Sure About Noth...

@sureaboutnoth

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24 posts

Posts

esomq

Linguistic observation: I hardly use swear words in my native language. You won't hear the classic 'kurwa' from me. However, in English, it's different. I don't cuss excessively but I do throw some shits and fucks whenever they make sense to use.

I think this is because my Polish I learned from my parents who don't swear much, whereas my English I absorbed from stuff I read on social media, which was often not very elegant.

It's interesting how our personal lexicon can differ in different languages. I guess it's the same case when you only use your second language to read about one thing, like animals. You know that a group of pandas is called an embarrassment for whatever reason but you can't for the life of you recall the word for what you do when you enter the train. Because you've never boarded one.

Overall, it's actually not that weird of a phenomenon. Still, it's kinda cool.

gwendolynlerman

Same! I almost never swear in my native language, most frequently in English but also in any other foreign language I know.

On conferences and how to feel stupid

When one goes to a conference on a complicated topic in Mathematical Physics chances are that it's all going to be a waste of time. This, of course, will only apply to graduate students and fresh postdocs. Young mathematicians won't know what physicists mean when they use certain words - and don't expect them to define anything - while young physicists will stop listening as soon as they hear the word 'category'.

At the end of the day all we want - mathematicians and physicists alike - is someone who's kind enough to stop and explain, to remember how they felt one they encounter such subject for the first time, to recall in which points things become obscure and how to avoid drowning in the darkness of vaguely defined concepts.

Then you see the senior guys, those who seem to understand all and at all levels. Those who won't take notes but interrupt the speaker at crucial points with unintelligible questions. The answer won't put any clarity on the question so the whole thing will remain as an interchange of foreign words.

The moral of the story is: avoid going to conferences that don't match your topic exactly.

The dark side of the whole business is that, as time passes by, those graduate students and postdocs who didn't have a clue will become the senior guys some day, but they will not put a stop to this madness. Because everything is trivial once it's understood, and it's so easy to remember what made it so difficult.

Cauchy's integral formula

If \( f \) is a holomorphic function of an open set of the complex plane, and \( \gamma \) is the boundary of a closed disc inside that open set, then for every point \( a \) inside the disc

\[ f(a) = \frac{1}{2\pi i} \oint_{\gamma} \frac{f(z)}{z-a}dz \]

with the contour integral taken in counterclockwise orientation.

This was merely a test to check that the MathJax code snippet worked alright. It did.

#math

kateoplis

Kenji Tsuchisawa

No kidding.

#Waterloo #Canada #Captain Obvioius

hannah-willustration

Quick portrait of Richard Feynman, the Quantum man, and his feynman diagrams.

#Physics

Because pieces of clothing also have the right to be loved... and then dumped like anyone else.

#Waterloo #Canada #Ad Sign

Bus trip

So the bus made the next stop. It waited for a bit longer than usual. I was sitting on the left hand side and I could across the street a couple of girls, with coffees to go, looking anxious to cross the street. A street which, by the way, has five lines, three in our direction and two going the other way, and the traffic was kind of heavy. There is no way the bus is waiting for them, no way. Just as if the driver was reading my mind the bus started moving, but when it had run for a few meters only there was a gap in the flow of cars. The two girls ran like crazy. There's no way the driver is stopping for them, I thought, no way they are this kind. But once again I was proven wrong. There's no limit for these people. Where I'm from this would have been a predictable 'screw you', no second thoughts.

Canada is different I guess.

#Waterloo #Canada #Bus