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Fan Area => The Hydlaa Plaza => Topic started by: Pale on February 23, 2006, 02:44:42 am

Title: Any mathematicians?
Post by: Pale on February 23, 2006, 02:44:42 am

To distract myself from work, and to stop my brain leaking out my ears, I was wondering whether there were any other mathematicians in the PS community. Am I the such foolish person here? :)

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Post by: nightstalian on February 23, 2006, 02:50:14 am

I know math but wouldn\'t do it as a job

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Post by: Celebrimor on February 23, 2006, 03:00:01 am

I have a mathematician friend... sort of... he\'s kind of crazy actually...

No, I do have a friend who\'s studying Mathematics at university, I wouldn\'t do it myself though. I AM fond of physics though.

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Post by: Cha0s on February 23, 2006, 03:25:32 am

Math is fun. Taking BC Calc and Statistics now (2 fun courses :) ). Here\'s a nice little problem for those so-inclined:

What is i^i? (answer \"nicely,\" not with a decimal that you pulled off your graphing calculator :P ). For those not-so math inclined, i = sqrt(-1).

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Post by: nightstalian on February 23, 2006, 03:49:27 am

Quote

Originally posted by Cha0s
Math is fun. Taking BC Calc and Statistics now (2 fun courses :) ). Here\'s a nice little problem for those so-inclined:

What is i^i? (answer \"nicely,\" not with a decimal that you pulled off your graphing calculator :P ). For those not-so math inclined, i = sqrt(-1).

only in pre-ap alg 2

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Post by: eggplantboy on February 23, 2006, 03:52:06 am

Hi there,

I\'m not a mathematician, but a physicist. I do know several mathematicians, though. You folks sure are weird! ;)

EDIT:
About ChaOs\'s problem... Let\'s see...

The answer is certainly a complex number. i^0=1, i^1=i, i^(i*i)=i^(-1)=1/i=some-other-complex-number-whose-
absolute-value-is-one. All of these numbers lie on the unit circle in the complex plane which is centered at the origin. It seems to me i^i likely also lies on that circle, though I\'m not sure where... Now I\'m off to take a look at this with Mathematica. ;)

Title: Know what I want to be
Post by: nightstalian on February 23, 2006, 03:54:27 am

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Originally posted by nightstalian
I know math but wouldn\'t do it as a job

epidemiologist

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Post by: steuben on February 23, 2006, 03:55:56 am

physists think mathies are weird...?
eng math. now there is some odd stuff. and you know what we though the eng phys kids, man they were odd.

and that reminds me of a math joke. you know there are three kinds of mathematians. those who can\'t count and those who can.

Title: Engineering and Math
Post by: nightstalian on February 23, 2006, 04:02:46 am

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Originally posted by steuben
physists think mathies are weird...?
eng math. now there is some odd stuff. and you know what we though the eng phys kids, man they were odd.

and that reminds me of a math joke. you know there are three kinds of mathematians. those who can\'t count and those who can.

know whats easy parametric equations

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Post by: steuben on February 23, 2006, 04:10:49 am

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know whats easy parametric equations

now try doing diferential equations with them...
/me curls up into a little ball.

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Post by: nightstalian on February 23, 2006, 04:27:04 am

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Originally posted by steuben

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know whats easy parametric equations

now try doing diferential equations with them...
/me curls up into a little ball.

in my ied class I did a complete bottle that had every equation as a parametric equation but one because I based everything off of it.

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Post by: Ghostslayer on February 23, 2006, 04:31:23 am

Not a mathematician either, but I\'m studying Chemical Engineering so I deal with a lot of math... Never ceases to amaze me how they can put integrals & differential equations into nearly every subject I study (exceptions are options and writing courses :P)
Needless to say, I get a lot of surprised looks from my friends whenever I do \"hard\" math in my head :)

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Post by: nightstalian on February 23, 2006, 04:33:59 am

I\'m happy I\'m going to picked a career with limited math.
well I\'m off to workout and go to bed goodnight.

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Post by: Pale on February 23, 2006, 04:54:38 am

Just returned with a meeting with my supervisor. After several months of no-progress, we are back on track. Hooray!

For Chao0s: Using Euler\'s formula for complex numbers (recall for some complex number z, if we take the modulus and the argument, we\'ve z=|z|e^(i*arg(z))), we know i=e^(i*pi/2).

So i^i=(e^(i*pi/2))^i

Using exponential laws (eg. (x^2)^3=e^(2*3)), we now have:

...=e^((i^2)*pi/2)=e^(-pi/2) which can be evaluated on your calculator and is a real number. (0.207879576...)

So that\'s that :) If none of the above makes sense, try writing it down on paper without all the ^ and ()

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Post by: Cha0s on February 23, 2006, 05:04:08 am

Nice, Pale. :)

Coolest equation ever, btw:

e^ipi = -1

Look at how many important math constants/numbers are in there, mmm? And if you really want to round it out, add \"+0\" and then you\'ve got almost everything. :)

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Post by: LigH on February 23, 2006, 08:48:34 am

Science, eyh? - Okay! :D

- Scientific special school (class 9-12)
- \"Abitur\" examination with grade 1.9 (probably \"B\" if you use letters)
- Graduated Computer Scientist of a College (we have to say that it\'s not of an Uni)
- previously had jobs as Software Developer and Video DVD Author

Ask Tmed about my knowledge -- or shall I say, lim[inf](Tmed) ?!

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Post by: Pale on February 23, 2006, 10:22:16 am

I always wondered, what does a computer scientist actually do? Cos at my Uni, they seem to take quite a few advanced maths course (number theory, combinatorics,...)

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Post by: Kintall on February 23, 2006, 11:05:59 am

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Originally posted by Pale
I always wondered, what does a computer scientist actually do?

 At mine they seem to drink and party a lot... for something that at face value seems so sedate... its quite surprising^^

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Post by: Rolf Blacksmith on February 23, 2006, 11:26:44 am

Not a mathematician, but another physicist (or rather going-to-be physicist) here.

And for those who call physicists weird: Yes, they are, but that\'s nothing compared to real methematicians, those are really wicked!

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Post by: LigH on February 23, 2006, 05:29:51 pm

@ Pale:

Depends.

Depends on how they specialize.

Software developers may need to solve problems which require good math knowledge in different areas: Probability, set theory, spatial and temporal optimizations, path finding, algorithm development in general, boolean logic, numerics (including error tracking), derivation and integration, harmonic analysis...

Hardware developers instead have to know much about physics (e.g. semiconductors), electronics, boolean logic, thermodynamics...

And apart from that, there is also \"information theory\".
__

Do you know the difference between a physician and a mathematician?



Case 1: Heat a glass of water.
Given: Empty glass, heater, water sink.

P: Takes glass to sink, fills it with water, puts it on the heater, switches it on - after a few minutes the water starts boiling.
M: Takes glass to sink, fills it with water, puts it on the heater, switches it on - after a few minutes the water starts boiling.



Case 2: Heat a glass of water.
Given: Water filled glass, heater, sink.

P: Puts the already full glass on the heater, switches it on - after a few minutes the water starts boiling.
M: Takes the full glass to the sink, empties it - and led back Case 2 to Case 1.

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Post by: ylikone on February 23, 2006, 06:48:48 pm

My university degree was Math And Computer Science.  Didn\'t care that much for the Math part though.  My wife is a Math teacher.

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Post by: steuben on February 23, 2006, 11:24:37 pm

here\'s another math joke
a physist, engineer, and a mathematician are challenged to find the shortest fence to enclose a flock of sheep.

the physist looks at the space that one sheep needs. and figures out from that the length of fence.

the engineer looks at the flock of sheep. doubles out the size of space they occpy and runs the fence.

the mathematican runs the fence around himself and says, \"i define this to be the outside.\"

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Post by: Drey on February 23, 2006, 11:35:53 pm

Quote

Originally posted by Rolf Blacksmith
Not a mathematician, but another physicist (or rather going-to-be physicist) here.

And for those who call physicists weird: Yes, they are, but that\'s nothing compared to real methematicians, those are really wicked!

at the moment im taking both maths and physics at a level...

but the physics teachers are a whole lot stranger than the maths...

infact the maths teachers are pretty boring, I have the school head for maths, we are the only class he takes

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Post by: Pale on February 24, 2006, 12:49:38 am

I feel I must leap to the defence of eccentric mathematicians everywhere!

*leaps*

*bads awkwardly, twists his ankle, limps off*

Ahem! I\'m thinking about the department here, and we don\'t have any really \'weird\' people at the moment. A few who stand at a slight angel to the world, though.


Math jokes? Here we go!

There are 10 kinds of mathematician. Those who think in binary and those who don\'t.

Algebraists do it in groups.

A mathematician and his best friend, an engineer, attend a public lecture on geometry in thirteen-dimensional space.
\"How did you like it?\" the mathematician wants to know after the talk.
\"My head\'s spinning\", the engineer confesses. \"How can you develop any intuition for thirteen-dimensional space?\"
\"Well, it\'s not even difficult. All I do is visualize the situation in arbitrary N-dimensional space and then set N = 13.\"

And continuing on LigH\'s ideas:

A mathematician and a physicist are having lunch, when the wastepaper bin catches fire. Immediately the physicist leaps up and douses it with water.
The next day, it catches fire again. The mathematician stands up, hands the bin to the physicist and announces he\'s reduced the situation to a problem already solved.


However, I think all this distrust between mathematicians, physicists and engineers is unfair. We should resolve our differences and gang up on the statisticians. Talk about weird!


Sorry, edited for one more:

Q: How can you tell that a mathematician is extroverted?
A: When talking to you, he looks at your shoes instead of at his.

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Post by: Vitellius on February 24, 2006, 04:50:30 am

Increment the physicist count!

Doing a PhD in solar physics in sunny Texas, although most of my data comes from up above

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/
http://soi.stanford.edu/