 

[fresh_42]

So what's the deal with the line: " Number Nine, Number Nine,..."?

They don't speak Chinese in Liverpool, it only sounds that way.

 

[WWGD]

They don't speak Chinese in Liverpool, it only sounds that way.

I remember this Jamaican guy who was interviewed on TV and he was livid because they added subtitles/translation on the bottom.

 

[WWGD]

Maybe this is for anyone else but maybe @BillTre : Do viruses have gender?
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/viruses-are-there-male-female-viruses.1010478/

 

[fresh_42]

I remember this Jamaican guy who was interviewed on TV and he was livid because they added subtitles/translation on the bottom.

I just thought yesterday how amazing it is that I understand most German dialects (schwizerdütsch included) although they have barely something in common with the language taught at schools. I assume it is similar for native English speakers. I remember an interview with Amy Macdonald on a radio show or John Higgins after a Snooker match: Scottish is hard.

 

[WWGD]

I just thought yesterday how amazing it is that I understand most German dialects (schwizerdütsch included) although they have barely something in common with the language taught at schools. I assume it is similar for native English speakers. I remember an interview with Amy Macdonald on a radio show or John Higgins after a Snooker match: Scottish is hard.

And there are, I think , many dialects/accents within Scottish.

 

[Ibix]

My wife, not a native English speaker, occasionally tells me she fell in love with me because my BBC English accent made me one of the few people she could understand when she first came here. I like to think that's a compliment...

 

[WWGD]

It seems Interview Coaching is making it harder (for non-clients) to get jobs.

 

[jack action]

In reality, plants are actually farming us, by giving us oxygen daily, until we all eventually decompose so they can consume us.

 

[Ibix]

In reality, plants are actually farming us, by giving us oxygen daily, until we all eventually decompose so they can consume us.

This message brought to you by the school of biology that teaches that a human is just a sperm or egg cell's way of making more sperm and egg cells.

 

[ergospherical]

 

[valenumr]

Chickens won at evolution by being delicious.

View attachment 294567

 

[BillTre]

Maybe this is for anyone else but maybe @BillTre : Do viruses have gender?
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/viruses-are-there-male-female-viruses.1010478/

see my reply here:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/viruses-are-there-male-female-viruses.1010478/post-6578459

 

[BillTre]

Chickens won at evolution by being delicious.

That is how chickens as domesticated animals won (preserved an ecological place for their reproduction) distinct from that of the jungle fowl they (un-naturally) evolved from.

But, lots of things win at evolution.
If you're seeing them, then they are winners.
Every living things has a winning (successful) lineage of survival and reproduction, extending back billions of years (longer than most geological features).

Who wins more?
Biggest genome making a more complex construction (like a person)?
Or something with huge numbers of copies, like bacteria (or the mitochondria in your cells)?

 

[fresh_42]

Who wins more?
Biggest genome making a more complex construction (like a person)?
Or something with huge numbers of copies, like bacteria (or the mitochondria in your cells)?

Considering the resources it takes, us 7'809'880'911 and counting dry-nosed primates did a good job. Too bad economists don't understand Weierstraß's EVT.

 

[valenumr]

That is how chickens as domesticated animals won (preserved an ecological place for their reproduction) distinct from that of the jungle fowl they (un-naturally) evolved from.

But, lots of things win at evolution.
If you're seeing them, then they are winners.
Every living things has a winning (successful) lineage of survival and reproduction, extending back billions of years (longer than most geological features).

Who wins more?
Biggest genome making a more complex construction (like a person)?
Or something with huge numbers of copies, like bacteria (or the mitochondria in your cells)?

Jungle fowl are actually quite successful here (Hawaii). Not a lot of predators, mainly feral cats and mongooses going after the young.

 

[BillTre]

Considering the resources it takes, us 7'809'880'911 and counting dry-nosed primates did a good job. Too bad economists don't understand Weierstraß's EVT.

There are a lot of bacteria:

The number of bacteria on Earth is estimated to be 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This is five million trillion trillion or 5 x 10 to the 30th power.

 

[WWGD]

Your count is 3 seconds old. Add 140 to your total. ;).

 

[valenumr]

There are a lot of bacteria:

That's on the order of the number of stars in the observable universe!

 

[WWGD]

Chickens won at evolution by being delicious.

I thought it was interesting that ' Pollo Tropical' chain has an outlet in Moscow, open year long. Imaging going there in mid-January.

 

[fresh_42]

There are a lot of bacteria:

I know. I'm the landlord of quite a share of them. Good tenants, payments are always on time and they don't require many resources.

 

[BillTre]

That's on the order of the number of stars in the observable universe!

Biological numbers can get big in different ways.

Stuart Kauffman figures that to explore the space, of possible protein structures of any sequence, in a 200 amino acid protein is beyond the calculating capacity of the (known) universe.

His argument goes something like this:

proteins: strings of amino acids, linked by peptide bonds.
20 kinds of amino acids per each position

A protein with 200 amino acids has 20²⁰⁰ different possible sequences; which is about 10²⁶⁰

Age of Universe 13.7 BY (~10¹⁷ seconds).

There are an estimated 10⁸⁰ particles in the (known) universe.

Taking Plank time (10^-43 seconds) as the shortest time period.

If each particle in the universe, made a different 200 amino acid length protein, each Plank time period, it would take 10³⁹ times the age of the universe, to make one copy of each possible 200 amino acid protein once.

 

[WWGD]

Lichtenstein is so small, it has no room for improvement.

 

[ergospherical]

Why does time flow faster in the small hours? I swear half an hour's gone by in the last five minutes.

 

[valenumr]

Biological numbers can get big in different ways.

Stuart Kauffman figures that to explore the space, of possible protein structures of any sequence, in a 200 amino acid protein is beyond the calculating capacity of the (known) universe.

His argument goes something like this:

proteins: strings of amino acids, linked by peptide bonds.
20 kinds of amino acids per each position

A protein with 200 amino acids has 20²⁰⁰ different possible sequences; which is about 10²⁶⁰

Age of Universe 13.7 BY (~10¹⁷ seconds).

There are an estimated 10⁸⁰ particles in the (known) universe.

Taking Plank time (10^-43 seconds) as the shortest time period.

If each particle in the universe, made a different 200 amino acid length protein, each Plank time period, it would take 10³⁹ times the age of the universe, to make one copy of each possible 200 amino acid protein once.

Another thought to go with big numbers... There are something on the order of 2⁸⁵ potential genetic codes, yet all life on Earth shares more or less the same.

 

[Keith_McClary]

There are a lot of bacteria:

An estimated 10 nonillion (10 to the 31st power) individual viruses exist on our planet—enough to assign one to every star in the universe 100 million times over.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/factors-allow-viruses-infect-humans-coronavirus
They would fill 600 supertankers.

 

[WWGD]

Jungle fowl are actually quite successful here (Hawaii). Not a lot of predators, mainly feral cats and mongooses going after the young.

And Jungle Love * is driving me mad and making me crazy

* Somehow appeared in my YouTube rotation feed. Cool song.

 

[WWGD]

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/factors-allow-viruses-infect-humans-coronavirus

Mongooses or Mongeese? Mongander?

 

[fresh_42]

And Jungle Love * is driving me mad and making me crazy

* Somehow appeared in my YouTube rotation feed. Cool song.

And I have been Whamed today. Damn, I almost made it.

 

[fresh_42]

It always works. I like certain directors even if I do not know they made the movie. I watched a movie (Mestari Cheng) that I liked a lot and looked up its director afterward. So happened yesterday. It was a Chinese-Finnish production. It turned out that it was a Kaurismäki film, Mika this time. But it also worked with Tarantino (Jackie Brown) or Besson (The Fifth Element).

 

[Astronuc]

I was thinking this article might fit under Weird News, but then it's not news, nor is it really weird, but just how people deal with being lost, including one four-year old, Paul Gosford, the Wunderkind, who actually found his way to civilization (in 1805)!

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ten-curious-cases-getting-lost-wilderness-180975495/

Edit/update: Another of the 10 stories: The Snob, "In 1928, Jimmy Hale got lost searching for prehistoric relics in the caverns of the Ozark mountains in Arkansas. Hale fancied himself an expert archeologist because he had “read some books,” according to a 1928 article in Forest and Stream magazine."

 

[ergospherical]

(Not-so) random maths thought: Is there a way to write $P^2 + (\nu - e^{-X})^2 -e^{-X}$ in the form $\mathbf{v}^{\dagger} \mathbf{v}$, where $\mathbf{v}$ is a complex vector, without using any square roots?