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

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Discussion Overview

The thread discusses various random thoughts and observations, touching on topics such as media programming, personal anecdotes, language use, and mathematical curiosities. The scope includes informal commentary, humor, and reflections on everyday experiences.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express frustration with the quality of documentaries on channels like the History Channel and National Geographic, suggesting a decline in factual programming.
  • There is a humorous anecdote about discovering a polythene bag obstructing a kitchen extractor fan, leading to a discussion about the clarity of installation manuals.
  • Participants share thoughts on the nature of prime numbers, particularly regarding the status of the number 2 and its implications for mathematical proofs.
  • There are reflections on language use and the reactions to grammatical errors made by native speakers, with some participants sharing their personal responses to such situations.
  • One participant humorously suggests that if 2 were not considered prime, it would complicate the understanding of prime factors in even numbers.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

The discussion contains multiple competing views, particularly regarding the status of the number 2 as a prime and the quality of media programming. No consensus is reached on these topics.

Contextual Notes

Participants express varying degrees of skepticism and humor, with some comments reflecting personal experiences and subjective opinions rather than objective analysis.

Who May Find This Useful

Readers interested in informal discussions about media, language, and mathematics may find this thread engaging.

  • #3,901
If she is a boy and he is a girl, what do you think are my grades in English class?
 
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  • #3,902
fresh_42 said:
I assume they thought this would save marketing costs. Unfortunately for them, they made the calculation without people's subconsciousness. Typical case of: not thought to the end.

I once lived in an apartment building with neighbors named Buse (her name, Busen= bosom) and Bock (his name, = buck).
But they are comedians , so it may be in their favor.
 
  • #3,903
There is this ( I assume) half insane woman in coffee shop that gives people the finger while pretending to scratch her face. Talk about advantages of being a woman. she has been doing this for months now. If she was a man, she (_he) would have been challenged for a fight long ago.
 
  • #3,904
I started doing push-ups regularly and after a while, one day, I felt like a small sense of confidence that I could do one arm push-ups. It was as if without trying, I could clearly gauge my own capacity at that point. Got myself on the ground and to my surprise, I could do them!

It felt really good. I was like: "Oof. I'm strong." :-p

But once I was able to do it, I realized that it didn't require that much strength to do one arm push-ups. It wasn't something that required hard training to achieve. Although I'm not sure if the weight of the person influences the amount of training needed by that person. I have always been light. Whenever I'm moving something heavy, I always get told that the object can lift me, rather than the other way around :oldlaugh:.

So the random thought that crossed my mind is that when one exercises regularly, one sort of gets a feeling of one's own capacity to perform a certain task. Whether you can do it easily or whether it will cost you. I don't know how to explain it. You just can assess the situation and your capacities better than when you don't exercise at all.
 
  • #3,905
Psinter said:
I started doing push-ups regularly and after a while, one day, I felt like a small sense of confidence that I could do one arm push-ups. It was as if without trying, I could clearly gauge my own capacity at that point. Got myself on the ground and to my surprise, I could do them!

It felt really good. I was like: "Oof. I'm strong." :-p

But once I was able to do it, I realized that it didn't require that much strength to do one arm push-ups. It wasn't something that required hard training to achieve. Although I'm not sure if the weight of the person influences the amount of training needed by that person. I have always been light. Whenever I'm moving something heavy, I always get told that the object can lift me, rather than the other way around :oldlaugh:.

So the random thought that crossed my mind is that when one exercises regularly, one sort of gets a feeling of one's own capacity to perform a certain task. Whether you can do it easily or whether it will cost you. I don't know how to explain it. You just can assess the situation and your capacities better than when you don't exercise at all.
How about one-finger push-ups? Any time soon? ( Don't try it , may fracture the finger)
 
  • #3,906
WWGD said:
How about one-finger push-ups? Any time soon? ( Don't try it , may fracture the finger)
Not at all. I can push-up my finger without any noteworthy efforts as often as I like.
 
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  • #3,907
Woman in coffee shop giving the finger more openly today, no pretense of scratching her face. Kind of funny but sad to see deranged people outside of special housing.
 
  • #3,908
WWGD said:
Woman in coffee shop giving the finger more openly today, no pretense of scratching her face. Kind of funny but sad to see deranged people outside of special housing.
Well, at least a sign of honesty :biggrin:
 
  • #3,909
WWGD said:
How about one-finger push-ups? Any time soon? ( Don't try it , may fracture the finger)
:oldlaugh:

Perhaps one day. :DD
______________________________________

Trying to use wax to remove some parts of my eyebrows for a longer lasting look and it ripped my skin off. Now I have a red-brown patch where the bright red thin layer of blood was. And it didn't remove the hairs! Just the skin! I look awesome now. Thank you :rolleyes:.

Looking for a solution I feel overwhelmed by the amount of makeup products in the cosmetics section. How do people even know what to use? Time to visit YouTube for makeup tutorials.
 
  • #3,910
Why not glue the hairs and skin together in the brow area?Or just draw in some brows with a crayon, uncle Leo style (Seinfeld)?
 
  • #3,911
It goes beyond deciding if app is short for application or appetizer.
 
  • #3,912
Windows' error messages have changed from :
Windows has run into an error...
to:
Your PC has run into an error...
 
  • #3,913
WWGD said:
Woman in coffee shop giving the finger more openly today, no pretense of scratching her face. Kind of funny but sad to see deranged people outside of special housing.
Why don't you date her? :oldlaugh:

Crazy ones make for good dates :DD.

JFOwC36.jpg


Just kidding. Don't go there.

But following that line of thoughts, I think I once heard someone say to not think that you can change someone. Looks like some people who date, think they can change parts of their partners that they don't like. That they can convince them to be different. And it somehow doesn't go as expected.
 

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  • #3,914
Psinter said:
Why don't you date her? :oldlaugh:

Crazy ones make for good dates :DD.

View attachment 227562

Just kidding. Don't go there.

But following that line of thoughts, I think I once heard someone say to not think that you can change someone. Looks like some people who date, think they can change parts of their partners that they don't like. That they can convince them to be different.
You mean like their eyebrows? :).
 
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  • #3,915
Psinter said:
Why don't you date her? :oldlaugh:

Crazy ones make for good dates :DD.

View attachment 227562

Just kidding. Don't go there.

But following that line of thoughts, I think I once heard someone say to not think that you can change someone. Looks like some people who date, think they can change parts of their partners that they don't like. That they can convince them to be different. And it somehow doesn't go as expected.
But, you have a point dating wise. I have a magnetic personality:every deranged person around seems to find me and approach me.
 
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  • #3,916
I finally understood why a matrix is a (1,1) -tensor. After like a year.
 
  • #3,917
WWGD said:
But, you have a point dating wise. I have a magnetic personality:every deranged person around seems to find me and approach me.
I know this characteristic too well. Always thought it's only me ...
 
  • #3,918
WWGD said:
I finally understood why a matrix is a (1,1) -tensor. After like a year.
And now for the next lesson: it's also a (2,0) or a (0,2) tensor. :biggrin:
 
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  • #3,919
WWGD said:
But, you have a point dating wise. I have a magnetic personality:every deranged person around seems to find me and approach me.
Back in undergrad days I was chatting to a friend in the corridor when a girl we both knew came round the corner, took one look at my friend, said "oh!" and went haring off back round the corner. I gave him a "that was weird" kind of look and he shrugs and says "It's my animal magnetism - I just need to figure out how to flip the polarity..."

(She showed up again two minutes later with a book he'd lent her.)
 
  • #3,920
fresh_42 said:
And now for the next lesson: it's also a (2,0) or a (0,2) tensor. :biggrin:
...and only if it's got the right transformation laws.
 
  • #3,921
Ibix said:
...and only if it's got the right transformation laws.
I found the answer through meditation : Hom, Hom,...
 
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  • #3,922
Ibix said:
...and only if it's got the right transformation laws.
Only for physicists. For me it's only important how many asterisks are involved! That's sufficient for me to know what to do. And don't bring up co- and contravariances. My book about homological algebra uses them differently anyway.
 
  • #3,923
fresh_42 said:
Only for physicists. For me it's only important how many asterisks are involved! That's sufficient for me to know what to do. And don't bring up co- and contravariances. My book about homological algebra uses them differently anyway.
OK, but still you have a condition over and above being a square matrix. The Christoffel connection coefficients are representible by an NxNxN matrix, but aren't a tensor.
 
  • #3,924
Every "rectangle" collection of numbers in any dimension can be interpreted as a tensor, a cube is just ##\sum x \otimes y \otimes z##.
 
  • #3,925
Can be interpreted as, sure. But can be interpreted otherwise too (e.g. the connection). So I object to the "is" part of "a matrix is a tensor".
 
  • #3,926
Ibix said:
OK, but still you have a condition over and above being a square matrix. The Christoffel connection coefficients are representible by an NxNxN matrix, but aren't a tensor.
But isn't a matrix just a 2D array? Or maybe it is the confusion of notational/definitional differencees?
 
  • #3,927
It's the old discussion what a transformation and what its matrix is. A tensor to me is simply an element of a tensor algebra, resp. space, if only tensors of equal rank are involved. As soon as I have a basis of the constituent vector spaces, I have a cube or whatever a matrix (not necessarily square) in higher dimensions shall be called. Their use by physicists makes me dizzy. It always sounds curved somehow, but it's flat as a board.
 
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  • #3,928
fresh_42 said:
Every "rectangle" collection of numbers in any dimension can be interpreted as a tensor, a cube is just #\sum x \otimes y \otimes z##.
What type of or theory of Homology are you using?
 
  • #3,929
WWGD said:
What type of or theory of Homology are you using?
Covariance and contravariance determines, whether a functor keeps the direction of mapping arrows or converts them. I have never seen a second category by the way physicists use these terms - there are always only vector spaces present. If at all, it's the transition ##V \rightarrow V^*##, but they attach it to either ##V## or ##V^*##, so again no second category.
 
  • #3,930
fresh_42 said:
It's the old discussion what a transformation and what its matrix is. A tensor to me is simply an element of a tensor algebra, resp. space, if only tensors of equal rank are involved. As soon as I have a basis of the constituent vector spaces, I have a cube or whatever a matrix (not necessarily square) in higher dimensions shall be called. Their use by physicists makes me dizzy. It always sounds curved somehow, but it's flat as a board.
This looks more like geometric algebra. Or Simplicial.
 

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