I would add a reason for Harry to have the wand.
Like, instead of, “You will not raise your wand”, “You will only raise your wand when and how I permit it. Do not demonstrate a spell unless ordered.”
That would imply that Voldemort was open to the possibility that Harry might demonstrate something, which would require arming him.
Got it, though if I got it wrong I would have been horribly ashamed considering that I’m a physicist working with fluid-handling systems in cases where Earth gravity is negligible.
If you think you’ve learned quantum mechanics from it, you’re a fool. If you think you’ve learned enough about quantum mechanics to be justified as a physical realist, you’re correct. Oodles of things are left out, and many others simplified, but there are few things that are actually wrong, and they have little impact.
in Configurations and Amplitude, a multiplication factor of i is used for the mirrors where −1 is correct.
The main question is relative phase, and the transmitted portion can have an arbitrary phase shift, by selecting the thickness of the mirror. Therefore, the error is even more minor than it seems.
Edited to add: I have a PhD in physics.
Also edited to add: it is possible to build a device that actually has the exact phases listed, not even just relative. It’s not an off-the-shelf half-silvered mirror, to be sure.
Survey taken. By me, even.
Strongly disagree. At the top of the page, you see 3 logos: CFAR, MIRI, and FHI. This is not a ‘hey, we like these organizations’ deal. It’s a ‘These are our babies’ deal.
Hello!
I’m a 32 year old physics PhD, working (so far) on the oh-so-fashionable subfield of graphene and carbon nanotubes. I took Quantum field theory, which is a little unusual for an experimentalist (though not positively rare). I have a background in programming, and a moderate degree of interest in AI.
I came here by way of the Methods of Rationality. After reading that, and upon seeing that there was a sequence on quantum mechanics, I had a suspicion that it wouldn’t be terrible. This suspicion was vastly exceeded. I never encountered the slightest technical flaw, which is better than many physicists can produce on the subject, let alone philosophers and amateur physicists.
I began wandering and seeing what else there was, and it is good. The atmosphere also seems quite good around here, so I thought I’d join the community rather than treating it as a collection of essays and comments.
So here I am.
~~ Edited to add: ~
I am not sure how this got so many upvotes. Was it the praise? The brevity? That I’m a physicist? The score just stands out on the page a bit, and I’m not at all sure why.
Note to self: Do not attend any party organized by MBlume without making sure that all participants have signed an iron-clad NDA in advance.
Rationalism doesn’t mean inability to recognize hyperbole.
As far as I can tell, that’s simply taking a facile objection seriously.
Steelmanning would be if she said that he could get, say, bubonic plague from her—and then he addressed not only that but also concerns about tuberculosis.
Wow, that is a lot of downvotes on neutral-to-good comments. Your posts aren’t great, but they don’t seem like −10 territory, either.
I thought we had something for this now?
I have been tossing around the idea of not-high-IQ rationalist fiction. Problem is, it’s really hard to write. If they act rationally, people stop identifying the person as unintelligent. You get intelligence creep or an unsatisfying story.
The best route I can see is to make them well-substandard in intelligence. Rationalist!Forrest Gump, say.
ETA: Another problem is that adventures are usually sub-optimal. No one writes about the Amundsen expedition or equivalents (*) - they write about Scott expeditions.
*(except for Le Guin, who managed it because she’s amazing)
:facepalm:
This is dark artsy to the point of self-parody. The outcome seems to me highly dependent on the parity of the number of meta levels the viewer goes to.
Changing things’ status is what marketing is FOR.
Oh, dang. Well, I mean, phew? Both? See, I thought this was going to be a news story.
It isn’t fair to the Vulcans from Star Trek. But that’s only because the popular conception of Vulcans isn’t fair to them, and the term Straw Vulcan is a reference to this popular conception.
So, this is an article about Star Trek characters, not about, well, rationality.
… Umm, okay? /me shrugs.
Anything that goes by the label of “common sense”
… and is correct.
Single-layer Graphene is really really unstable and if you let it sit free, readily scrolls up and is very hard to get unstuck. In this sense, Landau’s impossibility proof is entirely correct.
And that’s why we don’t use free-standing graphene without a frame, for just about anything. The closest we get is graphene oxide dissolved in a liquid, or extremely extremely tiny platelets that don’t really deserve to be called crystals.
The pessimism about non-usefulness of graphene lay entirely in forgetting that you could put it on a backing or stretch it out (or thinking that it would lose its interesting properties if you did the former), and that was not justifiable at all.
Eating penguins.
I’ve long wanted a ‘me too!’ facility in forum posts—where you actually get to put your name down as agreeing, rather than just voting. It’d be compact enough to avoid the waste of devoting an entire post to it, and would lend the personal touch of knowing who approved.
It could even coexist with votes, being reserved for cases of total agreement - ’I’d sign that without reservation”
We operate in an environment of government basically functioning to such a degree that we don’t notice it. Why is news about government dominated by government breaking? The nature of the role of government is usually to prevent bad things. So, when it does extra-well, no one can tell. If we note these actions, what do we get? Focusing on what has affected me personally:
Police can probably take some credit for the following:
I have gone 3369 days since I was last robbed; my family has not been robbed.
I have gone 7960 days since I was last assaulted; my family has not been assaulted.
The police and fire departments assist the (non-governmental) rescue squad
Though annoying when it must be done, the roads and rails around me are maintained. (I do not count utility work since that is not controlled by the government here)
My daughter is receiving an acceptably good level of education
There are nice parks available to us
A nearby fire did not grow and consume our house
The sciences are supported
Something I left on the train was kept and I was able to recover it.
Of course, it could do better. In some cases, a lot better. But you were asking about the positive.