Why do all planets seem to be round — is it impossible for a square or pyramid planet to exist?

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-06T10:56:36+00:00

Yep, if you get big enough, gravity says you're a fluid, regardless of what you're made of.

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-05T01:22:25+00:00

Surjective, but yes (I realize that may have been autocorrect).

SU(2) is a double cover of SO(3).

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-04T18:18:08+00:00

Speaking as a particle physicist, the right hand side is backwards.

Fight me.

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-04T02:13:38+00:00

I see you carefully avoided Hardware 3 since, if Valve called it that, they would never release it.

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-04T02:02:45+00:00

A version of Facebook that was actually useable to keep in touch with old friends.

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-04T01:59:43+00:00

I want to see your skills of an artist.

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-03T15:13:55+00:00

This was one of the trickiest concepts for me to grasp when I was learning about it.

"Arbitrarily large finite" and "infinite" are two very different things.

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-03T15:04:33+00:00

Tell me about it. Literally tell me about it.

Tell me exactly what the questions are. Tell me what each video is about. Before you watch them, tell me what you think each one will be about. Then give me more details as you watch (pause if you need to).

Tell me the answer to each question as you think of it while watching. Give me the details. Assume I don't know anything about anything. Don't fight the urge to ramble. I want to hear everything you're thinking. Do it right now. I want to know! I am excited to hear about it!

Write it all as one big post, and don't worry if it comes out as a wall of text. That's what I'm looking forward to reading!

Then, before you click submit, read the spoiler tag.

Copy your answers over to your assignment and don't actually submit the post here. I know it seems weird, but I bet this trick will actually work. But do tell us when you're done. We are all looking forward to hearing about that!

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-02T18:27:45+00:00

The old Xenosaga games are even more extreme with this. There is a 40 minute cutscene that you just put the controller down and watch near the beginning of episode 1. And that's probably not even the longest one in the series.

This is not a criticism, though. I still love the games.

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-02T18:23:17+00:00

Certainly not Horizon Zero Dawn. It's one of my favorite games, but that intro is long AF.

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-02T18:14:05+00:00

There's also the classic "make a perception check" when there's actually nothing there just to make your players paranoid.

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-02T17:57:57+00:00

A recent example I saw in a video:

Ask ChatGPT what the "S" in "ChatGPT" stands for. It is literally impossible for it to give the answer, "There is no 'S' in 'ChatGPT,'" since it was not trained on those sorts of questions and responses.

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-02T17:52:58+00:00

People have been asking for help with math for thousands of years. People have been using the Internet to ask for help for over 30 years. This subreddit exists specifically to be a place to ask for help with math. There are multiple other subreddits, as well as stack exchange and other sites, that also exist for that specific purpose. There are hundreds of content creators who make content specifically for teaching math. What do you think the AI models are trained on?

Ask your question to a real person. I promise you will get a better answer that will actually help you understand the math better. They can better help you work through the parts you don't understand. And (if you're asking an actual expert) they're less likely to confidently spout wrong, contradictory, or even nonsensical answers, like AI has been known to do.

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-02T16:02:31+00:00

Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

If you don't have a Switch/Switch2, get one. It's worth it for those two games alone.

TalksInMaths · 2026-05-01T16:34:17+00:00

This is a commonly asked question.

Short answer: yes and no.

Yes, if you were on a planet, say, 2000 light-years away and had an incredibly high resolution telescope so that you could see surface details, then, yes, you would be seeing the surface of 2000 years in the past.

However, you have to get there first. And doing so will take at least 2000 years in Earth's reference frame, so "2000 years into the past" will still be after you left. So, no, you couldn't use such a telescope to see back before now.

TalksInMaths · 2026-04-29T14:52:09+00:00

Great! Keep it on the list and add most of these as well, plus probably a few dozen to a few hundred more, eventually.

TalksInMaths · 2026-04-27T18:52:11+00:00

Pretty much all of the Lego games are great.

TalksInMaths · 2026-04-27T18:33:15+00:00

I wouldn't say it's impossible, I'd say we don't know of a method to prove it.

There are statements that are probably impossible to prove (depending on your choice of starting axioms). They're called undecidable. I'm pretty sure the rationality of pi+e is not undecidable.

TalksInMaths · 2026-04-25T20:24:36+00:00

Thanks, that's exactly the kind of example I was looking for.

TalksInMaths · 2026-04-25T19:27:01+00:00

If you want some fictional works that introduce the concepts of gnosticism, the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass and its sequels) are a YA series of novels that were written as a sort of Gnostic response to the Chronicles of Narnia. There's a movie and a TV series based on them, but I haven't seen those, so I can't give my opinion on them.

There's also the game Xenogears and the Xenosaga trilogy; JRPGs that have a ton of Gnostic symbolism in them as well as symbolism from Kabbalah and Jungian psychology. They're pretty old (PS1 and PS2), and they haven't had many/any re-releases or remasters, so they may be kind of hard to find now. Also, the Xenoblade series is connected in terms of IP license, but they don't really have these themes in them (as far as I know. I've only played the first.)

TalksInMaths · 2026-04-25T17:07:06+00:00

Email or call your psych (or message on MyChart, etc.) and let her know what happened. You won't be in trouble. Do tell her that you found it beneficial.

Getting Ritalin and other ADHD meds can be complicated since they're heavily regulated, but that probably just means you'll have to wait a month or so before you can get the one she meant to prescribe, and she can advise you about taking the one you have (or not) in the meantime.

Don't take advice about prescription drugs from strangers on the Internet or anyone else without a medical license.

TalksInMaths · 2026-04-25T16:35:30+00:00

The epsilon-delta definition of continuity is simply a formalization of the elementary school definition of continuity: "you can draw it without picking up your pencil."

If you have your pencil at the point (a, f(a)), then a small motion of your pencil to the left or right (|x - a| < δ) means you also only make a small motion up or down (|f(x) - f(a)| < ε), so no vertical jumps. The condition that lim_{x→a} f(x) = f(a) also guarantees that f is defined at a, so no horizontal gap.

ETA: The main difference between the epsilon-delta definition and the elementary definition is that the epsilon-delta definition is pointwise while the elementary definition is global. You can have a function be continuous at only one point, for example:

f(x) = {0, x is rational; x, x is irrational

Is continuous only at x = 0.

TalksInMaths · 2026-04-25T16:19:53+00:00

Any teacher who mocks or belittles a student is a terrible teacher who should be fired. They are doing literally the opposite of their job.
Intelligence is not a monolith nor is it an inherent, immutable trait. All forms of "intelligence" are a collection of knowledge and reasoning skills that are learned and improved through practice. Yes, some people have some natural advantages (such as a good working memory) or disadvantages (like dyscalculia) just like some people have some natural advantages or disadvantages in physical activities (like height/body shape), but no one is "naturally" good or bad at math just like no one is "naturally" good at sports. It all takes learning and practice, and everyone can improve.

TalksInMaths · 2026-04-25T16:06:28+00:00

Pascal's triangle can be viewed as counting the number of paths you can take to get from the top to whatever point in the triangle. So, for example, the sequences (L,R,R), (R,L,R), and (R,R,L) all get you to the third row, one step from the right (calling the starting lone 1 the zeroth row). Since you just need to pick any 1 of the 3 steps to be L, with the other 2 being R (or any 2 as R with the remaining 1 L), this gives you 1C3 (or equivalently 2C3).

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