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Math problem...don't blame the physicists!

PostPosted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 11:25 am
by Doug Coulter
threesome.png
Funny, but slightly off. Credit - XKCD


There are a number of problems in math, which used to be the queen of science, no longer. There are no closed-form (non perturbative) solutions to many problems and we could sure use them.
The three body gravitational problem is just a stand-in for the more important ones, really - and even that one has issues, since if you really want to know what a simplified gravitational system (the usual example is sun, jupiter and earth) looks like in a few hundred years, you have to iterate on a very fine time grid. By the time you've got to a couple hundred years out - the math errors give you a completely wrong answer anyway, double floating point is a joke at this level. And then there's the weater problem. Or tell me if a point inside +/-1, -1/+2 is in the mandelbrot set without iterating. I dare ya.

Now, in fusors, we have a many-body problem. Call it 10^18 bodies to be conservative (it's really likely to be more). They are moving around in there from a foot/microsecond and on up. We have all of electrons, D+, D2, D2+, D-, D (at least) in there.
All different E/M ratios, and some repel as well as attract. It's so bad that when I called the fine people at SIMION and asked if they could handle it - they told me to keep my money, no way.

Hopefully, some of the math guys will be properly shamed about this and get to work on something other than how many primes live in a range or some silly group theory and solve this one. We need it!

Of course, there might not be much hope if this http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-2 ... g-stupider is true. It is what I seem to observe myself.

Re: Math proglem...don't blame the physicists!

PostPosted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 8:54 pm
by johnf
I think this says it all!!
terrorist.jpg

Re: Math proglem...don't blame the physicists!

PostPosted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 4:07 pm
by Doug Coulter
:D

Re: Math problem...don't blame the physicists!

PostPosted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 3:10 pm
by David McKee
Thank God I was born in the 60's!

Re: Math problem...don't blame the physicists!

PostPosted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 8:48 pm
by Doug Coulter
No kidding. If this thread is getting any traction, I'm very tempted to put up that picture of the test to get out of 8th grade in 1912 that's been making the rounds on the more-cynical websites. Few PhD's would pass it...today. I'll see if anyone has a version of it that isn't 2 feet long by 2" wide, as it's hard to read on the web...

Re: Math problem...don't blame the physicists!

PostPosted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 2:04 pm
by Jeff Lapointe
Here's a pretty good link to a fairly large version of the test.http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/century-old-8th-grade-exam-can-you-pass-a-1912-test/2012/01/04/gIQAxjC00P_blog.html

I've never used this forum software before but I'll see if I can get the image here all by itself.

Image

A lot of sites disallow cross-site linking so if it doesn't appear above I guess I am among the more stupider people. ;)

Wow, the preview button appears to work, maybe I'm not as stupid as I thought.

Re: Math problem...don't blame the physicists!

PostPosted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 10:37 am
by APynckel
All you have to do to realize this as fact is see how the "standardized testing" goalposts are continually moved to give more and more "credit" to the under performers. Graduating high school used to be an achievement, and to accomplish college was something reserved for the elite. Now anyone can get a government backed non-refundable student loan and go get a PhD in 12th century Belgian lesbian studies and then do nothing with the rest of their lives save live off the government teat. There is nothing that separates the wheat from the chaff anymore, and Idiocracy is becoming mainstream. When everyone gets a prize, no one can claim to be victorious.



"Only stupid people are breeding".

Re: Math problem...don't blame the physicists!

PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 4:01 am
by johnf
This is probably why
"Failure"

is now described as "delayed success"