## Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner...

For the discussion of math. Duh.

Moderators: gmalivuk, Moderators General, Prelates

cethis
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:21 pm UTC

### Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner...

Sorry it's a lot late, but I felt like you guys would be the only ones that would really appreciate it with me.

LakatosIstvan
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:54 pm UTC
Location: Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
Contact:

### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner...

I know I should get this, but I don't Care to explain?
Sir_Elderberry wrote:Cords are not just bendy cylinders. They are flexible, animate beings possessed by spirits whose intentions are beyond our ken. They are Cthulu's tentacles intruding on our reality.

++$_ Mo' Money Posts: 2370 Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2007 4:06 am UTC ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... LakatosIstvan wrote:I know I should get this, but I don't Care to explain? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_west#Controversies It's the last paragraph. LakatosIstvan Posts: 87 Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:54 pm UTC Location: Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Contact: ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... Lol, I get thaty part ) I just don't get the e and pi part. Why would the integration sign say that? Sir_Elderberry wrote:Cords are not just bendy cylinders. They are flexible, animate beings possessed by spirits whose intentions are beyond our ken. They are Cthulu's tentacles intruding on our reality. Tirian Posts: 1891 Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2008 6:03 pm UTC ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... I'd suggest that e has the best continued fraction of all transcendental numbers, but that doesn't tie back to a rude integration symbol either. jestingrabbit Factoids are just Datas that haven't grown up yet Posts: 5967 Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 9:50 pm UTC Location: Sydney ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... There are two very famous irrational numbers, e and pi. The integral sign is expressing a preference. Fin. ameretrifle wrote:Magic space feudalism is therefore a viable idea. gmalivuk GNU Terry Pratchett Posts: 26823 Joined: Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:02 pm UTC Location: Here and There Contact: ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... And given how e works with differentiation, it actually makes quite a lot of sense that the integral would prefer it over other numbers. Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true. --- If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome (he/him/his) cethis Posts: 11 Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:21 pm UTC ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... I know I should get this, but I don't Care to explain? This: There are two very famous irrational numbers, e and pi. The integral sign is expressing a preference. Fin. Coupled with Kanye West at the 2009 VMA's. I happened to tune in just before he got up on stage, so I was aware of the meme, but this comic just makes it so much better. LakatosIstvan Posts: 87 Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:54 pm UTC Location: Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Contact: ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... gmalivuk wrote:And given how e works with differentiation, it actually makes quite a lot of sense that the integral would prefer it over other numbers. e isn't at all special when it comes to differentiation The function e to the power of x , however, is. e gets zeroed out like the rest of the constants Sir_Elderberry wrote:Cords are not just bendy cylinders. They are flexible, animate beings possessed by spirits whose intentions are beyond our ken. They are Cthulu's tentacles intruding on our reality. gmalivuk GNU Terry Pratchett Posts: 26823 Joined: Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:02 pm UTC Location: Here and There Contact: ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... LakatosIstvan wrote:e isn't at all special when it comes to differentiation. The function e to the power of x , however, is. Right. The function e^x is special, compared to c^x for (almost) any other value of c. Which means e is special. Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true. --- If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome (he/him/his) pizzazz Posts: 487 Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2010 4:44 pm UTC ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... gmalivuk wrote: LakatosIstvan wrote:e isn't at all special when it comes to differentiation. The function e to the power of x , however, is. Right. The function e^x is special, compared to c^x for (almost) any other value of c. Which means e is special. The log function with base e (natural log or ln) is similarly special. PM 2Ring Posts: 3715 Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2009 3:19 pm UTC Location: Sydney, Australia ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... Also consider that e is often used in formulas connected to time. All time. Pi is cool, but ultimately that's because of it's relationship to e. LakatosIstvan Posts: 87 Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:54 pm UTC Location: Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Contact: ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... Meh. If we're talking about constants, then I'd vote for the golden ratio Nothing beats a number which mixes math with art to the deepest levels Sir_Elderberry wrote:Cords are not just bendy cylinders. They are flexible, animate beings possessed by spirits whose intentions are beyond our ken. They are Cthulu's tentacles intruding on our reality. NathanielJ Posts: 882 Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2008 9:04 pm UTC ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... LakatosIstvan wrote:Meh. If we're talking about constants, then I'd vote for the golden ratio Nothing beats a number which mixes math with art to the deepest levels In other words a number that popular culture has latched onto and abused into a pseudo-scientific load of crap. Any time someone tells you that the ratio of the length of a human arm to the length of a human forearm is the golden ratio (or anything else along those lines), hit them for me. Homepage: http://www.njohnston.ca Conway's Game of Life: http://www.conwaylife.com LakatosIstvan Posts: 87 Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:54 pm UTC Location: Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Contact: ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... NathanielJ wrote: LakatosIstvan wrote:Meh. If we're talking about constants, then I'd vote for the golden ratio Nothing beats a number which mixes math with art to the deepest levels In other words a number that popular culture has latched onto and abused into a pseudo-scientific load of crap. Any time someone tells you that the ratio of the length of a human arm to the length of a human forearm is the golden ratio (or anything else along those lines), hit them for me. I'm way ahead of you I'm lucky enough to live in a city in which people are so ignorant about math and science, that even pseudo-scientific bullsh*t barely get noticed. Some people just found out about The Secret Guess who learned a little about randomness, quantum physics, and growing up. I especially enjoy attacking people from whom I hear all kinds of stupid facts about the human body, like the we-only-use-10%-of-our-brain myth, that golden ratio thing, etc... Sir_Elderberry wrote:Cords are not just bendy cylinders. They are flexible, animate beings possessed by spirits whose intentions are beyond our ken. They are Cthulu's tentacles intruding on our reality. tesseraktik Posts: 218 Joined: Fri Nov 06, 2009 9:14 pm UTC Location: Stockholm, Sweden ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... PM 2Ring wrote:Also consider that e is often used in formulas connected to time. All time. Indeed, or at least with the integration variable t, which is loosely referred to as "time" no matter what it really represents, and in particular, it's often used in integrals with one or both endpoints at infinity, such as the Laplace transform $\mathcal{L}\{f(t)\}(s)=\int^{\infty}_{0}f(x)e^{-st}dt$ ...and the Fourier transform $\hat{f}(\omega) = \int^{\infty}_{-\infty} f(t)\ e^{- i \omega t }\,dt,$ In other words, e is used when integrating... ...over ALL TIME! That being said, I'm doubt it was meant to be interpreted that way: It's more likely that somebody just took a generic joke and ad-lib:ed in some "nerdy" stuff that they'd heard of but really knew little of. Y'know, kind of like every line of every episode of The Big Bang Theory.* Also, it would have been interesting to see him let π finish *I'll admit: I went out of my way to insult The Big Bang Theory, here. Whatcha gonna do about it? choghIjlaHbe'! ni'o mi nelci le zirpu sovmabrnornitorinku Spoiler: ++$_ wrote:What's a "degree"?

EDIT: I looked it up on Wikipedia. Apparently it's some ancient Babylonian unit for angles :/

cethis
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:21 pm UTC

### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner...

LakatosIstvan wrote:I hear all kinds of stupid facts about the human body, like the we-only-use-10%-of-our-brain myth

As a biology major, I do often wish a swift and violent death to the peddlers of this absurd notion.

++$_ Mo' Money Posts: 2370 Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2007 4:06 am UTC ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... cethis wrote: LakatosIstvan wrote:I hear all kinds of stupid facts about the human body, like the we-only-use-10%-of-our-brain myth As a biology major, I do often wish a swift and violent death to the peddlers of this absurd notion. You can't really blame the people peddling it. If they were using more than 10% of their brains, they'd know better. xepher Posts: 83 Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2010 1:42 am UTC ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... oh dear god that sounds like me. When people talk about 3.1415... I almost always pipe up and say "I prefer e." Of course, then they think that I'm making a pie joke. Dason Posts: 1311 Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2009 7:06 am UTC Location: ~/ ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... xepher wrote:oh dear god that sounds like me. When people talk about 3.1415... I almost always pipe up and say "I prefer e." Of course, then they think that I'm making a pie joke. Why would they think that? Nobody should ever joke about delicious delicious pie. MMMMMMMGURGLEMMMM. I'm a fan of [imath]\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}[/imath] myself. double epsilon = -.0000001; PM 2Ring Posts: 3715 Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2009 3:19 pm UTC Location: Sydney, Australia ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... Dason wrote:I'm a fan of [imath]\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}[/imath] myself. That rings a bell... NathanielJ Posts: 882 Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2008 9:04 pm UTC ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... Dason wrote:I'm a fan of [imath]\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}[/imath] myself. He's a statistician! GET HIM! Homepage: http://www.njohnston.ca Conway's Game of Life: http://www.conwaylife.com DavCrav Posts: 251 Joined: Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:04 pm UTC Location: Oxford, UK ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... May I be the first to say that's a rubbish comic/joke. That is all. Cleverbeans Posts: 1378 Joined: Wed Mar 26, 2008 1:16 pm UTC ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... DavCrav wrote:May I be the first to say that's a rubbish comic/joke. Indeed. Not funny, and the art is hardly redeeming. "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." - Abraham Lincoln the tree Posts: 801 Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2007 6:23 pm UTC Location: Behind you ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... cethis wrote: LakatosIstvan wrote:I hear all kinds of stupid facts about the human body, like the we-only-use-10%-of-our-brain myth As a biology major, I do often wish a swift and violent death to the peddlers of this absurd notion. I wonder where it came from. Presumably it either came from an innocent misunderstanding like the areas of the tongue thing or it was used to peddle some sort of snake oil. Cleverbeans wrote: DavCrav wrote:May I be the first to say that's a rubbish comic/joke. Indeed. Not funny, and the art is hardly redeeming. This is the important thing. LakatosIstvan Posts: 87 Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:54 pm UTC Location: Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Contact: ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... the tree wrote: cethis wrote: LakatosIstvan wrote:I hear all kinds of stupid facts about the human body, like the we-only-use-10%-of-our-brain myth As a biology major, I do often wish a swift and violent death to the peddlers of this absurd notion. I wonder where it came from. Presumably it either came from an innocent misunderstanding like the areas of the tongue thing or it was used to peddle some sort of snake oil. I guess it had to do with the self-help industry's "unlocked potential" marketing plan. I guess they went with the idea of choosing a percentage of the brain, which wasn't too small, nor too large, and seed it and let it spread I also heard this myth combined with Einstein's brain, saying that the reason why Einstein was so smart was because he used a larger percentage of his brain . By the way, could anyone confirm this idea that Einstein's brain is larger that the average humans? I know a part of his brain is 15% wider than usual, but from what I read there are parts of the normal brain which are missing or are truncated. Sir_Elderberry wrote:Cords are not just bendy cylinders. They are flexible, animate beings possessed by spirits whose intentions are beyond our ken. They are Cthulu's tentacles intruding on our reality. jestingrabbit Factoids are just Datas that haven't grown up yet Posts: 5967 Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 9:50 pm UTC Location: Sydney ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... the tree wrote: cethis wrote: LakatosIstvan wrote:I hear all kinds of stupid facts about the human body, like the we-only-use-10%-of-our-brain myth As a biology major, I do often wish a swift and violent death to the peddlers of this absurd notion. I wonder where it came from. Presumably it either came from an innocent misunderstanding like the areas of the tongue thing or it was used to peddle some sort of snake oil. Wikipedia knows all and sees all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10%25_of_brain_myth ameretrifle wrote:Magic space feudalism is therefore a viable idea. modularblues Posts: 689 Joined: Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:33 am UTC Location: Escher's Wonderland Contact: ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... LakatosIstvan Posts: 87 Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:54 pm UTC Location: Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Contact: ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... Now that's a funny comic At a certain moment a pair of square brackets should come in and say "Guys ,let's get together as a whole and leave our cares floating behind. I heard Euler is throwing a party at the Aleph-Null-Drink bar." Sir_Elderberry wrote:Cords are not just bendy cylinders. They are flexible, animate beings possessed by spirits whose intentions are beyond our ken. They are Cthulu's tentacles intruding on our reality. Mavrisa Posts: 340 Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2008 8:49 pm UTC Location: Ontario ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... jestingrabbit wrote:Wikipedia knows all and sees all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10%25_of_brain_myth I was going to post a link to this page. Yours has more detail though, so I wasn't going to (it is really quite a good article). One that caught my eye was: Wikipedia wrote:A popular myth regarding human sexuality is that men think about sex every seven seconds. In reality, there is no scientific way of measuring such a thing and as best researchers can tell, seven seconds seems like a gross overstatement. I can just imagine a bunch of researchers standing around awkwardly, asking each other, "do... do you?" "I think nature's imagination is so much greater than man's, she's never gonna let us relax." tesseraktik Posts: 218 Joined: Fri Nov 06, 2009 9:14 pm UTC Location: Stockholm, Sweden ### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner... Mavrisa wrote: Wikipedia wrote:A popular myth regarding human sexuality is that men think about sex every seven seconds. In reality, there is no scientific way of measuring such a thing and as best researchers can tell, seven seconds seems like a gross overstatement. I can just imagine a bunch of researchers standing around awkwardly, asking each other, "do... do you?" An overstatement in what sense? I'm guessing that they mean that 1/7 [s-1] (or 1/7 [Bq], as I like to put it, much to the frustration of those around me) is an unrealistically high frequency, but it's easy to interpret is as though it's and unrealistically high period ("It's actually more like once every half second. Also: Boobs!"). ni'o mi nelci le zirpu sovmabrnornitorinku Spoiler: ++$_ wrote:What's a "degree"?

EDIT: I looked it up on Wikipedia. Apparently it's some ancient Babylonian unit for angles :/

supremum
Posts: 69
Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2009 8:58 pm UTC

### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner...

That be rational/get real comic has always been a pet peeve of mine. i isn't a rational number.

Talith
Proved the Goldbach Conjecture
Posts: 848
Joined: Sat Nov 29, 2008 1:28 am UTC
Location: Manchester - UK

### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner...

supremum wrote:That be rational/get real comic has always been a pet peeve of mine. i isn't a rational number.
Why does it have to be?

the tree
Posts: 801
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2007 6:23 pm UTC
Location: Behind you

### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner...

Talith wrote:
supremum wrote:That be rational/get real comic has always been a pet peeve of mine. i isn't a rational number.
Why does it have to be?
i is being the pot to pi's kettle - so it kind of doesn't make sense.

Talith
Proved the Goldbach Conjecture
Posts: 848
Joined: Sat Nov 29, 2008 1:28 am UTC
Location: Manchester - UK

### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner...

the tree wrote:
Talith wrote:
supremum wrote:That be rational/get real comic has always been a pet peeve of mine. i isn't a rational number.
Why does it have to be?
i is being the pot to pi's kettle - so it kind of doesn't make sense.

It hardly detracts from the joke. Being peeved by the morals of the joke seems a bit prudish. The fact is, i is the first number you're introduced to which isn't a real number, pi is one of the first irrational numbers you're introduced to and both are seen as the standard numbers not in the specific subset of their respective sets (some might choose sqrt(2) for the irrational number but hey 'be algebraic' doesn't have as much of a ring to it).

the tree
Posts: 801
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2007 6:23 pm UTC
Location: Behind you

### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner...

It's just that it's automatically irking, you first read 'be rational' and then before you've read 'get real' you've already starting thinking 'wait, what?'

Token
Posts: 1481
Joined: Fri Dec 01, 2006 5:07 pm UTC
Location: London

### Re: Wish I had seen/understood this comic sooner...

Just mentally insert the word "Gaussian".
All posts are works in progress. If I posted something within the last hour, chances are I'm still editing it.