Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Dr. D]

What is your favorite math equation or scientific theory or the math equation that goes with the scientific theory or mathematical theorem?

I like both general and special relativity. I can't wait, as an aspiring physicist, to get to them.

For math, I like the squeeze/sandwich theorem just for its name and I like the fundamental theorem of calculus.

[Vector]

Dedekind-Macneille completion, probably.

I also like the usual proof that a continuous function on a compact set is uniformly continuous.  It's kind of cute.

Most audacious prize goes to the proof of Tichonoff's Theorem using ultrafilters.

[Urist Imiknorris]

e^(pi)i = -1.

It's just so utterly inconceivable that two irrational numbers and i could be combined in such a neat and orderly way.

[freeformschooler]

Special relativity, too. Specifically, I like the bizarre theory of Time Dilation and the Twin Paradox.

Although this is not saying much as paradoxes in general are one of my favorite things.

e^(pi)i = -1.

It's just so utterly inconceivable that two irrational numbers and i could be combined in such a neat and orderly way.

But a lot of things in math are like that!

[Vector]

e^(pi)i + 1 = 0.

Fixed for even more mathematical beauty.


I forgot about the set-theoretical construction of an ordered pair, and of the natural numbers.  Albert's theorem, too...

[Strife26]

It's been a long time since I've done math, but I've always liked that the Quadratic formula works.

AX^2+BX+C = 0

[-b +or- (b^2-4ac)^.5]/2a

I think that I got it right. We always recited it to pop goes the weasel in algebra two.

[Makbeth]

f'(e^x)=e^x.

Gave me a bit of insight into what e is and what it does.

As far as favorite theory goes, well...

Quantum Mechanics is pretty far up there (and out there).  I don't understand it very well, but they say that if you think you understand it then you don't understand it.  I like that it basically says the universe DOES have a sort of finite resolution in all dimensions (though it's extremely high), and that as you "zoom in" on the picture of the universe, you start to see purely random noise.

See?  Reality is tile-based.

[Tellemurius]

Herndon Georeactor theory, the earth's core is a giant self-sustaining fission reactor. For chemistry it would be......
transition state theory.

[freeformschooler]

Herndon Georeactor theory, the earth's core is a giant self-sustaining fission reactor. For chemistry it would be......
transition state theory.

I hope we never discover this to be true. Can you imagine? "Hey, guys, free energy forever! All we have to do is send a half-a-globe-long massive drill into the center of the earth and siphon the energy there! The risk is negligible!"

[Tellemurius]

Herndon Georeactor theory, the earth's core is a giant self-sustaining fission reactor. For chemistry it would be......
transition state theory.

I hope we never discover this to be true. Can you imagine? "Hey, guys, free energy forever! All we have to do is send a half-a-globe-long massive drill into the center of the earth and siphon the energy there! The risk is negligible!"

We might as well use magma power then

[Strife26]

Magma power (geothermal) is awesome, actually. Look at Iceland. Plus, wherever you go, you can almost always get either heating or cooling for almost zero energy cost with a passive geothermal heat sink.

[Tellemurius]

Magma power (geothermal) is awesome, actually. Look at Iceland. Plus, wherever you go, you can almost always get either heating or cooling for almost zero energy cost with a passive geothermal heat sink.

the problem with it as we need to replace to the water that is removed.

[Makbeth]

Herndon Georeactor theory, the earth's core is a giant self-sustaining fission reactor. For chemistry it would be......
transition state theory.

I hope we never discover this to be true. Can you imagine? "Hey, guys, free energy forever! All we have to do is send a half-a-globe-long massive drill into the center of the earth and siphon the energy there! The risk is negligible!"

We're already using this energy.  It's called geothermal power. 

You are joking about the drill, right?  At the moment, even getting down to the mantle is at the bleeding edge of our technology, not to mention prohibitively expensive, time-consuming, and prone to project-ending failure.  No one in their right mind would even consider drilling to the core, as there are no known materials that can avoid melting at 7000°F while at the same time withstanding over a hundred gigapascals of pressure.

To translate into dwarf terms:

The lower mantle is several times the melting point of raw adamantine or slade, and the pressure has the effect of thousands of lowering drawbridges per second.  If HFS was down there, the whole entire place, and all the clowns in it, were melted and atom-smashed billions of years ago.

[freeformschooler]

Yeah, I'm joking about the drill -- that was something I had seen in a bad scifi movie and said "that's ridiculous". But, since we're talking about drilling to the center of the Earth with an actual drill here, of course the drill would be able to survive impossible temperatures -- it could be made of unobtainium, after all!

Geothermal energy is great, though, although I've always been a little unnerved by the deep sea creatures that live off of it for some reason.

[Zrk2]

Phi, the most awesomest ratio ever.