User talk:Phoenixia1177/archive1

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A barnstar

		The Reference Desk Barnstar
		For your help on the Mathematics Reference Desk, December 19, much appreciated. IBE (talk) 09:49, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the Barnstar and an extremely interesting discussion:-) Sorry for the delayed responsePhoenixia1177 (talk) 11:32, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I've set up and confirmed email at last, but I don't know why it doesn't show up on my userpage. I don't know if it'll work, so let me know and I'll just post the address here (I set it up just for Wikipedia, so no worries about spam bots - I can change it at any time). I would be interested to receive any resources you have to offer, as you mentioned - although I won't have much time in the near future to actually go through anything, due to work/other hassles. Many thanks again, IBE (talk) 18:48, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I can't get mine to show up either, email me at WikiPhoenix1177@hotmail.com. I completely understand about time, I would be happy with even just one more hour each day...:-)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 04:55, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Just on the off-chance that it should end up in your spam folder, I've emailed you, thanks again, IBE (talk) 04:23, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Where are you? :( Anyway, hope you return sometime, your presence was most welcome here. IBE (talk) 07:47, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I doubt you're ever going to see this, but sorry about not reaching you. I lost the email password, then I had multiple deaths in the family and didn't really come by for a few months.* Sadly, I just kind of forgot until I looked at this; I feel like a jackass, I hat when people offer me something useful and disappear, I'm very sorry I did it to you. Anyways, if you're still around and catch this, just give me any address and I'll send the things over. *that reads quite bizarre:-) 209.252.235.206 (talk) 09:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, a chance diversion has brought me here, so I'll get back to you some time. I don't have much time at the moment because of study (I'm engrossed in an IT PhD, having changed from maths about 18 months ago). You could have left a note on my talk page, but not to worry. I got the feeling it was something serious at your end, because people don't usually vanish without a trace. Great that you are back, and I'll leave a non-mainline email address sometime - still curious to see what you have, but I will only be able to browse for the foreseeable future. The PhD deadlines are looming... IBE (talk) 16:57, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Your input is needed on the SOPA initiative

Hi Phoenixia1177,

You are receiving this message either because you expressed an opinion about the proposed SOPA blackout before full blackout and soft blackout were adequately differentiated, or because you expressed general support without specifying a preference. Please ensure that your voice is heard by clarifying your position accordingly.

Thank you.

Message delivered as per request on ANI. -- The Helpful Bot 16:39, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Maths font

You mentioned that you weren't able to get fancy maths symbols on the Wiki. You need to use the tag <math> to tell Wikipedia that you're about to start writing maths, and you need to use </math> to tell it you've finished. The code between <math> and </math> is more or less LaTeX syntax. There are lots of nice symbols, e.g. <math> \int_1^0 f(x) \, dx</math> gives

$\int _{1}^{0}f(x)\,dx$.

The \, tells it to do a small space. A \ does a normal space while a \! reduces the space. To do fractions, type <math> \frac{a+b}{c-d} </math> to give

${\frac {a+b}{c-d}}$

There's loads of syntax on the web and on here. Just Google it. Another idea is to click "edit" and to read the raw code that people have written. If you click edit, you'll notice I've used "nowiki" in pointy brackets to stop Wikipedia reading my text examples as real maths. One I leave out the "nowiki" and "/nowiki" it print the LaTeX output. Give me a shout if you have anything you can't work out the code for. All the best. — Fly by Night (talk) 21:30, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

personal attacks

You are not new, so you are obviously aware of the policy against personal attacks. WP:CIVIL. μηδείς (talk) 01:33, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

That you are asking a serious question is dubious, I hardly see how asking for references to a physics article discussing a rotting quantum cat is of value to the reference desk. Seriously, your insistence on references just looks ridiculous. The only other place I've seen anything like it is from undergraduates who don't understand a concept and are trying to write it off and from trolls/people with an ax to grind. Whatever your intent, I don't accept that you were seriously asking such a question and, thus, your response seems ridiculous to me.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 02:00, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of deleting things once written, so just excuse the above as me being a giant ass labouring under a wrong impression.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 03:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

edit

Why did you revert my latest edit? It was a legitimate question. 71.146.4.142 (talk) 04:37, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Whether it was a sincere question, or not, it was asking for medical advice, this is not allowed on the reference desk.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 04:44, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

You should consider consulting a doctor, they would be able to provide both answers and assistance; as well as help you plan a course of treatment if required- all things we cannot, and should not, do here.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 05:02, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh, my, no

Thanks for the book recommendation, I will req it as an interlibrary loan. The Structure and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is definitely beyond my mathematical skill, the appendix as visible at amazon is inscrutable, but I did follow the introduction. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 01:34, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I'll dig around sometime this weekend, I'm sure I have something.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 01:36, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Ehrenfeucht–Fraïssé games

Hi Phoenixia,

was the example I posted clear? Did it help? --Trovatore (talk) 21:44, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

This is very late, but yes it was helpful; sorry for not responding.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 09:10, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Amateur mathematics

Hi, I saw your thread on the math desk, but thought I'd just chime in here since that thread seemed mostly done. So first: it will require a lot of work and luck to get anything published in a serious math journal, on your own. The way to do this would be to make contact with mathematicians working in your areas of interest. As others have said, read up on those fields. If e.g. Jones (2009) wrote a paper that you would cite, contact Jones via email, and ask if they are willing to discuss their work. At that stage, you don't even have to say much about yourself, just politely indicate your interest, ask a minor question, and say you are working on similar problems in that subfield. My advice would specifically to be to contact Associate Profs, Full profs, grad students, postdocs, then assistant profs, in that order of preference. The reason being, assistant profs have far too much to loose, and are very busy gunning for tenure. Once they have tenure, they have the luxury of listening to outsiders. In fact, some of the oldest/most established profs get a little weird and adventurous in their later years, and this could work to your advantage. Perhaps a better track: go meet some researchers in person. What country are your in? Are you near a university? You can find listings for seminars on math dept. web pages. You could either contact the organizer ahead of time to introduce yourself and explain your interest, or you could just show up. As long as you are polite and interested, they will likely be happy to have you. Finally, if you get to the point where you are showing any "real" math folks your work, use LaTeX as best you can, and lean towards over-citing other works. It will help you be taken seriously. I have received true crackpot letters while working in a math dept., and one key giveaway was that they claimed to solve famous open problems, had many typos, and cited very little other work. Anyway, some food for thought-- good luck! SemanticMantis (talk) 15:19, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Realizing I didn't spell out the main point: take the long view, spend some time trying to build some general discussions and relationships within the community. Eventually (if your ideas/work are useful/interesting), you may find someone inside the establishment who is willing to co-author a paper with you. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:03, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you so much, both for your advice and for going through the trouble of posting on my page (when you could have just ignored a dying topic). Outside of the desks here, I don't think anyone even knows that I study mathematics, let alone care about it; so I'm greatly appreciative of the help; especially the detailed nature (I'm not always good at conveying things, so if it isn't evident, I'll just be blunt: your reply is extremely helpful, I am deeply appreciative.)

For some goofy reason, I always assume that, not having any form of degree (etc.), I wouldn't be welcome at seminars (that kind of thing). It's kind of funny, really, because thinking about it, if I had taken a different path and were giving a seminar, I'd welcome anyone who was interested. But, actually hearing someone who knows what they're talking about recommend it, I'm going to start attending them as often as I'm able- I live in the Pittsburgh area, which works out nicely since I've got both Pitt and CMU nearby, not to mention several other schools within a short road trip. The advice on who to contact, and in what order, is very useful; I'd never really considered that angle of it, but it makes perfect sense- that's interesting about the more established professors, and good to know- honestly, I'd never considered about assistant profs. having the most to lose, I'd probably have figured they would be the most approachable; of course, after reading what you've said, it makes perfect sense why they wouldn't be.
Citations have always been a possible weak point for me. Not that I don't have them, but I'm not sure about the appearance of the ones I have. I don't have access to many journal articles except what I can find for free online, however, I have (literally) several thousands of mathematics textbooks (almost all of the Springer Graduate Texts, UTM, CUP, many others) At any rate, does it look overly "amateurish" to cite mostly textbooks and online publications (legitimate ones; not random blogs or that sort of thing)?
That's interesting about receiving "crackpot" letters- I've always heard that professors/academics (I'm not sure the right word) receive a good bit of those. Honestly, while there are some well known, and popularly famous, problems I've found interesting (and had some ideas about), I had a feeling that those wouldn't get taken seriously (not that I think I've solved them, but I imagine there's enough claiming they have to cover up the distinction).
I know this is a long reply; hopefully not overly long:-) In any case, thank you once again for your interest and advice, it really means a lot and is very very helpful:-)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 22:20, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Hey, I don't have much time now, but first, get yourself some library access! See e.g. here [1]. I'm pretty sure either Pitt or CMU will give you a card that comes with online access to journals and things like JSTOR. It might cost a nominal fee (maybe $50 a year?), but will be worth it. Citing books is fine for discussions and presentations, but I believe that, for research papers, textbooks are cited far less often than research papers. Things like Arxiv.org may or may not be ok, depending on the journal. Anyway, it looks like you have the right idea: get out there and participate in the community, and even if no papers come out of it, I'm sure it will be fun for you to get some involvement in math that is not just on WP ref desks :) In hindsight, you probably should email the organizer of a seminar before you show up. You don't even have to "ask permission" per se, just say some thing like "Dear Dr. X, I see you are organizing talk/seminar on topic Y, which I am very interested in. I plan to come see event Z, I look forward to meeting you soon." Also, while I'm flattered that you like my advice, I should point out that though I've worked in 3 different math departments and have a Ph.D in math, I've never published any pure math research! So some of my advice may be a bit off. Talk pages are a bit awkward to for longer discussion, feel free to email if you want to talk further. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:58, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much again:-) I'm in the process of getting a libcard with online access (I didn't realize you got that much access, that's awesome!). Your advice is all very useful and very direct (as in I can act on it directly). I agree about talk pages being awkward; I'm going to see where this takes me (a lot to do), not to mention that I'm sure your time is very valuable and you've already given me a lot of good advice:-) If I am able to get something published (or else), I'll let you know. Thank you:-) *(I don't look at my page unless it tells me I have a message, it never told me you responded, it wasn't till the response below lit up; I apologize for taking a few days to say something back.)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 05:10, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Finding the value of an angle involving inverse trigonometric function

Thank you a lot for helping me. Your step by step solution on Maths desk was really very helpful. Please, help me solving an another problem. Find the value of angle X such that it satisfies Sin X = 0.45. Publisher54321 (talk) 14:01, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

In this case, if you apply the inverse sin to 0.45, you'll get the answer. Using a calculator gives sin^-1(.45) = 0.466765339. If you have sin Y = X, then Y = (3X + 2X²) / 4 will get you pretty close. In this case it gives 0.43875. It's pretty easy to remember too. *The formula's good for X between 0 and 1; if X is negative, then do it for the positive value, then just take the negative of the result.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 05:03, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh! You are not understanding my problem; my previous question was same as this one. Find the value of angle X such that it satisfies Sin X = 0.5. And the answer of this question is 30 degrees, 390 degrees, etc. This means the Sin of 30 degree is 0.5. So, again I am repeating my previous question - Find the value of an angle whose Sin is 0.45. Perhaps my English is not so good, but I think you have understood my question this time. Once again thank you. Publisher54321 (talk) 16:45, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

But sin 0.46676... is .45. It's not in degrees, other than that it works.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 21:34, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Error in logic detected in documentation

Hello! Thanks for your well-prepared answer to my question on the Mathematics Reference Desk. It is indeed very helpful, however I have encountered an error of logic in one of the linked PDF documents, though unrelated to the topic of my question. Here, in the lower half of the second page, counted as 436, it states that a certain product is 0. True indeed, the product is obviously 0, but merely because one of the 2⁶ = 64 possible solutions is eps1 = eps3 = eps4 = eps6 = 0. But this does NOT make relationship (1) true. Only if these situations were excluded, and the total number of cases were to be 60 instead of 64, would their conclusion be true. (And indeed it is, but the proof they have offered for it isn't). Or perhaps they meant {±1}⁶ instead of {0,1}⁶ ? I don't know. Anyway, thanks again. — 79.113.226.249 (talk) 20:13, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

No problem:-) Wonderful catch by the way:-) I'm thinking it should be -1, +1- though, this is a bit out of my usual area of mathematics (actually quite far out of it) and I haven't slept in the last 40+ hours, so maybe I'm goofing something up (but, unless you are under similar situations, I'm guessing you're right:-) ). At any rate, the paper they take the example from is in two parts (one page each...) here [2] and here [3], if you have any interest. Nonetheless, I hope something in my response is helpful to you:-) Good luck- and if you come across any interesting results, feel free to share here if you're so inclined:-)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 21:20, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

It all started here, and continued here. Actually, that's a lie. It started somehwere in late 2011 or early 2012, when -quite by accident- I've "discovered", that the factorial of a positive number is the Gaussian integral of its reciprocal or multiplicative inverse:

$n!\ =\ {\mathcal {G}}{\Big (}{\tfrac {1}{n}}{\Big )}$

where

${\mathcal {G}}(n)\ =\ \int _{0}^{\infty }{e^{-x^{n}}\ dx}$

or simply

$n!\ =\ \int _{0}^{\infty }{e^{-{\sqrt[{n}]{x}}}\ dx}$

On one hand I knew that the integrals in question (lacking both the limits of integration, as well as the minus sign at the exponent) do not possess a closed form expression. On the other hand, I knew that by adding those two elements, I would obtain a powerfully-convergent number. So I drew the graphic of G(x), which looked rather uninteresting, descending very abruptly from positive infinity in x = 0 until it reached a minimum of about 0.88 around x = 21/6 , then asymptotically rising towards 1 as x approached infinity. So I changed x with 1/x, and proceeded to calculate a few values... What shocked me was to see that not only the values became integers, as opposed to some "random" transcendental numbers whose decimals never form any pattern whatsoever, but that the values of G(1/x) were the same as those of x factorial... It was stunning! And since I'm not exactly the "brightest" kid on the block, it kinda took me several weeks or months until I "finally" realized what should've been painstakingly obvious from the start: that the "new" integral expression was nothing else than what one would get by a simple variable change ( tⁿ = x ) in the well-known form of the Gamma function:

$n!\ =\ \int _{0}^{\infty }{\frac {\ t^{n}}{e^{t}}}\ dt$

Duh ! Right ? ( The minimum of this new function is the multiplicative inverse of the old one, since the new argument is 1/x instead of x, and 1/21/6 is obviously 6/13 ...something noticed by Ramanujan himself about a hundred years ago ). Then, a few months later, I've asked myself whether indefinite integrals of square roots of quadratic polynomials possess a closed form... Apparently, they did. Then I generalized the question to degrees greater than 2 for both the order of the radical, as well as polynomial degree. Tried to find an answer using Mathematica, but came up empty. Then after even more weeks or months, I played around with the famous formula for π/4 expressed as the definite integral of the square root of 1 - x²... and then tried to generalize that to higher orders, using Mathematica... This time it did not come up empty... It started spewing some formulas involving Gammas and radicals of π, which I knew to be the equivalent of Γ(1/2)... This got me thinking... I started to play around with the various numbers and expressions, trying to simplify them... until I finally got this:

$\int _{0}^{1}{\sqrt[{m}]{1-x^{n}}}\ dx\ =\ \int _{0}^{1}{\sqrt[{n}]{1-x^{m}}}\ dx\ =\ {\frac {{\frac {1}{m}}!\ {\frac {1}{n}}!}{\left({\frac {1}{m}}+{\frac {1}{n}}\right)!}}$

or, conversely, that

$\int _{0}^{1}{(1-{\sqrt[{n}]{x}})^{m}}\ dx\ =\ {\frac {m!\ n!}{(m+n)!}}\ =\ {\frac {1}{C_{m+n}^{n}}}\ =\ {\frac {1}{C_{m+n}^{m}}}$

...which has apparently already been studied by John Wallis four centuries years ago ! :-) — (See here, on page 7, numbered as 49). That's me: Four hundred years too late, and a few thousand bucks too short, considering all my various college expenses... Oh, well: That's life... :-) So anyway, that's how I arrived at the (probably known) conclusion that all geometric shapes of the form xⁿ + yⁿ = 1 are related to various rational values of the Gamma function. And since π is transcendental, why would the rest be any different ? I mean, why would the case m = n = 2 be more special than all the rest ? — 79.113.226.249 (talk) 02:20, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't know whether you were simply being polite, or really meant it, when you said that I should keep you updated... Anyway... I was just thinking on my way over here why this expression, $\scriptstyle \int _{0}^{\infty }{e^{-x^{n}}\ dx}$ , happens to return natural values only for rational arguments which are reciprocals or multiplicative inverses of natural numbers, and not for any other rational arguments as well... and then it hit me whether this might not by any chance be related to the fact that the natural logarithm, which is the inverse function of the exponential one from inside the integral sign, can be approximated by the harmonic series ? I just wanted to hear your opinion on the subject before posting it on the Math Reference Desk. — 79.113.232.226 (talk) 10:29, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Oh no, I am interested in any developments you might come across; this is my only mathematics outlet, so it brightens my day to find something interesting on my talk page, and you're ideas are very interesting:-) I just got this a few minutes ago, it's an interesting observation, and I get a gut feeling that there is some relation (I'm not sure if it is exactly the one mentioned or other). I have a few meetings (I love that regional directors find Sunday an acceptable day to "talk" about boring things...) this afternoon, but I'll see if I can dig anything up throughout the day. If you find a connection, please let me know, I've always found the Harmonic Series rather neat (and while I said this is outside of my area, the gamma function is one of the first bits of higher mathematics I happened upon; trying to extend functions to bigger domains was oddly fascinating in middle school- so it still has a place in my heart.) Sorry if this reads rambling, I'm writing this while getting ready to "run out the door". Please post more of anything you come across, always interested.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 16:45, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Nope, still no luck in following my own lead... :-) (I'm so dumb, I can't even see the forest for the trees...) And, just like the silly little boy who opens up a new bag of chips before even finishing the first, I have yet another question to ask: Given the fact that factorials and/or Gamma-values of fractional arguments of the form 1/n are tied up to algebraic equations of the form Xⁿ + Yⁿ = Rⁿ, as described above and in the links, I was wondering whether there might not be some connection between them and Fermat's Last Theorem... What do you think ? — 79.113.244.214 (talk) 17:47, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that since Xⁿ + Yⁿ = Zⁿ have no solutions over integers for n > 2, then they have no solutions over the rationals either (otherwise we'd get a contradiction of Fermat's Last Theorem by multiplying the identity in rationals with the product of their denominators to the power n). Which would seem to imply the fact that x and Gamma(x) cannot be simultaneously rational for x of the form 1/N, with N natural... — 79.113.237.101 (talk) 13:59, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to spend sometime this weekend gong back over all of this, there seems to be a very wonderful idea/result somewhere in it; I'd love to give whatever help I can in unraveling it. Sorry it's taken me a bit to respond, I had some weird ideas about classifying group actions using extensions of their domain gotten by "fracturing" the geometry, kleinian sense, of the action and have been stuck on that in my free time. I wish I was a little better with analysis/integrals, for some reason they've always been my "problem area"- a part of my brain gets freaked out every time I see an integral sign. It's weird, integral problems a second year undergrad could handle give me problems, complicated homological algebra does not...everyone has their thing I suppose. Ramble aside, I think you have a really good idea here.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 04:04, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

LOL, it's OK, there's no pressure here... It's not like we're running to catch a train, or something... :-) Generally, I'm just glad to find any help I can get. As far as one's inclinations are concerned, I have significant trouble even with 6^th grade geometry problems; as for abstract algebra, everything beyond polynomials (like matrixes, determinants, vectors, topology, and graph theory) are pretty much anathema to me... :-) When I see them, I become like this little kid who's forced to eat veggies... :-) — 79.113.233.205 (talk) 15:24, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

I know what you mean about 6th grade geometry! Seriously, there's something horrible about triangle proofs and that jazz. My brain works good with the overly abstract, I have much less trouble with research papers and graduate level stuff than I do with what's in undergrad textbooks- I have no idea why:-)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 04:08, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and apropos: Remember the curves of the form Xⁿ + Yⁿ = Rⁿ that I was talking about, which are related to Γ(1/n) ? Apparently they're called superellipses, and have been discovered by Gabriel Lame about 150 years ago... The shape generated by n = 4 is called a squircle. When generalized into three dimensions, they're called supereggs and superquadrics. As for their relationship to Fermat's Last Theorem, see the Mathematical properties section of the main article, which links directly to the one about Fermat curves. As usual, I'm a few centuries too late... :-) — 79.113.215.234 (talk) 01:23, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

I've been in the same exact situation with things I work on. I used to take it as a real let down, but I realized , later, that it's actually a cause for celebration. Think of it like this: if you discovered it independently, you're interested in it and it's intimate with you (so to speak), thus, the results will make sense when you read them, and you'll want to read them. That's a very good thing, not only is it a spring board to learn techniques used (that once were difficult seeming), but all the little niggling questions you couldn't answer now have answers, or the start of them. Seriously, I would say you should continue pursuing it, you may end up seeing results that others missed.

An anecdote: when I was about 17 I was really really interested in the Collatz Conjecture. I had no idea what p-adic integers were (I'd seen the name once, somewhere, that's it). In trying to find a solution to the conjecture, I discovered the 2 and 3-adics, various results with them, and eventually the other -adics. I didn't find anything novel enough that anyone else would care, but from there, projective limits, categories, topology, ring theory, etc. all started to make more sense. I had an intuitive understanding of a nice, slightly exotic, set of examples to refer back to- while many people start from imitating the reals/complex numbers, I had those and something quite different to fall back on.

Another Anecdote: the word "Cohomology" used to make me groan and feel a bit stupid every time I saw it, I just couldn't wrap my head around the subject. However, again with the dynamics stuff, I thought up a cool way to study iterating a function by looking at related functions on other sets. As it turns out, a lot of this reduces down to a kooky cohomological theory. After playing with it for a month, or two, I can now casually skim through research papers in Homological Algebra with out batting an eye lash.

It's by not being first that I was able to learn modern mathemaics (I love math, but, as you can tell from sections above, never attended a university- I think calculus was the highest class I took). Being interested is the first step, and I think that can be very hard to do, unless you are approaching it from something you love/are interested in.

Sorry to lecture at you, I don't mean to pretend I have some sort of wisdom/experience to do it from- I don't. But I beat myself up, and felt stupid, for a long time for exactly what you describe- I'd hate to see you do the same. I don't know what your background/education is, but you definitely have a knack for noticing interesting correspondence- that, seriously, is worth more than anything else. Being able to connect the dots is more important than being able to draw the lines- not that you shouldn't worry about that too- just don't get down on what you come up with, it's quite good, and as time passes, it'll only get better.

Sorry if that's over long and preachy:-)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 09:48, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

LOL ! No, don't get me wrong, I don't mean anything "dark" or depressing by it, when I say that I'm `dumb`.. :-) And yes, it always gives me great joy to discover and understand something for myself.. Ultimately, that's what it's all about.. And no, I never thought, even for a second, that you did not attend a University.. But I was always under the impression that it must've been something more theoretical in nature.. (Technically, I'm a computer engineer, so the math that we were taught was always very practical in nature, and teachers were always pointing out the practical implications of this or that mathematical "thingy", linking theory to reality, making it more tangible.. which was a real step up for me, since I've always been "good" at math, but had huge problems with the everyday reality all around me). As for the conjecture in question, I think it holds true for any other odd numbers different than 3 as well.. :-) I mean, I'd be really surprised to find out that it doesn't.. — 79.113.213.90 (talk) 13:35, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Oops.. Apparently, I spoke too soon, and others have already traveled down that road before.. Well.. Consider me officially surprised ! :-) — 79.113.213.90 (talk) 07:54, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about that, my autism gets in the way on the internet (oddly) sometimes- I spent a lot of time figuring out in real life stuff, but I do not get internet tone! I've seen a lot of talented people talk themselves out of being talented, too, so you put them together, you get way ridiculous lectures:-) Practical math is hard! I've read a lot off computer science texts, I never got it till I started at the abstract end and worked back to applications- the "obvious" examples seem to come out of nowhere. As for the math; I keep getting weird errors (on multiple computers) with it (all over wiki, randomly, actually), but I'm curious about the geometry you linked to, there's a ton of novel ways to analyze the stuff we've been discussing with really really powerful methods (geometric stuff opens up a lot of doors), I need to look into that more. --I can't give much of interest when dealing with integrals, but I might be able to start at the other end, I'm going to pursue that and see if it goes anywhere.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 13:48, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Nobody gets internet tone, trust me.. And, more to the point, almost nobody gets me.. So autism has little to do with either.. :-) But I do think that it's connected to your power of being able to see `abstract` things very clearly, while simultaneously being hindsighted to what most people would consider (and subsequently label) as either `obvious` or `self-evident`.. I myself had no problem with system theory in college, which all my pears dreaded to death (because it was basically math, which I happened to be good at, whilst kids who attend computer colleges usually have NO mathematical inclination whatsoever; they're basically drawn to computer software and computer graphics, web design and data bases. On the other hand, the exams they deemed simple [to pass] were the ones that I dreaded the most :-). I wasn't being facetious or fake either when I said I'm "mathematically challenged", but I'm not `depressed` by it either.. :-) We're all born as silly little children, and since the extent of that-which-we-know-that-we-don't-know grows proportionally to the amount of the knowledge we gather, we remain in that child-like state forever.. I'm also glad that you found at least one aspect of all my rambles which spikes your interest, and to which you feel you could really relate or connect.. (I certainly would not want to "drag" anyone into fields towards which they have no liking or inclination whatsoever..) — 79.113.213.90 (talk) 14:30, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Science desk

You're most welcome. :) Notice, if you will, that the poster of that question created an account specifically to ask about torturing flies, and then disappeared.[4]

The wording of that question really calls to mind someone acting objectionably- others seem to feel the same. Despite my rather no hat/no delete position, I think an eye should be kept on such. Thanks again for voicing your thoughts on the matter, it's always nice to see another person have compassion:-)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 18:01, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Yikes! What a creep! Torturing flies! I would never do such a thing! :-) — 79.113.226.248 (talk) 18:35, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Phoenixia

I wish I could but I cannot check my email, and I won't be able to check it in a long time. I am right now changing addresses and I don't know how long it is going to take. You can ask me whatever you want, except if it is about religion or politics. Cheers!

P.S: I just asked about the documentary because I am working on the Wikipedia article for it Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 12:00, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

That's cool, it's not something I can post here. While I have you though- this is weird- I noticed you were from Cuba, I was wondering (if you had time) if you wouldn't mind sharing the names of a few popular bands (any genre) you might hear on the radio there? I have an interest in popular music (rock, rap, pop, etc.) from around the world, I don't know anything about Cuban music and don't know a good place to start. Thanks:-) Also, as for the documentary, it was in a few film festivals, you might try checking out if they have any past info on it.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 06:37, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Can't beat Dave Foley

I don't care how good you look in a dress, there's no way you could look as good as Dave Foley. ;) μηδείς (talk) 01:48, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

My dress was better! But yeah, you're pretty spot on overall- being 6'4" and hairy doesn't help me much either, but it's amazing what my friends can do with makeup (and such), so the end result wasn't bad, but took a while (I couldn't go through that regularly...skillwise or timewise). It was fun part to play, I actually prefer playing female parts (when people let me)- for the same reason I like singing/imitating voices that aren't my own, it's easier since you don't get confused with the overlap- if that makes sense.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 06:05, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Path Finding Files

I'm having trouble figuring out a good way to explain this, so I'll just jump into it; I can clarify anything later. Since bots can only move 1 tile at a time, to decide where to move next, they only need to know what adjacent tiles lessen the distance to their goal (if the map is connected, there's always a closer adjacent tile than the current). (there's a reduction later, that I'll get to of what follows). The first step is to compute p(A, B, d) which is 1 if moving in direction d from A moves closer to B, and 0 else. For each A, we only need p(A, B, d) to be recorded when you can move from A in direction d (the adj in that direction is open)- so if A has only 2 open adj tiles, then we only need 2 bits for each B. To make this easier: we order tiles starting at (0, 0) and working across in rows, then returning (like a new line) (so 00, 10,...m0,01,...). Then, for each tile, in order, we create a "sheet" that records the data- a sheet is a 2d array, the data at S(x, y) is the values of p(A, (x, y), d) starting left and recording around clockwise for d's open to A.

Obviously, if A or B is impassable, we don't need to record any data for it, so we can skip these cases. Further, if there is only 1 open adj to A, then that will always be the optimal move, so we can skip all such A. (when extracting the data back out, using the fact that it is ordered and extracting it in order, all of this can be accounted for with little effort).

The above, while useful for modest reductions, is not the main thrust. The trick is to find, for each A, regions that can be navigated by simple movement patterns, then to exclude those tiles from A's sheet- the trade off is that you need to be able to determine which tiles those are at extraction (else the data isn't going to sync up) (also, the method to determine this will need to be something that can be checked at the level of individual tiles, and checked fast.) Rectangular regions are a very good first thought, it's fast to check and easily navigable. What I'm using are regions I call "meanderable"- you can meander from A to B if any sequence of moves in the direction of B will get you to B optimally- if B is to the upper left of A, then moving up or left will get you to B quickly ( 1.) this doesn't assume you can always move up/left at each point, only that at least one is open, and neither will ever get you off track, 2.) when I say up/left movements, I'm also assuming that you don't take movements that would take you out of the rectangle formed by A and B.)

Generally,there are a lot of tiles that can be meandered to from others, which cuts out a lot of tile data in the final file- speed checks are the issue, I've been using methods that can give false negatives, but not false positives, so it always works, but misses some removable cases). At the moment, I'm working on getting the checks faster and the regions more inclusive. The nice part is that the major obstruction to having meanderable connections is having more impassable tiles, which can, then, not be included; so to certain extent, you're covering both ends of the situation.

I realize that this is a rambly explanation, I'm more accustomed to just making the program/doing the math than telling it to others.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 05:57, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Since my map sizes are, on average, 50x50 and, at most, 128x128, while this doesn't remove the quartic nature of the problem, if I can get around a megabyte for the 128 case, then the end results won't be overly nasty (taking this into context when making a map, you can net decent savings as well, a few simple rearrangements can have a nice impact on file size.)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 06:09, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, let me describe my method graphically. Let's say I want my bot to find the shortest path thru a maze from start point S to end point E:

+----+
|    |
| S| |
|  | |
+--+ | 
| E  |
+----+

I start at either S or E, mark that as a distance of 0, then mark all adjacent spots I can move to as a Manhattan distance of 1:

+----+
| 1  |
|10| |
| 1| |
+--+ | 
| E  |
+----+

+----+
|    |
| S| |
|  | |
+--+ | 
|101 |
+----+

As I do this, I push all the 1's onto the end of the "fringe" stack. I then read (not pop) all those 1's off the start of the fringe stack, find all spots I can move to from there which don't already have a number, and mark those as 2's:

+----+
|212 |
|10| |
|21| |
+--+ | 
| E  |
+----+

+----+
|    |
| S| |
|  | |
+--+ | 
|1012|
+----+

Continue this process until you reach the target:

+----+
|2123|
|10|4|
|21|5|
+--+6| 
| E87|
+----+

+----+
|9876|
| S|5|
|  |4|
+--+3| 
|1012|
+----+
 

(Of course, this is a very simple example, there would be many more branches in a real maze.) Then, once I reach the target, it's a simple matter of scanning from the target to the lowest surrounding number at each step, and following that path to get back to 0. As far as whether you start at S or E, it would only really matter if you had either multiple possible starting points or multiple possible endpoints. In that case, you would want to start at whichever had the lowest number of possible locations. If all the branching happens in one direction only, then that would affect your choice, as well. You could also go from both ends, and have it meet in the middle. That has the potential to reduce the CPU time a bit, but also adds complexity, so I tend to skip that tweak.

Using your max 128×128 case, and a 2 byte integer at each grid coord to store the distance (and maybe -1 to indicate a wall, -2 for start, and -3 for end), it should only take up 32,768 bytes for the array, plus a bit more for the stack. So, memory isn't an issue, and I think you'll find the processing is quite fast, too.

Also, if there are multiple possible start OR end points, instead of stopping when you reach the current target, you can continue to calculate the Manhattan distance to every coord in the maze. This array can then be quickly used to find the shortest route to any target, for that given initial position. However, if you have multiple possible ending AND starting points, this approach quickly becomes unmanageable, as you would need to calculate and store an array for each of the possible 16,384 initial positions. I get some 537 MB for your 128×128 case. That's doable, perhaps, but I'd think it's best to just calculate one array as needed, rather than doing all that, unless you will be doing many thousands of iterations for different start and end points.

BTW, if you could illustrate your approach graphically, it would help me to understand it better, as I am a visual thinker. StuRat (talk) 18:24, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

I like that:-) Unfortunately, my use for this is making a small town in RPG Maker XP- the town will be populated with bots who are able to interact with each other, and objects, in various ways, what they do will have effects. Over time, they develop routines, etc. I want to see how "life like" I can get their actions to be- video game NPCs always annoy me after a bit since they only do so much, I'd like to make bots with independent lives in the world. At any rate, this means that at any one point, I have multiple start and end points, all moving about.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 19:06, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm thinking that just using the bot's current position as the start point, and randomly selecting an end point, then using my method to find the shortest path there, might do the job. (Note that by "randomly selecting endpoints", I mean from a list of points of interest in the town.) Then you could add "collision detection", where they modify their behavior when they run into each other. StuRat (talk) 19:23, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

The general layout is a collection of interconnected maps, varying sizes- bots can move from one to the next. Each map is static, but has "active elements" on it- these can be bots, doors, animals; basically anything that moves or can be moved, even if not intelligent. Each bot routinely checks its surroundings, estimates the costs of various goals/subgoals, then goes about its business. The end result will have around 200-300 bots active, each would need to determine distance/optimal paths to various targets about 10-30 times a second (this will vary), so I'm looking at around 5000 determinations a second. Of course, not each needs to be the entire path, but at least a decent estimate and what the first few moves would be- and since there is a whole bunch of other stuff going on besides pathing, resources get eaten up pretty quick! As for the goal with the pathfinder component, ideally, the bots would never make stupid choices in their movement- I'd be okay with them taking a slightly longer path, but not an unnatural one, or getting lost, or walking in loops around an area, that kind of nonsense. Unfortunately, a lot of nonintensive methods end up with possible stupidity- generally, this is easy to forgive since video game bots tend to reset, or not be that important; but here, they are given freedom to roam about and acquire/accomplish goals (without having a set of static objectives, or reseting), and since bot stupidity (not unlike an auto accident) tends to spread out and pile up over time, I'm desperate to avoid it.

−

−

I did have another solution, once upon a time, and may end up returning to it (I'm kind of just exploring ideas at the moment), depending on your interests, you might like it. I'll go into more specifics only if you ask, so as not to bog things down. For certain movement systems (for example: "reduce manhattan distance with each move if possible- if not, move random"), if that method is guaranteed to get you to the goal, then all the possible paths from current tile to the goal tile will sweep out a region so that that movement method gives "good" pathing inside of it. For example, if you use the manhattan reducing system above, then if your goal tile and current tile form corners of a rectangle in which every tile is passable, then, obviously, the manhattan reducing paths from current to goal will "sweep out" the rectangle- and, also obvious, the manhattan reducing logic gives perfect pathfinding between any two tiles in the rectangle. The same thing happens for a slightly more complicated variant of jagged edged "L" shaped regions and the "meandering" method above (which is, basically, manhattan reducing). At any rate, you can decompose maps down into regions of this form (it takes several passes to ensure you end up without tiny chunks, or that the average size is decent). Once you do this, it is very cheap to move about in any given region, and A* and a little logic about edges will work to determine what paths to take through regions- and since the number of regions is much much smaller than the number of tiles, A* ends up pretty cheap. The other nice thing about this is that the specific path taken through a region is never exactly the same, but is always natural- and near optimal. Of course, implementing this turned out to be overly complicated- not in an interesting sort of way, it just got really tedious to test out the program since there were so many little things that could go unnoticed (in other words, it worked, but it wasn't fun, and this stuff is supposed to be fun:-) ).

−

−

By the way, thank you for taking an interest and conversing with me on this:-) I'm still working on the learning to communicate over the internet thing without sounding stiff or accidentally rude, etc. (I mention it because I'm still not sure if that's happening- let me know if so).Phoenixia1177 (talk) 21:49, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Yea, I was thinking that looking for rectangles, L's, etc. would be more trouble than it's worth. Since you will be doing thousands of checks, it might be worth the time to do the full mapping of Manhattan distances, one for every possible goal position. This will take more time up front, but should save time as it runs. A 4-dimensional array could work, with dimensions (Goal_X,Goal_Y,X,Y). With your 128×128 case, and using 2 byte integers, that's 128×128×128×128×2 or 537 MB, as discussed before. That's a fair chunk of memory, but a modern O/S should be able to handle it without going to paging space (which, of course, would slow things to a crawl). For your average case of 50×50, you'd only need 12.5 MB.

But now let's talk about ways to compress the array. A good portion of the grid is probably inaccessible, being walls and such. For example, look at this 5×5 grid:

+-+-+
| | |
| | |
|   |
+---+

That would be 25 coords in the array, but only 7 are actually available for movement:

+-+-+
|1|2|
|3|4|
|567|
+---+

So, instead of a 5×5×5×5 array, you could actually have a 7×7 array. That's almost 1/13th the size. You also would need one mapping array like the one above to map each of the 5×5 positions into one of the 7 possible locations. So, let's say the maximum case of 128×128 really only has 10,000 possible locations. That would give you 200 MB RAM needed instead of 537 MB, a substantial improvement. Or, if the grid is almost entirely taken up by buildings with only narrow walkways, you might have only 1000 possible locations, so your 1000×1000 2 byte integer array would only take up 2 MB. This approach does add complexity, but, as you can see, it could cut RAM usage considerably. StuRat (talk) 01:02, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Something else I should have said in my first post is that my method finds the Manhattan distance with respect to obstacles, which, unlike straight Manhattan distance, prevents the bot from moving into a corner which is close to the target, but blocked from it, then slamming up against the wall. That is the classic "stupid bot" behavior we want to avoid. StuRat (talk) 12:11, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea of just precalculating everything- it's not messy, so there's no fear that it won't work in unanticipated scenarios. The only reason I've avoided this is that while I do not a lot of computer science theory, Ruby is the only actual language I know (and since I'm using 1.86 to handle the graphics stuff), Ruby (especially the older version) does not play nice with big arrays (I wrote an image editing program, resolutions > 2000 x 2000 caused issues, even when the actions weren't more intensive than simple pixel value adjustments). It would be a bit of a hit on hdd space (but that's not too big a deal, I've got a lot of it). I seriously need to learn a new language and get a hold of some newer tools! :-) By the way, if you don't mind me asking, what inspired you're looking into this problem on your end? Is it part of a larger project, or just personal interest?Phoenixia1177 (talk) 16:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I was not aware that Ruby had problems dealing with large arrays. Are you sure there wasn't a bug in your program ? I suggest you try a quick test that just allocates a 128x128x128x128 array of 2 byte integers, and assigns them all a value, then reads them back and reports any mismatches. BTW, is your plan to store this array to the hard disk so you can read it in on each subsequent run of the program, rather than recalculating it ? I bet that would actually be slower, since disk access is much slower than RAM access, and this is a fairly efficient calculation method. However, if you use the compression method I outlined above, that might tip the balance and make storing it to the HDD quicker. As for my interest, I recently took a free online class in AI, and this was the method I developed for one of the projects (it's at edX, in case you are also interested). BTW, my language of choice is FORTRAN, which is ideal for heavy calculations involving large, multi-dimensional arrays. Not so good for dealing with human interfaces, though. Another interest of mine in computer graphics, and you can view some of my results at the bottom of my home page.

Now, let me ask, what percentage of the total 128x128 space is actually positions that can be occupied by the bot ? That will determine how much we can get out of compression. Also, I assume that 100% of the spots that can be occupied by a bot are also potential target points for the bot's movement ? Is this correct ? (I assume this because of how you said they might head towards mobile points of interest.) StuRat (talk) 17:52, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, have any updates on your program for me ? What approach did you take, and how is it working ? StuRat (talk) 16:30, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm at a weird crossroads of sorts. I did a bunch of benchmarking with the newest version of Ruby, and what you're discussing above works just fine. However, using RMXP is using "their" version of 1.86, which sadly has no benchmarking included, and seems unusually slow. Which leads me to what might be a better question: are there any other programs out there that could easily do the basic graphics stuff- like sprites walking around etc?Phoenixia1177 (talk) 03:52, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

1) Did it work with the maximum case of 128x128 ? And what exactly did you use for the benchmark test ?

2) You can always do your own benchmarking, by printing out the time down to thousandths of a second, say, before and after a given operation. I've often done that to find a performance bottleneck.

3) As for other graphics programs, I don't know the answer there, so you might want to post that Q back to the Computer Ref Desk. StuRat (talk) 04:37, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Ruby has it's own benchmarking built in, so I just used that (I don't have the exact times now, I'm not at home). At any rate, it was fast in actual Ruby. But, in the scaled down 1.86 that rpg maker uses...not so much, lots of lag and frame rate issues (no matter what method is used). The older versions of Ruby handle objects in the worst possible way, so anytime you start getting into large data sets and nested arrays, performance just falls apart (especially in this case). I think I'm going to invest some time looking for better tools, I thought the issue was the algorithm, but it turns out it's the vm executing it in this case. --By the way, I went back and looked at my image editor again (as per your suggestion), turn out that I did have a bug! I was making a new array of pixels at every point of some loop, but never getting rid of the old ones- so on big images, I'd get crashes. It was part of a quick and dirty method I wrote to test something out, thought I cleaned up, but never did.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 04:47, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Excellent, that's what I thought. Unfortunately I've seen a lot of those "quick and dirty" things end up in production code. For example, to move one pixel on the screen, they might re-render the entire image, which predictably brings things to a crawl. That might be what your current tool is doing. And memory leaks like you had in your code seem to be present in just about all production code, causing them to take up steadily more resources until the computer crashes. StuRat (talk) 16:38, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

.Regarding the article sexual desire( was very anxious,so got to here)

'You regularly have it(like you 4times a day) and you suddenly stop it, then you want it more(if you are aware and not having it), this is what i want to say..does the urge to masturbate not really increase if you dont have sex for a,say a week(when you regularly have it)..? are the orgasms after a peiod of short term abstinence not more intense than the usual..? Also it is so common to say that we get a wet dream to release the fluids when the tank is full..Sexual desire is also like hunder or any other biological need.. Now i arrive at two simple questions: When will the sexual desire(or stimuli) be more strong--When you are masturbating fouth time in a day..? Or when you are masturbating after four days Should "time gap between ejaculations" be a factor affecting sexual desire on wikipedia..? If no, Please tell why..many thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed beerman (talk • contribs) 13:05, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I answered on the page, but I'll repost it here. Just so you know I did Ed beerman.

I can only speak from personal experience to answer, so bear that in mind. I notice that the more I want sex, the more intense the experience is, and the more I think about it- and the worse it is if I can't have it (I work long hours some days). Some weeks, I get wrapped up in other things of interest and sex is far from my mind (as are things like regularly eating and sleeping), in those cases, I don't really miss it, and, when it returns, it doesn't come back in a "flood", but slowly increases back to normal (hunger and the interest in sleep do the same). On the other hand, sometimes I'm very fixated on sex, in those cases, if I can't have it, it's all I want to think about- in that case, I masturbate more, think about it more, etc. As for when the sexual experience is the most intense: during those times when I am masturbating more frequently, the experience is stronger- since I'm not doing this back to back, but a few hours apart, each experience is equally intense (there is variance, but it is a factor of time of day and schedule more than where the event is in sequence). As I said, I think the major factors in intensity and want is desire and availability- if I really really want sex and get stuck at work for a 20 hour shift, it's very amazing when I finally get home- on the other hand, if I'm at a low period of interest and work a 20 hour shift, when I come home, sex is less of a "yippee!" and more of a "I'm sleepy, but my wife likes sex, so okay".Phoenixia1177 (talk) 05:08, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks,Sir..So basicaly you want to say that Sexual desire is not only a matter of time interval but a mixture of Desire, Time availability,time interval and Sexual activeness during a particular peiod of time..?Therefore, saying sexual desire increases as the time passes without abstinence, will not be very very appropriate.. One last question: What if a person is regularly having sex(say three times a week),and have time for it,but suddenly thinks of stopping it(not because he doesn't want it but for some other reason), will he want it more as the time passes(at least in short term,say a week)..? (it happens with me and thousands of yahoo answers users)...i just want a simple answer...yes or no..? many thanksEd beerman (talk) 06:00, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

From my experience, stopping while wanting it will, in the short term, increase both the feeling of want and the intensity of it- since you still have a desire for it (this an extra dimension on top of time and frequency). Imagine having a piece of pie in the fridge: if your friend is over and you don't want to share the single piece, but also desire to eat it (it's good pie), then you will keep thinking about that piece of pie, you'll wish your friend would leave and let you eat it, and when you finally get to it, boy will it taste good- but, if instead you're laying on your couch wrapped up in a blanket watching a good movie with a bag of chips, the pie doesn't seem all that interesting, especially not worth getting up off the couch for, in that case, you might go eat it anyways, but it will be a pain in the ass, and not nearly so satisfying. The same principle, I believe, works with sex- if you want it, not getting it makes it more intense; if you don't want it, not getting it isn't changing anything, so you don't change- the key realization is this: most people can't get good sex at will and, usually, want it, thus, we are biased away from awareness of not wanting it- whereas with thirst, hunger, sleep, other desires, etc. we usually have a more even experience, so we are aware of how eating can be unsatisfying, even when we haven't eaten in a while- with sex, if someone hasn't had it in a while, there is a better likelihood (than with hunger) that it is because they couldn't get it (but wanted it), then they just didn't have the interest. Does that make sense? --This was a fun question, by the way, it was interesting to think about:-) Phoenixia1177 (talk) 06:26, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and so it shows up that you got an answer, Ed beerman. Also, the short answer: if you stop, but want it, then you will want it more and it will be more intense (in case, tl;dr).Phoenixia1177 (talk) 06:27, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for yor helpful replies..Sir, there is one more question i would like to ask in this very context.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed beerman (talk • contribs) 08:11, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

No problem at all:-) What did you want to ask?Phoenixia1177 (talk) 09:06, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

It can be a very silly question, but just to ask ...suppose i am ejaculating after 3 days..i am very excited and it takes very less time to ejaculate... now after half an hour i again decide to ejaculate, then i again do i (but this time its takes comparatively longer to ejaculate+i dont feel too horny) .. i can do it again after half an hour and this time the horniness is again decreases from the last time and time taken to ejaculate is again increased.. basically i wanna ask... why is it that in a shorter period of time, every consequent ejaculation is less intense ... why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed beerman (talk • contribs) 11:49, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I would look at like any other desire. If I haven't eaten in 3 days, then I might make a pig of myself, eating many types of foods as fast as I can- on the other hand, if I've been having a plate of food every two hours, after a while, I'm only going to nibbling and it will take me a while to finish it off (and it won't be nearly as enjoyable). The same basic principle is at work here. If I may ask you a question: what is your interest in this topic, specifically? I'm not trying to pry, or criticize, but it might be able to give you a general answer depending on where you're coming from.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 09:40, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Naive set theory talk page

Hi Phoenixia1177!

An apology from me.

I read your complaint over at Ed Johnstons talk page. There you initially say "referenced user", but then later use "them" in several places. I can't interpret that as referring to others than both Thomas Limberg and me. I probably shouldn't have responded to him in the first place. My only excuse is that I have a hard time just letting him run over me. Well, the next time I will - not that there will be another time with Limberg (he is indefinitely blocked), but there's always someone else to take his place.

I'd like to know if you think I managed to improve the paragraph in the article we were discussing before Limberg took over.

Best, YohanN7 (talk) 10:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

@YohanN7, I was very sleepy when I wrote that, I in now way had any problem with how you responded - in fact, I believe you were more than forgiving. Indeed, I've read over the talk page and the reference desk page, you have much further tolerance than I do, I have nothing but respect for that:-) I apologize for not taking a look for a few days at the article (especially since I was the one requesting changes!), a few things came up, but I will take a look tonight - thank you for looking into the matter:-) --sometimes I am not so good with the conversational parts of things, I apologize if any of this reads weird (or any of the rest did).Phoenixia1177 (talk) 00:09, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Access to academic literature

Hi, I just read your reply about math in medicine from a few days ago, where you mentioned it might be hard for you to get access to some of the things I linked. If you are having trouble getting access to resources, I can send you a few things here and there. It only takes me a minute or so get get a pdf and email it, so as long as you don't ask for a zillion papers, I'm happy to help out. But the best thing to do I think would be to start skimming titles and abstracts from JMB, you can do that for free until you get an academic library card. Btw, I also skimmed this talk page a bit before I posted, saw the thread above about pathfinding. Are you aware of roguelike games? If you search some combination of /roguelike pathfinding development/ you'll find tons of people sharing and discussing related algorithms used to control player and NPC/monster movement, many of which are free/open source. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:00, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the offer, I don't want to be an imposition at all, I will ask only if there is something with info I couldn't find elsewhere - thank you so much for the offer, that is extremely kind. I looked into obtaining an academic library card, despite living near several academic institutions, none of them seem to offer them for nonstudents, the best options I saw were rather pricey - though, I'm going to check again, that was about a year ago and I feel I must have missed something (it, surely, can't be that difficult). I will definitely look into roguelikes - I love game development and game programming, it would be awesome to work with something different; or even contribute to something open source, I can be clever with algorithms at times. I apologize for the time it took to reply, I've been scanning the ref desk from my phone, but wasn't logged in. Thank you again:-)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 09:26, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, if you want an article, feel free to email me through the link on my talk page. If I recall, didn't you live somewhere near Pittsburgh? Pitt charges $100/yr, and it looks like that won't even get you online access to journals [5].! It will let you go read journals at their library, but usually you can do that even without a card ;) It looks like the Carnegie library (public) offers access to Science Direct [6], and I think that covers a lot of math, but I'm not certain. I guess you could also call around to other nearby public libraries and see if any of them offer access to JSTOR, either by proxy at home, or at least from library computers. Failing all that, you can also often email authors directly. Most academics don't like the paywalls, and want their work to be read. If you ask politely for a "reprint" pdf, they will often oblige.

If you want to try playing a roguelike, my favorite is DCSS, which you can play online here [7], or download here [8] (you can also play through telnet/ssh, but I like the tile graphics better than ASCII). Anyway, good luck, and if you want to continue conversations with me in a more timely manner, ping me like this @Phoenixia1177: so that I get a notification if you respond here. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:15, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

A cse Pupil of u

sir please try to make me understand the the time and space complexity of heap sort algorithm with n elements in array.i m requesting u to explain the polynomial evolution to drive time and space complexity..please dear sie it will be your great kindness. 223.176.211.88 (talk) 07:56, 3 October 2014 (UTC)