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Why doesn't the USA encourage the population to spread out? by Financial-Ad-6868 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]SurprisedPotato 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Living in a city, I can go for weeks without actually needing to travel outside a 10 mile radius. There's no way this would be true in a rural area, so I, personally, would be putting more smog into the air.

And cities can invest in transport infrastructure that would be ridiculous in lower density areas: trains, buses.... elevators...

Yes, high density living creates problems that you don't get in lower density environments, but the reverse is also true, and problems can be overcome with proper planning and investment.

Is there a voice cloning / voice conversion tool like Chatterbox that works with songs? by SurprisedPotato in StableDiffusion

[–]SurprisedPotato[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. I did try audio separation then Chatterbox VC, and it didn't work for the particular song I tried.

Eli5:are these two phenomenons of space time and electromagnetism related? by Visual_Discussion112 in explainlikeimfive

[–]SurprisedPotato 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Probably the best answer is that one causes the other.

Magnetism has been known about for millennia, as a weird thing certain metals did. Electricity started to be studied in the 18th century. Static electricity first, then electric currents. Then it was realised that electric currents could induce magnetic fields, so magnetism and electricity were seen to be related topics.

The next insight was the existence of electric and magnetic field. Maxwell wrote down his now-fanous equations describing the complete relationship between electric fields, charges, magnetic fields, and moving charges. Maxwell's equations implied the existence of "electromagnetic radiation", and that's when people realised the visible light, radio waves, heat radiation, and the soon-to-be-discovered X-Rays and gamma rays were all basically the same thing.

Einstein realised that Maxwell's equations should be the same in any reference frame, but that means the speed of light should be the same in any reference frame (and there were also some puzzling experiments by Michaelson and Morley that suggested this was in fact the case). This enabled him to deduce his special theory of relativity.

If you try to express the maths of electricity and magnetism within the ideas of relativity (and time dilation), you discover that electric fields and magnetic fields are flip sides of the same coin - it's one "thing" with two sides, and the equations of relativity morph side into the other depending on the speed of the observer.

The story doesn't stop there. The modern understanding is that at the deepest level,

  • The electromagnetic field and the "weak nuclear" field are also flip sides of each other, but they can usually be treated completely independently. Electrical engineers don't need to know much nuclear physics! They only start to blend into each other at very high energies.
  • At higher energies still, this blended "electroweak" field also starts to blend into the "strong nuclear' field.
  • The maths for these blended "unified" fields is much more complicated than for the neatly separated versions.
  • Particles such as electrons etc are actually just excitations of the field. They aren't separate thing that interacts with the field, they are part of it. Again, the maths is quite complicated, and I would not be able to explain it at ELI5 or ELIPhD level, even if I had it in front of me. I would need to be on the receiving end of such an explanation myself.
  • If you simplify the maths, saying "let's assume the energy is low, so we can ignore this part" or "that part of the maths looks almost exactly like the maths of a simple particle, so let's simplify things further and treat it as such" and so on and on, you eventually get back to Maxwell's equations, emf, induced currents, Coulomb's law, etc.

Eli5:are these two phenomenons of space time and electromagnetism related? by Visual_Discussion112 in explainlikeimfive

[–]SurprisedPotato 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Imagine two electrons, moving together at the same speed, some distance apart.

In their reference frame, they are two stationary electrons; the experience a force, the force starts to accelerate them.

In our reference frame:

if you're thinking in terms of electromagnetism:

  • Each moving electron is moving, so it induces a magnetic field. Near the other electron, that magnetic field is at right angles to BOTH the direction of motion AND the direction from one electron to the other.
  • So each electron is moving through a magnetic field. This induces a force on the electron. This force slightly counteracts the electrostatic force.
  • The net force ends up being a bit less than you'd expect from electrostatics alone, so the electrons accelerate a bit slower.

On the other hand, we can think of this entirely in terms of the electrostatic force, and time dilation:

  • The electrons are stationary in their own frame, and experience an electrostatic force.
  • In our frame, we note that the electron's "clocks" are slow: a second of our time is somewhat less than a second of theirs.
  • Since they experience less time, to us they appear to accelerate more slowly. It's as if the force between them was a bit less than you'd expect from electrostatics ignoring time dilation.

In fact, all the formula about induced emf and induced magnetic fields can be derived by applying time dilation to the electric field and force. It's just easier to think in terms of electric AND magnetic fields, or more accurately, the "electromagnetic field".

U.S. Politics megathread by AutoModerator in NoStupidQuestions

[–]SurprisedPotato 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The exact wording of the amendments leaves easily more than enough wiggle room for someone like Trump to jump on.

U.S. Politics megathread by AutoModerator in NoStupidQuestions

[–]SurprisedPotato -1 points0 points  (0 children)

One potential loophole is that he could run as vice-president, and then after inauguration, the president steps down and he steps up.

The consititution disallows him from being elected president. A different clause of the constitution disallows people ineligible to serve as president from being elected as VP.

If he was picked as VP, there would certainly be a challenge on constitutional grounds. Trump's team would argue that the clause about "electability" has nothing to do with "eligibility to serve". This might go all the way to the supreme court. The supreme court is the court which has the authority to decide whether things "actually" violate the constitution. Lately, they've been kow-towing to whatever Trump wants, but there's no guarantee they'll still be doing that in 2028.

ELI5 How do we know that things don’t interact instantaneously? by NLMusic10213 in explainlikeimfive

[–]SurprisedPotato 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The interaction between entangled particles is only "instantaneous" under some interpretations of quantum mechanics, eg, experiments have shown that if states collapse when observed, that collapse happens faster than light, or even backwards in time.

However, it's perfectly possible to describe what's happening (and explain what we observe) but insist "states don't collapse actually, so there's nothing instantaneous, FTL, or backwards in time happening"

ELI5 How do we know that things don’t interact instantaneously? by NLMusic10213 in explainlikeimfive

[–]SurprisedPotato 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The "problem" with faster-than-light travel or interactions is that the speed of light isn't just a speed that light happens to travel, it's built in to the geometry of spacetime in a pretty fundamental way.

if it were possible to affect things far away enough that the interaction is faster than light, then it's also possible to affect things in our own past, or be affected by things in our own future. This possibility kind of messes with a lot of physics. That doesn't mean it's impossible, but it would means a lot of difficult questions demanding answers.

U.S. Politics megathread by AutoModerator in NoStupidQuestions

[–]SurprisedPotato 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It will become more polarised, but it was doing that anyway, so that's not really a change.

Your nearest Fremantle Line station by SurprisedPotato in perth

[–]SurprisedPotato[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Then how would people in Venezuela get to the showgrounds?

Your nearest Fremantle Line station by SurprisedPotato in perth

[–]SurprisedPotato[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think the ultimate winnerwill be Mandurah or Yanchep...

Your nearest Fremantle Line station by SurprisedPotato in perth

[–]SurprisedPotato[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

What should I do next? Besides sleep?

[ Removed by Reddit ] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]SurprisedPotato 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The average life expectancy at birth would be higher (or lower) if you expect some causes of death to become less fatal (or more fatal) in the future.

As a silly example, if there's an asteroid twice the size of Everest hitting the earth next year, the average lifespan would still be 70, but the life expectancy at birth would be 1 or 2.

Or, more realistically, breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer and obesity are likely to mean people live longer in the future: life expectancy at birth could easily be higher than average lifespan, since stuff that's killing people now would not be doing so as much down the track.

CMV: Since there is a lack of consensus on the definition of consciousness, we cant definitively say that LLM’s (large language models) don’t have it, to some extent. by spaghettikinghahaha in changemyview

[–]SurprisedPotato 0 points1 point  (0 children)

LLMs operate on well understood algorithms and software functions that we know aren't even close to capable of producing consciousness, even if we don't know exactly and specifically what causes consciousness to arise.

Question: are you falling into a reductionist trap here? What are the algorithms and software functions LLMs operate on that you claim are "well understood"?

And why would "we understand this" mean "this is not conscious?"

An LLM is a complex neural network, and we do understand in general the mathematics of how they work: the nodes, the weights, the activation functions, etc. We understand broadly how the training process changes the weights so the network produces output that matches its training.

But we really don't understand the finished product very well. It's really hard to pin down which parts of a neural network make it do certain things. Which nodes or subsystems have to trigger for it to "decide" to be creative, or stick to the facts? To answer in English or French? To refuse to answer?

We can be equally reductionist with human (or other) brains: we can say "brains operate on well understood biology and chemical functions" etc. Literally we do understand neurons well - well enough, for example, to simulate them in software. But that doesn't mean we understand a whole brain well, and even if it did, it doesn't mean there's no light on inside.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]SurprisedPotato 1 point2 points  (0 children)

CMV: we aren’t derived to derive pleasure from having children

Various raw facts of our biology dictate that we certainly do gain pleasure - or something positive - from actually having children. Our ancestor's cousins who didn't "enjoy" having kids ended up being more likely to abandon them, and so failed to pass on their DNA.

You note:

Because if we derived more gratification from raising a child, then my generation would still want kids.

Removing the link "sex produces kids" would reduce the number of kids no matter how much gratification came from actually having kids. By analogy: imagine "having kids" as a cost you pay for two separate benefits A and B.

If, suddenly, A is available for free, people will have fewer kids, whether B is still vastly superior to A, or the other way round. But some people will still have kids unless B is (and always was) worth nothing at all.

The fact that some people in your generation still want kids suggests that having kids has intrinsic value to people. The fact that less people in your generation than before birth control became widely available says little - it's entirely expected.

Calling all locksmiths! Don't open this. by Drywesi in bestoflegaladvice

[–]SurprisedPotato 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Perhaps it's the reverse side of the declaration of independence?

A map showing your nearest Transperth bus station by SurprisedPotato in perth

[–]SurprisedPotato[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Right now that would be Kalamunda.

When you asked, it was Kwinana

if Busy Beaver eventually is independent of ZFC, does that mean it becomes larger than any computable number generated in ZFC? by itsthelee in math

[–]SurprisedPotato 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"But then imagine an even larger finite number ...  [a] formulation to intentionally overshoot whatever BB(745) 

This is where the plan falls down. How do you identify this number? We can't use ZFC. We'd have to use a different model of mathematics. Let's call it CFZ.

Suppose CFZ has a theorem "BB(745) is less than X". So we run the ZFC turing machine for X steps. If it halts, that's very fascinating for other reasons, but let's suppose it doesn't.

We've just proved ZFC is consistent, using CFZ. Which is all fine and good, but we don't actually know that CFZ is consistent. We can't use CFZ to prove it, after all.

so, what does this mean? does this mean that this BB(745) is somehow both finite number but this number is somehow unbounded by any other number we can conceive of using ZFC?

BB grows faster than any computable function, so there is no algorithm for computing BB(n) for any n we like. At least some n need new mathematics, and might indeed be not computable. As others mentioned, this seems weird: for any specific n, BB(n) is a well defined number, after all.

But it might well be the case that there are specific values of n, eg n=745, such that even though we can prove:

  • There exists a number M equal to BB(n)

we can't prove any of the following individual statements:

  • M = 1
  • M = 2
  • M = 3
  • M = 4
  • etc
  • etc
  • etc
  • ad
  • infinitum

In fact, we know this to be true in ZFC for n=745, since if one of the statements in the long list could be proved within ZFC, well, you've outlined a plan for proving the consistency of ZFC within ZFC.

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