*Epic theme music*
So! For my incredible, amazing, daring, sexy and, not least of all,
riveting blog today, I figured I should share some interesting bits that I've picked up on the intertubes through the last week.
First off: the invention that you never knew you needed:
sleep headphones. That's right! I'll let you take a moment to absorb how utterly awesome that is.
The second thing is something that I only found this morning:
How statistics-based translators (like google translate) helped to break a code from the 18th century. This, folks, is the power of applied math. Looking at a language statistically helps you work out what words might be used for what, depending on how commonly they occur throughout the manuscript, what words they might be placed with, the context of the surrounding sentences, and tonnes of other mathematical cues.
I'd very much like to point out that this is proof of the universal application of math. Roomie says it's useless, simply because (I am quoting her here) she's probably never going to have to go much father than addition in her lifetime, but maths runs through everywhere. Even if you never do the math yourself, everything you do has a mathematical current running through it. You buy a rubber duck: that goes into statistics for the demographic that buys rubber ducks, how many rubber ducks were sold, whether placement affected product sales, and a heap of other stats like that. using those, they calculate the size of the market, what price they can get away with selling them for, what placement would maximize profits, whether they should carry them at this store at all, and other decisions are made based on these stats.
You see what happened? You made a decision which influenced the statistics, which were then turned into maths (sweet, sweet math) and finally came right back around to impact the supermarket you shop at. You influenced math which influenced you.
My third piece of internet nonsense is a physics-y bit. OH MY DEAR GOSH,
THEY RAN THE NEUTRINO EXPERIMENT AGAIN AND THE RESULTS WERE THE SAME. My physics class had decided that it was probably an error in calculations or an undiscovered experimental error that no one had made allowances for in the math, but the likelihood of that seems to be shrinking. Can you imagine what would happen if this is true? For neutrinos to be going faster than light, they would have to have a smaller mass than light. This would mean that light would have to have mass!
(for any physics students reading this now: I realize that light having mass is a little more complicated than that, but I have tried explaining this to non-physics/maths students and got met with empty stares, so for now, the short answer is 'no'. Also, I am only a first year, so what I know I know from interpreting books, not actually having done the math myself. On top of this, I sometimes interpret wrong)
To explain my excitement behind light having mass, I need to very quickly explain something about the universe. If something has mass, it has it's own gravitational pull. If we envision space like a big rubber sheet (thank you, Stephen Hawking) then placing an object on the sheet warps it, creating a big dip. This dip in space is basically gravity. If light has mass, that means it has gravity, which in turn means that it is warping the fabric of the universe. When I worked this out, my initial reaction was "holy shit!"
The results are probably the result of an error, but if it isn't then this could be
huge in physics! can you imagine the books that would have to be re-written, the equations they would have to change? The mind boggles!
And my fourth and final piece of internet nonsense is yet another proof of the power of maths:
the lottery. Or rather, the lottery being won 4 times by a woman with a PhD in maths because she worked out the algorithm.
Right? Who ever said maths was boring? Not me.
On that note, I finish with a quote by Richard P. Feynman, which I found on the back of our physics society shirts (I really, really want one of those shirts):
“Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.”
Before I leave, I want to quickly note the reason why I'm not tagging this post: Heather told me that if I didn't tag this, then she would, and that apparently that would be a problem. So I challenge Heather, with you all as my witness: Do your worst!
Rubberduck Out!
Edit by the Heather: So, I totally came here with the intention of tagging this thing with a lot of stuff and awesomeness. But blogger has a character limit for tags. Who knew? But I wrote them down, and here they are:
math, sleep headphones, rubberduck, tuesday, language, statistics, Roomie, physics, neutrinos, complicated things that are crazy, lottery, badass science people who are badass, sex, Tanya I'd just like to say that I really enjoyed this post, I want sleep headphones, I would also like some chocolate cake, would anyone else like some chocolate cake?, there was a spelling mistake here that I noticed but I can't find it, I have a rainbow flag, that is awesome, I like it, well I shall leave you here, have a nice day
