• wise_pancake@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    Mathematician: this is category theory. No, it didn’t have anything to do with categorization, it just helps us understand how spaces can map to each other. Yeah I guess it’s kinda like graph theory or algebra, but not really. We made a category of graphs, and you can use the category of graphs to represent endofunctors on the category of categories.

    • marcos@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      – It’s about nothing.

      – No sets?

      – No, forget the sets.

      – You’ve got to have sets.

      – Who says you’ve got to have sets? Remember when we were talking about functions of functions? That could be a theory all by itself.

  • PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Tbf advancement in math usually means “random shit we’re doing for the fun of it” and then 40 years later an actual application is discovered

    It took centuries for people to realize number theory could be used for encryption

  • jj122@lemmings.world
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    8 months ago

    Oh man the university ptsd as an engineer. I once asked a physics prof at what width does the split slot experiment break down, she couldn’t understand the question. All the other engineering students were nodding their heads in agreement with the question and tried to explain the question in a different way, still no idea what we were asking.

    • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      It’s a good question, but asking it shows that the experiment was explained poorly.

      The slits aren’t the reason you see an interference pattern. The slits function as two lenses, similar to a pinhole camera. That’s something that usually doesn’t get explained very well, you can use all sorts of lenses for this, but slits are the most basic (and crucially, glass lenses would cause an interference pattern even if light weren’t a wave).

      The double slit experiment is basically “if light is a wave, a slit would behave like a lens, similar to a pinhole camera. If light is a particle, it will simply be a hole without any lensing. Two slits show multiple bars, due to interference from the lenses, which means light is a wave”

      Which means this works at any scale. All you need is some light in the same frequency, and something to bend it. That can be two slits, some glass, or an entire galaxy.

      There are local limits of course, where the effect still applies, but things become too blurry and diffuse to make out. But that’s more of a limit to your sensor than the experiment.

      • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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        8 months ago

        That’s when considering the slits as a lens though, which they will act as at any diameter however there’s going to be a width at which the angle of approach and wavelength of the light are insignificant enough that you practically can’t tell that the slits were even there right?

  • WastedJobe@feddit.de
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    8 months ago

    My engineering friends and me propose that physicists should be referred to as theoretical engineers.

    • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      I propose engineers not be allowed to name things. Not everything needs to be an “engineer”

    • NielsBohron@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      As someone with an engineering degree and a science degree, scientists are absolutely nothing like engineers.

      • Gork@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        They’ve got some things in common.

        Technical aptitude. Complete unawareness, or purposeful neglect, of social norms. Science related dad jokes.

        • NielsBohron@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          True, but I mainly mean in terms of their attitude towards research and their level of skepticism and critical thinking when presented with new information.

          Engineers are always thinking in terms of “how can I make this work?” and scientists are trained to think in terms of “where does this theory/method break?”

          This means that in general, engineers are far more likely to assume one positive result is significant, whereas scientists are far more likely to be looking at and poking holes in experiment methodology. This is a generalization, but in my experience, engineers are far more likely to fall for pseudoscience BS. Granted, my experience is mostly in chemistry and chemical engineering, but this idea in general has been a topic of discussion and research in peer-reviewed literature for years.

          • Literati@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Similarly, from an engineer’s perspective, scientists are a great addition to the working group when you need to find the flaws in the system, but awful when you actually just need something to go into the real world and work 80% of the time ;)

            Especially when you’re time constrained.

            • NielsBohron@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Definitely. Lots of scientists fall into the trap of letting “perfect” be the enemy of “good”

  • lemmy_99c4zb3e3@reddthat.com
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    8 months ago

    I don’t think bugs can be in a set. Bugs are physical and sets arent. Sets don’t occupy physical space. I mean they cannot be seen or touched or observed by any experiments so we can conclude that they are not part of our world and bugs need physical space therefore they cannot be part of a set.

      • lemmy_99c4zb3e3@reddthat.com
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        8 months ago

        Defined don’t equals existent I can be wrong but I am rather not part of your set because I am physical so it doesent exist or it contains object that is not me =( When you draw for example square its not really a square its physicala representation of it. And your object in your singleton is actually only mathematical representation of me.