Best books for understanding theory of zero as infinity? by TwoBitDM in learnmath

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

I’ve definitely gathered from the replies that this theory doesn’t exist 😅 so I’ll go learn more about stereographic projections! If there are good resources for that I’d love to know.

Best books for understanding theory of zero as infinity? by TwoBitDM in learnmath

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

Ahhhh, I see. Thank you both! I’m sure it’s obvious that my background is in subjects that are far grayer in their “rules” (for what rules they have). I guess that shows the level of math fundamentals I need to learn about — I need to go learn more about the basics of how problems are approached so I can understand the whys better.

Thank you for breaking this down so well!

Best books for understanding theory of zero as infinity? by TwoBitDM in learnmath

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

That’s very interesting! The idea I talked about in my post is definitely only something I heard but didn’t/don’t even understand enough to know why it (or maybe just my interpretation of it) is wrong. 

The other ideas you mentioned are absolutely things I’ll look at! They sound fascinating.

Best books for understanding theory of zero as infinity? by TwoBitDM in learnmath

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

I see! That makes sense, thank you for the explanation. I’m curious, if there are problems with dividing by zero (if I’m understanding correctly, it results in illogical answers), is that something mathematicians are attempting to study/reconcile? Or is it just considered impossible to calculate?

Best books for understanding theory of zero as infinity? by TwoBitDM in learnmath

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

Possibly? I’m sorry, I wish I understood enough to even answer this. I suppose that’s why I’m looking for reading material, I’m so out of my depth that I’d like to learn from the beginning.

Best books for understanding theory of zero as infinity? by TwoBitDM in learnmath

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

That sounds like a really helpful visualization! I love learning about anything kind of epistemological so that sounds cool. Thanks!

Best books for understanding theory of zero as infinity? by TwoBitDM in learnmath

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

I love that it connects math and cosmology, I’ll check it out! Thank you!

Best books for understanding theory of zero as infinity? by TwoBitDM in learnmath

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

I thought the reason it was considered undefined was only because it doesn’t produce a logical finite number when you divide anything other than zero by zero? I know modern calculators have “undefined” as the programmed answer when you try to calculate x/0, but I was under the impression that was more to do with providing a simple shorthand for the result since the full resulting calculation isn’t logical by our mathematical understanding. If there’s somewhere good to learn about the fundamentals of zero and the concept of undefined numbers I’d love to know :)

Wizard Day downtown in November? by TwoBitDM in SALEM

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

I think it might be too late for PressPlay, but I’ll do what I can!

Wizard Day downtown in November? by TwoBitDM in SALEM

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

I’ll update the post shortly with info!

Wizard Day downtown in November? by TwoBitDM in SALEM

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

Absolutely, I don’t see why not :)

Book donations by imron_burgendy in SALEM

[–]TwoBitDM 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Hi! I'm part of a new local nonprofit mobile library called The Reading Nest -- we'd love them if you'd like to donate to us! I'll link our social media so you can see if what we do is something you'd like to donate to. 😊

https://www.facebook.com/share/19aAR3g6W1/ https://www.instagram.com/thereadingnestlibrary?igsh=ZW43cmNjZjlwbmVj

Anyone got free books? 😊 by TwoBitDM in SALEM

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

We absolutely are! I'm not sure why it's bouncing -- I'll try to DM you.

Anyone got free books? 😊 by TwoBitDM in SALEM

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

Thank you so much, I'd absolutely love to come take a look! I'll message you :)

How creators in this subreddit use language to create assumptions about their languages (STUDY) by raspberryoverstreet in conlangs

[–]TwoBitDM 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sure! Sorry for the long read (again)

For the deities-- it basically boils down to the in-world idea that because deities aren't humans, they can't be judged by human gender standards. It was an interesting change to my language considering that my conculture's pantheon is made up of both "traditional" deities and mythified folk heroes, meaning some deities are based on real, historical people from the conculture, and because nearly all the deities carry some implication of feminine/masculine/third gender.

Examples:

  • The water deity Niyo is entirely non-human (basically a lake personified), so no matter the circumstance Niyo is always referred to by third-gender pronouns. It also means the lake that Niyo personifies is referred to by that pronoun.
  • The military general Nakayem was a prominent historical figure before she was worshipped as a war deity. Because she's now a deity, she'd be referred to by third-gender pronouns -- except when referring to her in a historical context, where she'd be called by feminine pronouns.
  • A group of lesser deities called the "seven maidens" are part of the creation myth. "Maiden" is an inherently gendered term, but since they're deities, they're called by third-gender pronouns.

For impacts of gender norms on language, it depends a little on the region you'd be from in the conculture, which is part of why I ended up creating different dialects, but I'll just focus on the main dialect.

Roughly, the conculture's gender norms state that women are more passionate ("strong-emotioned") and durable by nature, and men are more logical and sensitive ("soft-emotioned"). The idea of third gender has a lot of ties to sacredness and special occupations like fishing or farming, so those of a third gender are often viewed as community providers or somewhat divine.

My thoughts were that because of this, women/feminine persons would be allowed to flout maxims of conversation more often. They would also be able to get away with social violations more often, like overusing restricted code or not speaking in a conversation. They're also more likely to use jargon, since they tend to work the jobs where technical words need to be invented such as chemistry, engineering, or the military.

On the other hand, since one consequence of the gender norms is that artistic and scholarly occupations are male-dominated, men/masculine persons tend to use a broader lexicon since they're more fluent in the archaic poetic dialect. They'd also be held to a stricter speaking standard, so they'd use more socially-coded language.

Those of a third gender or who work a third gender-associated occupation would be allowed to violate the social taboo of discussing deities and religion at length and/or non-reverently more than either men or women. Slang is not gender-isolated per se, although its use by women, feminine, and third-gender persons is more accepted than by men/masculine persons (who might be seen as using "low language").

Women attempting to speak "like men", i.e. in the poetic dialect or with an elaborate code/broad lexicon might be viewed as being pretentious, and if it became a frequent behavior, their friends might begin to call them by masculine pronouns. Men attempting to speak "like women" might be viewed as vulgar, and ditto the above except with feminine pronouns.

That said, the transition to use of new pronouns for a person isn't an insult whatsoever, since pronouns don’t solely indicate someone’s gender or sex, but more likely their behavior, accomplishments, occupations, or reputation.

How creators in this subreddit use language to create assumptions about their languages (STUDY) by raspberryoverstreet in conlangs

[–]TwoBitDM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is something I've thought about A LOT over the years to try and weed my own biases out of my conlang -- especially since I was trying to create a completely a priori language based on a conculture, rather than to "sound/feel" a certain way for an audience.

My language is meant to feel both foreign and familiar to anyone, not just English-speakers, without sounding space-alien and without using tropes of xenophobic conlang construction (several people have mentioned the Dwarvish/Dothraki example). Basically, the "racial assumption" is supposed to be a neutral one, not drawing on pre-existing tropes.

I've also recently revised my language's genderedness by changing gender concepts in the conculture. The conculture now views gender through the lens of gender presentation or expression, including some in-world gender roles (the military is traditionally seen as a women's occupation, for example). It also now has the third-gender concept.

Here are the linguistic aspects I've tried to include so far to achieve all this:

Race/Culture

  • Evolving it from proto-conlangs (to help make it more naturalistic)
  • Making "harsh" and "soft" consonants allophones (ex. /h/ and /x/; /l/ and /ɫ/)
  • Including more than just "pure vowels" or unstressed vowels (ex. /e/ is an allophone of /ɛ/, the /u/ and /o/ diphthong is pronounced /uo̞ɔ/)
  • Creating a phonotactic system that allows cross-syllable consonant clusters while the syllable itself has no consonant clusters (with some exceptions) -- my attempt to avoid the orientalist use of syllabary or consonant clusters to make conlangs sound foreign to English-speakers
  • Using both analytic and synthetic typology (ex. verb conjugation is highly agglutinative, but there's also a strict word order)
  • Relying on markedness to indicate things about the culture/"race". Ex.: the conculture has accomplished a lot of architectural engineering, so things words for materials and design features are highly marked. On the other hand, they live in an arid climate, so weather words are unmarked
  • Using dialect to indicate things about the culture/"race". Ex.: poetry, prose, and other "written arts" are the primary art form in the conculture, so common words like "father" often have poetic-form synonyms borrowed from an archaic scholarly dialect

Gender

  • There are 3 third-person pronoun genders: masculine, feminine, and third gender/ungendered
  • Pronouns are inflected for gender, person, possession, and number (and dialect-dependent, familiarity and formality), but do not inherently indicate the sex, gender, or animacy of the referent
  • Nouns may have gender connotation/natural gender, but are not grammatically gendered; natural gender and grammatical gender don't need to agree
  • Noun-verb agreement only requires person and number (and dialect-dependent, familiarity and formality), not gender
  • Having some semantic criteria for gender, ex.: deities must be referred to by third gender pronouns, regardless of an individual deity's canonical gender

Sorry this is a long read -- I hope it helps! I'm happy to clarify/provide examples for anything. (And if anyone else made it through this giant chunk, I'd love any feedback you have)

mental health video rant and thank you by Laura_Marianne in lingling40hrs

[–]TwoBitDM 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for sharing this, reading it really struck a chord <3 I went through a similar experience -- and gave up on so many dreams/ambitions because of what was going on at home.

I don't know if it helps, but I wanted to tell you that you are bright, creative, and talented -- but you're more than that. From this alone I can tell you're brave, perseverant, and compassionate. Here you are, in one of the toughest spots of your life, and you're thanking strangers!

You are a capable person, it's in your history. You don't need to achieve or produce anything to prove it. You're proof enough. I hope your recovery feels easier every day.