Messages

6031

General Chatter - The Boozer / Re: Going to be Away?

« on: August 05, 2014, 07:59:20 AM »

It seems a bit strange that to say that I will be away for a while so soon after joining; nevertheless, that's what's happening. I will be on holiday from Saturday 9th to Monday 18th inclusive, meandering around Germany and neighbouring countries by train. For some engineering quirkiness, there is a good chance that this will involve at least one, possibly two, train ferry crossings.

Also, I still need to do quite a lot of organising (route planning and hotel booking, mainly), so I probably won't be terribly active here for the next few days either.

6032

History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Re: Which part of science interests you the most?

« on: August 05, 2014, 12:02:03 AM »

I think it's quite possible to understand the principle of Gödel's argument without necessarily using all the conventional mathematical apparatus. You might like to find a copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter - it was popular in the 1980s, and I think an anniversary edition was published quite recently. Hofstadter summarises the basic ideas in a page or two fairly early in the book, then builds up his own apparatus to enable a more detailed exploration (somewhat more intuitive than rigorous) later on.

I agree that the interconnectedness of maths is an important part of its beauty. The polytopes I mentioned are a good example: they are geometrical objects (polygons, polyhedra and so on), but their symmetry properties are described by group theory, and the standard book on the subject draws in elements from a wide range of other areas.

I should also say I'm not a mathematician. I did maths up to A-level, and it was a minor element of my degree, but I haven't touched it in any formal way since then, and I'm sadly out of practice.

6033

The Welcome Hall - Start Here! / Re: Greetings, Exilioi!

« on: August 04, 2014, 11:05:14 PM »

Welcome Glaurung!

Thank you.

How does one manage to take 6 weeks off of work??

By having an annual holiday allowance of 25 days (this is now quite common in the UK) and by working for a company that's willing to let me organise this sort of thing provided I give them plenty of warning - about a year in this case!

6034

The Welcome Hall - Start Here! / Re: Greetings, Exilioi!

« on: August 04, 2014, 08:26:06 PM »

Anyway, welcome! We certainly hope you don't vanish.

Many thanks - I hope I don't as well!

How bout instead of having it in north UK, you just bring it a bit further south down to Australia ;p

It can be done: the Tolkien Society (for Jubal's benefit, not the Cambridge one but the UK and international one) occasionally holds its annual "Seminar" in Australia instead of the UK. I went "down under" for the one in Sydney in 2007, and spent 6 weeks touring Australia and New Zealand. An antipodean Exilicon might just tempt me again...

6035

The Welcome Hall - Start Here! / Re: Greetings, Exilioi!

« on: August 04, 2014, 08:16:17 PM »

Mark? Hi there, I was Rob maybe you saw me at the convention? Blue shirt, nerdy haircut, joking with cg most of the time

Hi there. Yes, I am Mark - I guess comrade_general mentioned me last week. I did see you, and I recognise you from the photos on the Facebook page. I now wish I had introduced myself to you and others, but I wasn't very awake that afternoon (too hot!) and  it takes me a while to "warm up" to people. Still, I will know for next time!

6036

History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Re: Which part of science interests you the most?

« on: August 04, 2014, 07:56:12 PM »

I'd like to spend more time getting to grips-ish with the current state of physics research, but it just seems impossible to know where to start with it.

You might find Ethan Siegel's Starts With A Bang blog a good place. He's a cosmologist, posting at least 3-4 times a week on subjects in astronomy, astrophysics and particle physics. There's usually also a "Weekend Diversion" on something more worldly that interests or concerns him.

6037

History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Re: Which part of science interests you the most?

« on: August 04, 2014, 07:24:50 PM »

I prefer Maths. It's just so elegant,

Indeed, and I rather feel that if it's not elegant, it's a sign that there's something we don't understand yet. The four colour problem must be a classic example: we surely ought to be able to do better than a brute-force enumeration of all the possible cases.

it's the only field that is definitively the truth.

Though, as Gödel showed, some of it may not be provable.

6038

The Welcome Hall - Start Here! / Re: Greetings, Exilioi!

« on: August 03, 2014, 11:12:37 PM »

Thanks for the welcome. I'm hoping I can make a contribution here, though I'm not sure what it might be, as I'm not really into games. However, I'm a computer programmer who's interested in SF & fantasy, languages and history, so I hope I can add something to discussions.

6039

Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: The Math Game

« on: August 03, 2014, 10:49:47 PM »

(5^3 - 7) * 2^3

1729
(hint: Ramanujan)

6040

Writing, Poems, AARs, and Stories - The Storyteller's Hall / Re: What are you reading?

« on: August 03, 2014, 08:30:44 PM »

I've very recently read one of Neil Gaiman's latest novels, "The Ocean at the End of the Lane", and I recommend it. It has something of the feel of "The Graveyard Book", in that the protagonist is a child, but the story is rather different - almost horror, in some ways.

Looking back, I've enjoyed everything that I've read by Gaiman: novels "American Gods", "The Graveyard Book", "Neverwhere" and "Stardust", and "Good Omens" (with Terry Pratchett); short story collections "Smoke and Mirrors" and "Fragile Things".

6041

History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Re: Which part of science interests you the most?

« on: August 03, 2014, 07:15:04 PM »

To revive the original question, the part of science that interests me most is physics, and specifically that area in the overlap of astrophysics and particle physics where people are working on the origins and structure of the universe. When I was at school and university, the impression I got (probably wrongly) was that this was all settled: we understood the Standard Model and the Big Bang, and that seemed to cover everything. When I got interested in all this again, ten or twelve years ago, I discovered we knew more, and understood less (!). We had found, or were finding, the evidence for dark matter and dark energy, but there's no framework of theory to fit them into. To me, it feels rather like the state of physics in about 1900: lots of unexplained phenomena, waiting for relativity and quantum theory to tie it all together.

I probably should be interested in genetics, because it seems very likely that a lot of world-changing stuff is going to come out of it, but the biological side of science never really appealed to me (too descriptive, not enough logic and principles), and I stopped studying it at age 16.

It's not a science, but I'm very much interested in maths, particularly the intersection of group theory and geometry where things called polytopes live.

6042

Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: The Math Game

« on: August 03, 2014, 05:45:11 PM »

37 * 3^2 * 2
or, if F is a function which gives the Number of a thing, F(Beast)

1089
(hint: factors)

6043

The Welcome Hall - Start Here! / Greetings, Exilioi!

« on: August 03, 2014, 10:12:39 AM »

Hi there.

I understand new members are encouraged to introduce themselves here. I went to Exilicon and met some of you; you seem like interesting people, so I thought I'd join.

Jubal will know me immediately from my user name; Comrade_General survived the mental and physical tests of a tour of Cambridge with me; four more of you were kind enough to repay me for your drinks. I'm waiting to see what response I get from Pentagathus...