Searching for DaveC's Square-Cube Law: 30 Seconds at a Time!

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the challenges participants face when using the search function on the Physics Forums, particularly in locating content related to the square-cube law as discussed by a user named DaveC. The scope includes user experiences with search functionalities, comparisons between the forum's search feature and Google, and frustrations related to search delays.

Discussion Character

  • Meta-discussion
  • Exploratory

Main Points Raised

  • One participant expresses frustration over the difficulty of finding information related to the square-cube law, mentioning a lengthy search process and a 30-second wait time between attempts.
  • Another participant questions the effectiveness of the forum's search function, noting past difficulties but not having used it recently.
  • A participant shares their experience of not knowing the correct search terms, leading to repeated unsuccessful attempts.
  • Some participants recall the 30-second rule, indicating a shared awareness of this limitation.
  • One user suggests using Google as an alternative for searching, claiming it is more effective for finding threads on the forum without the delay.
  • Another participant agrees, stating that Google often retrieves relevant threads faster than the forum's own search feature.
  • Several users note that Google handles misspellings and formatting issues better than the forum's search function, which can lead to errors when searching.
  • One participant mentions encountering an error message when the search string is deemed too short, even when using keywords from thread titles.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally agree on the limitations of the forum's search function and the advantages of using Google for finding information. However, there is no consensus on the effectiveness of the search feature itself, as experiences vary among users.

Contextual Notes

Limitations noted include the 30-second wait time between search attempts, sensitivity to spelling in the forum's search, and issues with search string length restrictions.

Cyrus
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Im doing a paper due tomorrow. I wanted to include something I remember DaveC talked about long ago. I searched, and searched, and searched. And I had to wait 30 seconds each time! ^:mad:

Finally, I got it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law


What a colossal waste of time searching...:cry:

In any event, I'm not going to save that link on my side bar of usefull links. Thanks davec!

You have no idea how painful it was to find this...I knew exactly what it was, but just not the name. I searched post after post after post of his...
 
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Did the search function not help? I know I have had some trouble with it but haven't used it lately.
 
I didn't know what to search. So I kept putting in words that described what I was looking for. But each time I was wrong, I had to wait 30 seconds...:rolleyes:
 
Oh! I forgot about the 30 second rule.
 
Hahahaha, yea. Same problem that has happened to me tons of times... :approve: I can feel your annoyance, haha
 
Did you try google?

I use google for finding programming files from my course site :smile:
 
Google is better at picking up threads here than our own search feature, and no 30 second delay! :biggrin: Google's spiders are pretty happy hanging out around here. There have been times when someone posted a topic about something I knew nothing about, so decided to google a bit, and the PF thread would show up first on the list after only being posted for a half hour! (Of course, that's when I suspect nobody else has heard of it either. :rolleyes:)
 
Yeah, I've found things on here with google that I couldn't find with the search feature.
 
For some reason many times when I try to search here I get an error message telling me that the search string is too short. It's the key word that is in the title.
 
  • #10
The search here is also sensitive to spelling, while Google can seem to do a better job of matching misspelled words, or ignoring extra spaces or hyphens.
 

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