Today I Learned

[pinball1970]

The words are: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Eeri, Ontario

None of the L's help me. The words do not show me their relative geographic positions. I miss seeing how the "Lisa likes licking lettice lightly" shows me what you want someone to see or use. What am I missing?

Cmon!

It's a joke. The whole point is that is it's completely useless for the exact reasons you pointed out!

 

[pinball1970]

TIL That NASA is conducting a new study on UFOs. To be honest I don't think they are treating that seriously as the study will last 9 months and cost 100k, probably what they spent on coffee and alcohol when they launched Webb.
I posted on @fresh_42 post about Chinese UFOs about the same thing but I did learn it today so...

 

[fresh_42]

TIL
$$
\int_1^{\infty}\frac{{dy}\,/\,{y^2}}{1+(y-1)^{\alpha}}=\frac12 \quad \forall\,\alpha
$$

 

[OmCheeto]

TIL who @marcus was.
[Personal information redacted by the Mentors]

As to how he became so smart, is still a mystery to me.

 

[epenguin]

TIL who @marcus was.
[Personal information redacted by the Mentors]

As to how he became so smart, is still a mystery to me.

Might I, dare I, say I have missed PF's Fundamental Physics fashion correspondent?

(No doubt he was much more).

 

[pinball1970]

Might I, dare I, say I have missed PF's Fundamental Physics fashion correspondent?

(No doubt he was much more).

I think he was a gravity guy. I read one of his links when I first joined and thought WT*!

@PeterDonis would know more.

 

[pinball1970]

TIL
$$
\int_1^{\infty}\frac{{dy}\,/\,{y^2}}{1+(y-1)^{\alpha}}=\frac12 \quad \forall\,\alpha
$$

What does the upside down 'A' mean? (It does not make sense to me otherwise...)
EDIT: Universal quantifier, got it.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

TIL
$$
\int_1^{\infty}\frac{{dy}\,/\,{y^2}}{1+(y-1)^{\alpha}}=\frac12 \quad \forall\,\alpha
$$

Please can you explain or provide a reference?

 

[fresh_42]

Please can you explain or provide a reference?

It is funny and not very complicated: substitute the obvious $1/y$, and make use of the symmetry $u <> 1-u$ to get an integral $\int_0^1 du$.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

It is funny and not very complicated: substitute the obvious $1/y$, and make use of the symmetry $u <> 1-u$ to get an integral $\int_0^1 du$.

Thanks, I see - I only asked because at first glance I mistakenly thought the $y^2$ was on top, which obviously made it untrue!

 

[OmCheeto]

Might I, dare I, say I have missed PF's Fundamental Physics fashion correspondent?

(No doubt he was much more).

Indeed.
He was a god to me.

ps. I have no idea how marcus could have been considered a 'fashion correspondent'.
I only knew him as a "Loop Quantum Gravity" type of person.

ref: https://www.physicsforums.com/members/marcus.66/#recent-content

 

[strangerep]

I have no idea how marcus could have been considered a 'fashion correspondent'.

I tended to regard many of his posts in the BTSM forum as following/reporting the latest fads. Most of the BTSM topics over the past few decades seem to have gone nowhere.

 

[Hornbein]

French Guiana is part of France.

 

[epenguin]

And Curaçao (but not Surinam) is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands - I didn't learn but did check that today.

 

[jack action]

French Guiana is part of France.

Well, you will love to hear about St-Pierre et Miquelon. The closest France territory to North America: 90 minutes by Ferry.

​

About halfway In the video above, they talk about how this tiny territory - with only 6000 people living there - came close to becoming an entry point for the Nazis in North America when they took over France during WWII. Very interesting.

 

[Hornbein]

Well, you will love to hear about St-Pierre et Miquelon. The closest France territory to North America: 90 minutes by Ferry.

​

About halfway In the video above, they talk about how this tiny territory - with only 6000 people living there - came close to becoming an entry point for the Nazis in North America when they took over France during WWII. Very interesting.

The only time the guillotine was used in North America was on Saint-Pierre in the late 19th century.[72][page needed] Joseph Néel was convicted of killing Mr Coupard on Île aux Chiens on 30 December 1888, and subsequently executed by guillotine on 24 August 1889. The device had to be shipped from Martinique and it did not arrive in working order. It was very difficult to get anyone to perform the execution; finally a recent immigrant was coaxed into doing the job.

This economic powerhouse provides free health care.

 

[Buzz Bloom]

Today I learned that the number 2222 is an "Angel Number" with quite a detailed description of its personal influence.
See https://angelnumber.org/2222-angel-number/.

When I touch my watch near one of its straps, it displays the time and also the number of steps I have taken since I put the watch on. Today, after a short morning hike, it reported I had taken 2222 steps. Well, I confess I found this number interesting. A bit of searching led me to the reference I found and posted above.

 

[berkeman]

Thread closed temporarily for friendly Moderation...

 

[berkeman]

An interesting (but too politically charged) post has been deleted along with a reply to it. Thread is reopened. Thanks for your patience.

 

[sbrothy]

TIL that motivations for animal experiments can be a simple annoyance with how nature works. If for example you're annoyed [sic] by when spiders build their webs (and who wouldn't be annoyed by pesky spiders loudly weaving their webs at the ungodly hours between 2 and 5 am) then the obvious solutions is of course to drug them with LSD:

In 1948, Swiss pharmacologist Peter N. Witt started his research on the effect of drugs on spiders. The initial motivation for the study was a request from his colleague, zoologist H. M. Peters, to shift the time when garden spiders build their webs from between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., which apparently annoyed Peters, to earlier hours. Witt tested spiders with a range of psychoactive drugs, including amphetamine, mescaline, strychnine, LSD, and caffeine, and found that the drugs affect the size and shape of the web rather than the time when it is built.

So it didn't quite work but at least the intetions were pure and scientific (?!).

 

[Jodo]

These three countries are hard to compare anyway. I think Canada and Germany have comparable societies and laws, whereas Canada and the US merely share the same continent, or as my American friend puts it: Canada is the better America.

While fabricating product years back for the chemical lab expansion at MIT ( 2006ish maybe ), an American truck driver explained the difference between Americans and Canadians.
Go to a rowdy bar anywhere in the US and at midnight stand up on a table and yell " Your country sucks, Americans are a bunch of wimps and I can kick all your butts! "
They will immediately beat the living crap out of you on the spot! ( very proud people )
Now flip the tables. Go to a rowdy Canadian bar and at midnight do the same thing ( except of course state Canada sucks etc.. )
The Canadians are going to roar their asses off and will want to buy you a beer. We will want to drink with the person and get to know them a bit perhaps. Then at closing time, we will beat the crap out of you in the parking lot.
Both countries are democratic ( seemingly ) and both have a lot of pride. Canadians are a little slower to react but no less proud.

 

[Oldman too]

TIL, that the infamous Mpemba effect also has an inverse effect.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.02373.pdf
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.12899.pdf
From, https://www.quantamagazine.org/does...er-than-cold-physicists-keep-asking-20220629/

 

[Oldman too]

So it didn't quite work but at least the intetions were pure and scientific (?!).

This reminds me of a video on the subject from our neighbors in the Great White North.

 

[pinball1970]

TIL that motivations for animal experiments can be a simple annoyance with how nature works. If for example you're annoyed [sic] by when spiders build their webs (and who wouldn't be annoyed by pesky spiders loudly weaving their webs at the ungodly hours between 2 and 5 am) then the obvious solutions is of course to drug them with LSD:

In 1948, Swiss pharmacologist Peter N. Witt started his research on the effect of drugs on spiders. The initial motivation for the study was a request from his colleague, zoologist H. M. Peters, to shift the time when garden spiders build their webs from between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., which apparently annoyed Peters, to earlier hours. Witt tested spiders with a range of psychoactive drugs, including amphetamine, mescaline, strychnine, LSD, and caffeine, and found that the drugs affect the size and shape of the web rather than the time when it is built.

So it didn't quite work but at least the intetions were pure and scientific (?!).

The key part is 1948. Kids do worst stuff to insects today and have done for a long time. Just because.
Trivers Hamilton and others have learned a lot about genetics from these species.

 

[BillTre]

Gregor Mendel (the father of genetics, but unrecognized until after his death).

TIL that he was recently dug up and had his DNA sequenced.

Here is an article which the comment was based on.
The article is in Czech however, which I can read.
So maybe there are some readers of Czech out there want to comment on it.

 

[Oldman too]

Here is an article which the comment was based on.

Interesting, not that I speak Czech, but I had to take a look. The NatGeo aspect was a surprise, searching English versions of the story... I struck out. I was able to get the gist of the DNA angle, a genetic study, honoring the "Father of Genetics" at his 200th birthday celebration. A nice touch. I wonder if L. Burbank will get the same honors.
The best part of my searching though was coming across https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/so-science-gets-it-wrong-then-what that made my day.

 

[Hornbein]

Interesting, not that I speak Czech, but I had to take a look. The NatGeo aspect was a surprise, searching English versions of the story... I struck out. I was able to get the gist of the DNA angle, a genetic study, honoring the "Father of Genetics" at his 200th birthday celebration. A nice touch. I wonder if L. Burbank will get the same honors.
The best part of my searching though was coming across https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/so-science-gets-it-wrong-then-what that made my day.

National Geographic quoting anonymous Internet comments. That's sad.

 

[Tom.G]

National Geographic quoting anonymous Internet comments. That's sad.

"My, how the mighty have fallen!"

 

[Hornbein]

"My, how the mighty have fallen!"

Yep. Did they even attempt to interview the pricipals?

 

[sbrothy]

The key part is 1948. Kids do worst stuff to insects today and have done for a long time. Just because.
Trivers Hamilton and others have learned a lot about genetics from these species.

Indeed, and admittedly, even though I haven't looked into it, I'd be surprised if the reason H. M. Peters wanted to shift the spider weaving time wasn't founded in legitimate research reasons (though who knows, maybe he just had really sensitive ears :) ). It's just a clumsy (and funny) wiki-expression.