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

[nuuskur]

Took my topology qualifier. I know for sure it wasn't a disaster, but not for sure whether I got a master's pass. I keep going over it in my head... But I literally can't' remember a thing about it other than I answered a bunch of questions. Sometimes I felt more as if I was giving my opinion than showing a mathematical proof, but at least it was an *informed* opinion. :D

uh oh.. I have been working on trying NOT to give opinion, but concise proof, instead :D
I think as long as you aren't discussing horse keeping principles on a topology test, you're fine haha

reminds me of my first algebra test in uni, I was so lost, I drew pictures of a giant equation eating the professor [don't ask what it means, I don't know].

 

[fresh_42]

Took my topology qualifier. I know for sure it wasn't a disaster, but not for sure whether I got a master's pass. I keep going over it in my head... But I literally can't' remember a thing about it other than I answered a bunch of questions. Sometimes I felt more as if I was giving my opinion than showing a mathematical proof, but at least it was an *informed* opinion. :D

I think that's normal and likely a sign for good answers. I remember a student in an undergraduate exam who has been asked what a linear mapping is. She answered by all defining properties, and the follow-up questions was about "the nature" of linear mappings and to give an example. I guess she doesn't know until today, why she only got a "C". Bad students don't ask themselves the kind of questions that bother you.

 

[nuuskur]

I think that's normal and likely a sign for good answers. I remember a student in an undergraduate exam who has been asked what a linear mapping is. She answered by all defining properties, and the follow-up questions was about "the nature" of linear mappings and to give an example. I guess she doesn't know until today, why she only got a "C". Bad students don't ask themselves the kind of questions that bother you.

I wouldn't like such a question. So much ambiguity. What do you mean by "its nature"? I can name plenty of different properties of linear maps do they constitute as descriptions for the nature of linear maps?

 

[fresh_42]

I wouldn't like such a question. So much ambiguity. What do you mean by "its nature"? I can name plenty of different properties of linear maps do they constitute as descriptions for the nature of linear maps?

Well, it's one thing to quote properties like $L(x+y)=L(x)+L(y)$, but a completely different one to understand why this is required, i.e. what a linear mapping means. And if you are asked for an example and don't know any, then I'd say the knowledge of the definition is worth nothing.

 

[dkotschessaa]

I think that's normal and likely a sign for good answers. I remember a student in an undergraduate exam who has been asked what a linear mapping is. She answered by all defining properties, and the follow-up questions was about "the nature" of linear mappings and to give an example. I guess she doesn't know until today, why she only got a "C". Bad students don't ask themselves the kind of questions that bother you.

One thing at least I have gotten over as a graduate student, and perhaps just as an adult, is not caring whether I look stupid or not. I used to avoid answering questions just because I thought it probably wasn't right and I was embarrassed about it. Now I at least write something down if I have an idea about it. "Here is my understanding."

-Dave K

 

[dkotschessaa]

Well, it's one thing to quote properties like $L(x+y)=L(x)+L(y)$, but a completely different one to understand why this is required, i.e. what a linear mapping means. And if you are asked for an example and don't know any, then I'd say the knowledge of the definition is worth nothing.

I would have to see the question in question :D. But Munkres actually says something about what he calls "open ended" questions in his book. Sometimes they are the most enlightening and most frustrating types of questions. They also are the type that mathematicians are likely to be faced with initially in research. They only get boiled down to rigorous definitions after much effort.

Probably a whole thread topic could be had on this.

-Dave K

 

[fresh_42]

I would have to see the question in question

It was a verbal exam, i.e. the entire exam was a dialog. The crucial point here is, and I think it is one of the most important things to learn, not to say the most important thing, that you could know an entire textbook and still don't have an idea what it is about. It's the difference between a machine and a human being. It has been the kind of professors who tested understanding first, knowledge second.

 

[dkotschessaa]

It was a verbal exam, i.e. the entire exam was a dialog. The crucial point here is, and I think it is one of the most important things to learn, not to say the most important thing, that you could know an entire textbook and still don't have an idea what it is about. It's the difference between a machine and a human being. It has been the kind of professors who tested understanding first, knowledge second.

Oh wow, I've never witnessed a verbal exam in mathematics! (Other than watching a dissertation defense.)

I totally agree with you though. I've noticed that some undergraduates in particular are very good at "gaming" the system. They know how to answer, what to answer, when to answer on tests. They have lawyer-like skills for negotiating what should be on a test and what shouldn't be, or why a question wasn't fair. They know how to get good grades. But their knowledge of the material? Meh.

-Dave K

 

[fresh_42]

Oh wow, I've never witnessed a verbal exam in mathematics!

I had to write the protocol. I first thought I could beat the record on the most exams, but the guy who was the record holder had more than 500. So I decided to set a record on "number of professors". I ended up with about a dozen different profs, which was a great experience that taught me many insights on interviews. The chances are high, that I'm still the record holder. I even manged to protocol all exams of a single student. He told me afterwards that he's tired to see me, although he was an all "A" student.

 

[OmCheeto]

You should see what Hollywood makes out of non-American history ...

Researching stuff for mother's day yesterday, I ran across the following:

October 26, 1948
Landed in Bermenhaven yesterday and rode the train to Marburg last night.
This is a beautiful country here. The barracks we’re living in here used o be the headquarters for Adolfs’ S.S. troops.
There are still bullet holes in the walls from when the Krauts got run out.
I’ll write again. Till then, So Long.

My mom was born somewhere near 50° 53′ 20″ N, 15° 59′ 59″ E.
About 16 years later, she would be in the Luftwaffe.
My dad eventually ended up in the American Luftwaffe, but not until after my oldest brother was born in Aschaffenburg.
My other older brother was born in Frankfurt.

Und das is vhy itch kanst very goot doych sprecken.

[edit: Dad would have been 19 years old when he wrote that letter]

 

[WWGD]

It was a verbal exam, i.e. the entire exam was a dialog. The crucial point here is, and I think it is one of the most important things to learn, not to say the most important thing, that you could know an entire textbook and still don't have an idea what it is about. It's the difference between a machine and a human being. It has been the kind of professors who tested understanding first, knowledge second.

Yes, this is much easier in an Oral exam, pretty hard in a written one.

 

[fresh_42]

My dad eventually ended up in the American Luftwaffe, but not until after my oldest brother was born in Aschaffenburg.
My other older brother was born in Frankfurt.

This is creepy! Guess where my two nephews have been born! Should my sister hide a giant family secret? I know they first lived in OR or WA (can't remember) as they moved to the US ...

 

[OmCheeto]

This is creepy! Guess where my two nephews have been born! Should my sister hide a giant family secret? I know they first lived in OR or WA (can't remember) as they moved to the US ...

Secrets! That would make a good thread.

Actual conversation I had on May 5, 2017:

Preface: Om's sister posts picture of oldish looking submarine, asking me if I recognized it.

Om; "Где вы нашли эту лодку?" [=Where did you find this boat?]

Om; "Slava bogu[thank god] dads sister claimed we were Germans from Russia. Otherwise I'd have learned Ukrainian. ps. My Russian friends claim that everyone in the Ukraine speaks Russian, even if they pretend they don't. Which has been my experience."

Om's sister, born in Florida; "No, we were German that went to Russia to teach farming~"

Om; "Keep telling yourself that. I have a Russian friend who spent lots of time in the Odessa oblast. She claims the first time she saw me that she told her husband I looked Ukrainian. I had to laugh when she told me that. It would appear that great great grandma got more than milk from the milk man. :D"​

ps. It is a Russian submarine in Hamburg.

 

[dkotschessaa]

I had to write the protocol. I first thought I could beat the record on the most exams, but the guy who was the record holder had more than 500.

Sorry, 500 what?

 

[fresh_42]

Sorry, 500 what?

Exams in which he was the one to write the protocol; I think I made it to the second half of the two hundreds.

 

[dkotschessaa]

exams in which he was the one to write the protocol

Oh dear! Speaking of human vs. machine...

 

[zoobyshoe]

I wonder who the first person was who had the idea to try and eat a crab. They must have been really hungry.

 

[dkotschessaa]

I wonder who the first person was who had the idea to try and eat a crab. They must have been really hungry.

They probably drank from a coconut too. I think the effort to get at the nutrition cancels out any caloric intake.

 

[fresh_42]

From one omnivore to the other ...

They probably drank from a coconut too. I think the effort to get at the nutrition cancels out any caloric intake.

Unlikely. The settlement of the Americas took place along the coast lines and it's very likely, that it had to do with the presence of food from the pacific. O.k. the American ice shield has probably also played a role. Even a group in the population of Japanese macaques has learned to eat "sea food" in order to survive in winter. And consider the efforts sea otters undertake to crack sea shells! My bet would be, that we first threw them into a fire. And imagine the trouble early humans had to get to nutritious marrow. As long as we can crack it ...

 

[zoobyshoe]

What I meant was crabs are scary-looking, like large spiders. A person would have to be really hungry to start wondering if crabs might be edible.

 

[dkotschessaa]

What I meant was crabs are scary-looking, like large spiders. A person would have to be really hungry to start wondering if crabs might be edible.

Perhaps you and @fresh_42 are onto something then. Someone was sleeping by the fire, felt something crawling on their face. When they woke up, it was a crab. They grabbed it and threw it into the fire. It smelled delicious.

-Dave K

 

[zoobyshoe]

Perhaps you and @fresh_42 are onto something then. Someone was sleeping by the fire, felt something crawling on their face. When they woke up, it was a crab. They grabbed it and threw it into the fire. It smelled delicious.

This is certainly exactly how it happened. I'm pretty sure we can just write that scenario into the history books as gospel truth.

 

[dkotschessaa]

This is certainly exactly how it happened. I'm pretty sure we can just write that scenario into the history books as gospel truth.

The name "crab" of course derives from the utterance made by this person (his name was Og) when the incident occurred. 'CRAAAAAABB!'.

Interesting trivia: Og's grandfather, Ahh!, was the one who actually invented fire, sometimes considered the world's first scientist. (Of course that is why we say "Ahh!" when we burn ourselves.)

-Dave K

 

[zoobyshoe]

The name "crab" of course derives from the utterance made by this person (his name was Og) when the incident occurred. 'CRAAAAAABB!'.

Interesting trivia: Og's grandfather, Ahh!, was the one who actually invented fire, sometimes considered the world's first scientist. (Of course that is why we say "Ahh!" when we burn ourselves.)

Yes, this has to be the way it happened! My God, it's like you were there!

 

[WWGD]

My Android spell-checked Starbucks. Will it spell-check any commercial name? Does it keep tyrack of them, I guess learns as I text?

 

[collinsmark]

My Android spell-checked Starbucks. Will it spell-check any commercial name?

I think it depends on the lexicon being used.

Android has a built in spelling checker framework that your app might be using, or it might use its own, custom spell checker. Which commercial names are within its lexicon by default depends on which spelling checker your app is using, and which language -- ultimately which lexicon you are using.

Does it keep tyrack of them, I guess learns as I text?

If I'm not mistaken, if the app is using the built-in android framework, it will ask you if you want to add suspect words to the "dictionary" (what it calls the lexicon).

Of course, the problem is that if you accidentally add a misspelled word to your lexicon, it will fail to flag that word as misspelled in the future.

 

[jim hardy]

What I meant was crabs are scary-looking, like large spiders. A person would have to be really hungry to start wondering if crabs might be edible.

My guess is kids watched otters enjoying them.

and observed if you grab them from behind their pincers can't reach you.

 

[dkotschessaa]

I think it depends on the lexicon being used.

Android has a built in spelling checker framework that your app might be using, or it might use its own, custom spell checker. Which commercial names are within its lexicon by default depends on which spelling checker your app is using, and which language -- ultimately which lexicon you are using.
If I'm not mistaken, if the app is using the built-in android framework, it will ask you if you want to add suspect words to the "dictionary" (what it calls the lexicon).

Of course, the problem is that if you accidentally add a misspelled word to your lexicon, it will fail to flag that word as misspelled in the future.

And is it just me or does it look like other people's misspellings are starting to work their way in? I get some very strange auto-correct suggestions sometimes that I know did not come from me. It seems eventually it will negate the entire process.

-Dave K

 

[zoobyshoe]

My guess is kids watched otters enjoying them.

That makes sense. Even I would assume that if an otter can eat something there's a high likelihood a human could too.

 

[fresh_42]

That makes sense. Even I would assume that if an otter can eat something there's a high likelihood a human could too.

Or even simpler than that: it moves → it moves slowly enough to easily be caught → no plant → no poisonous plant → hmmm, delicious. I assume people hadn't much of a choice at the time we first ate it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Or even simpler than that: it moves → it moves slowly enough to easily be caught → no plant → no poisonous plant → hmmm, delicious. I assume people hadn't much of a choice at the time we first ate it.

Thing is, if you have the example of an otter then it makes sense that people would try crabs even when they're not starving and have no choice.

 

[WWGD]

Thing is, if you have the example of an otter then it makes sense that people would try crabs even when they're not starving and have no choice.

I don't like that example, give me an otter one.

 

[BillTre]

Birds eat a lot of crabs also.

 

[dkotschessaa]

That makes sense. Even I would assume that if an otter can eat something there's a high likelihood a human could too.

If otter eats it, I otter be able to.

 

[dkotschessaa]

I don't like that example, give me an otter one.

Bah, you beat me to it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Bah, you beat me to it.

Don't get crabby about it.

 

[Ibix]

Interesting maths: a train ticket from my home town to the place I need to visit next week, going via London, is £120. A ticket from my home town to London is £30. A ticket from London (same station) to my destination is £40. Conclusion: £30+£40=£120.

With arithmetic like that, it's no wonder the trains never run to time.

 

[dkotschessaa]

Still waiting to find out how I did on my topology qualifier. Took it last saturday.

pace pace pace pace pace pace pace

 

[Ibix]

pace pace pace pace pace pace pace

Stop it! You're going to wear a hole in the forum.

Which will change its genus.

 

[dkotschessaa]

Stop it! You're going to wear a hole in the forum.

Which will change its genus.

It's what now?

(just kidding)

-Dave K

 

[Ibix]

It's what now?

You had me going for a moment - I wasn't sure I was using the term correctly. Let’s just say I probably wouldn't pass the qualifier...

 

[zoobyshoe]

I found this to be odd:

If you watch CSI you should recognize the name Paul Guilfoyle as one of the minor, but recurring characters:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Guilfoyle

But, as I was looking at the blurb for an old movie showing on Turner Classic Movies, I saw the same actor credited as a major character in a film made in 1944.

Turns out the 1944 Paul Guilfoyle is a completely different and unrelated person who died in 1961:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Guilfoyle_(actor,_born_1902)

It is such an unusual name the odds must be stacked against two separate, unrelated people with that name becoming successful at the same profession. Additionally, you'd think the more recent would have adopted a stage name to avoid any confusion with the earlier. On the other hand, maybe neither was/is famous enough for this to be a problem worth addressing.

In a completely separate coincidence, the 1944 film I was reading about is called Dark Shadows, but its plot has nothing whatever to do with the vampire story of the later soap opera and film with the same title. In the 1944 film: "A police psychiatrist is enlisted to catch a homicidal killer."

 

[jim hardy]

It is such an unusual name the odds must be stacked against two separate, unrelated people with that name becoming successful at the same profession.

Hmmm Until just now i'd assumed Helen Hunt was a pseudonym lifted from the Hollywood hairstylist whose name you see in so many 1940's movie credits.

But i guess both are real names.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Hunt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Hunt_(hair_stylist)

 

[zoobyshoe]

Hmmm Until just now i'd assumed Helen Hunt was a pseudonym lifted from the Hollywood hairstylist whose name you see in so many 1940's movie credits.

But i guess both are real names.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Hunt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Hunt_(hair_stylist)

I don't think I've ever noticed the hairstylist in any movie credits. (I do pay attention to the makeup artist in the case of monster movies. Jack Pierce did many of the classic 1930's monsters we still remember: Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolfman.)

Regardless, I did kind of assume "Helen Hunt" was a stage name. It seems a bit too 'simple + memorable' to not have been designed that way.

But the thing with Paul Guilfoyle is that both were/are actors, they were unrelated, and the latter did not name himself after the former.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Current temp at the South Pole: - 86℉.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Josh Gates never finds the buried treasure, but he always finds one of the pirates' belt buckles.

 

[dkotschessaa]

You had me going for a moment - I wasn't sure I was using the term correctly. Let’s just say I probably wouldn't pass the qualifier...

Turns out I didn't. Argh!

There was always the possibility and it is common for people to fail the first time. I was taking practice ones from 9 - 12 almost every Saturday. I had to "rehearse" when I had breakfast and ate and drank and whatnot (blood sugar condition so I had to be sure). 3 days before the test I got sick, and one day before the test the whole thing was moved up to 10:00 am due to a campus event. (Something they have never, ever done before) Won't say that is the reason for my failure but it sure didn't help.

back too the whiteboard for 4 months... in between work and online classes and baby..

 

[Ibix]

Sorry to hear that, Dave. Hope it goes better next time.

 

[Borg]

Ditto that. Best of luck on the next one.

 

[nuuskur]

Turns out I didn't. Argh!

There was always the possibility and it is common for people to fail the first time. I was taking practice ones from 9 - 12 almost every Saturday. I had to "rehearse" when I had breakfast and ate and drank and whatnot (blood sugar condition so I had to be sure). 3 days before the test I got sick, and one day before the test the whole thing was moved up to 10:00 am due to a campus event. (Something they have never, ever done before) Won't say that is the reason for my failure but it sure didn't help.

back too the whiteboard for 4 months... in between work and online classes and baby..

I can only imagine the disappointment :s In light of the content of some of your other work, things are still ok, no?
Best of luck next time.

Have you received any specific criticism on your test or they just said you didn't pass?