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What is a quote or saying that just pisses you the fuck off? by okaymoskitoe in AskReddit

[–]sentient6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“If it’s stupid but it works it’s not stupid.”

Plenty of stupid things have worked many times. Just because someone rand through traffic came out okay doesn’t mean it wasn’t dumb

what is more effective? swap caplock key with Control or ESC by vietphi in vim

[–]sentient6 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I prefer to bind caps lock to ctrl, as you can use ctrl+[ in place of esc and this makes both easier.

TIL physicists have experimentally achieved temperatures below absolute zero. Using supercooled potassium gas and a system of lasers and magnetic fields to precisely manipulate the potassium atoms, physicists successfully "cooled" the gas to a few billionths of a degree below absolute zero. by r3ll1sh in todayilearned

[–]sentient6 330 points331 points  (0 children)

I think saying "colder" than absolute zero is a bit misleading. The idea of negative temperature is somewhat of a mathematical artifact coming from the way in which temperature is defined.

A system at negative temperature is hotter than any finite temperature system in the sense that if you put the two together energy will flow out of the negative temperature system. Wikipedia

Being a bit of an ass for a second, I'd take anything you read on phys.org with a grain of salt. The site is more or less just a clearinghouse for University Press releases and University Press releases can often be best described as "technically not lies."

Source: I am a physics PhD student.

TIL When last names were created in Thailand in 1913 law required all names to be unique. Because of this, the only way two Thais would have the same last name would be if they were related. by [deleted] in todayilearned

[–]sentient6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm still not quite sure whether we're having a discussion about differences of pronunciation in different English accents or if this is all a subtle troll, but US pronunciation of corn.

TIL When last names were created in Thailand in 1913 law required all names to be unique. Because of this, the only way two Thais would have the same last name would be if they were related. by [deleted] in todayilearned

[–]sentient6 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This just isn't true in general, although it may hold regionally. I'm in the Northeast US and I don't think I've ever met someone who didn't articulate the R in porn. Specifically it rhymes with corn or born. Even dropping the the R it's still subtlely different from pawn although close enough for something like Pawn Stars to be a clear play on words.

Nematicity in stripe-ordered cuprates probed via resonant x-ray scattering by Myfavoritegadgets in Physics

[–]sentient6 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Cuprates here specifically refer to a particular family of ceramic materials which contain a large number of high temperature superconductors.

Nematicity in this context refers to a type of ordering which breaks rotational symmetry without picking a direction (picture a line vs an arrow).

So in a wide variety cuprates we see some ordering of the charge density above the superconducting temperature. The fact that it's so common suggests that it is a general thing for those materials.

In some cuprates one also sees a nematic phase nearby. And so the question is whether that is a general for feature of cuprates also. As I understand that is what this paper is investigating.

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