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Author Topic: Introduce Yourself: Newcomers and Lurkers, We Mean You!  (Read 755261 times)

facedad

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Re: Introduce Yourself: Newcomers and Lurkers, We Mean You!
« Reply #1040 on: January 04, 2008, 12:25:04 AM »
That's more awesome than I could've imagined.
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irma vep

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Re: Introduce Yourself: Newcomers and Lurkers, We Mean You!
« Reply #1041 on: January 04, 2008, 12:38:03 AM »
Love the subscript though, but why not superscript?

partnerr=(partner)(partner)...(partner) r times (assuming r is a positive integer).  Subscripts are just for labeling purposes.

However a preceding superscript, borrowing the usage of isotope notation, could be useful.  4partnershipr would represent the Hendersons from Big Love, a romantic partnership involving four people, and 3partnershipb would describe the law firm of Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe.

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skjerva

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Re: Introduce Yourself: Newcomers and Lurkers, We Mean You!
« Reply #1042 on: January 04, 2008, 01:10:45 AM »
Love the subscript though, but why not superscript?

partnerr=(partner)(partner)...(partner) r times (assuming r is a positive integer).  Subscripts are just for labeling purposes.

However a preceding superscript, borrowing the usage of isotope notation, could be useful.  4partnershipr would represent the Hendersons from Big Love, a romantic partnership involving four people, and 3partnershipb would describe the law firm of Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe.

That is awesome.  And being in the middle of watching Season 2 of Big Love, I am wondering if this means Bill pursues his fourth wife or if Bill is the fourth partner.
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ryanwtyler

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Re: Introduce Yourself: Newcomers and Lurkers, We Mean You!
« Reply #1043 on: January 04, 2008, 07:37:54 AM »
As mathematician, I tend to slap subscripts onto things that generally get the same label to remove confusion.  So how about partnerr to indicate a romantic partner and partnerb to indicate a business partner?

Would "partner of mine" be better?  Or maybe "the other half of my partnership?"  A single person can't really own a partnership, right?  Although this would run into problems if the number of partners excedes two.

as a mathematician, are you a mathematical realist?  do you think math was discovered or invented?  thanks

ryanwtyler

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Re: Introduce Yourself: Newcomers and Lurkers, We Mean You!
« Reply #1044 on: January 04, 2008, 07:39:58 AM »
Ryan, I use the term partner in the same way.  I actually tend to prefer to use the person's name, as the idea of someone being my partner still smacks of a possessiveness that I am uncomfortable with - they certainly are not mine - not to mention the awkwardness of having to say "one of my partners" when the good fortune of multiple partners is going on  :)

It's a little strange though when speaking with someone who doesn't know you or the person you are connected to by a significant relationship, to refer to that person by name. Yesterday, when I was introducing myself to my English comp class, I mentioned "my husband." It would have been strange if I'd just said "Uri." I question whether "my" always has to mean possession - don't you think it can be just indicative of a significant, often loving relationship? I don't own my children, but is "my children" offensive? "The children" sounds pretty cold. How would you briefly refer to Lara when speaking to someone who doesn't really know you or her?

classes started already?  so wrong!

part of using partner, instead of wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend is an issue of queerness.  i think that being able to introduce yourself, especially on a first day, and mention your husband speaks to the comfort of seemingly normal relationships (in this case, i'll call it hetero).  while many queer folk are comfortable enough to mention their queer relationship(s) on the first day of class, i'd expect there to be some wondering about how students accept such sharing.  for other queer folks, concerns about job security, student resistance, or community reprisals make "coming out" something unlikely and/or undesired.

avoiding the use of possessives with relationships is difficult.  i am hardly consistent in avoiding using them, and it is something that i struggle with even if i am trying to be mindful to avoid them.

with the example of "my children" versus "the children", i think "my children" clearly sounds less cold, but i would also submit that "adam and stevie" sounds even less cold than "my children". 

of course "my" doesn't always signify possession to the listener/reader but it does impart meaning - it seems pretty safe to claim that the meaning is possessive.  if you are at a park with some other people, your kids are playing with your neighbor's kids - you point out "your kids" differentiating them against "their kids" - that is possessive.  is that wrong?  no.  but does it say something about how families are understood, communities defined?  obviously yes.  tapping into the noble ideal illustrated in Griffith's The Country Doctor, doctor harcourt is running between his home with his own sick child and his neighbor's home [note the possessiveness of land ownership:] with their sick child, harcourt ends up saving the neighbor's child and his own dies, seemingly telling us something about a greater ideal of care and community, shared "parenting".  does this possessive use go toward solving that problem?  i wouldn't say it did, but i don't think it hurts:)

as far as referring to lara, i sometimes say lara and sometimes my partner or a partner, and i have called her my wife.  when i have called her my wife it is in a situation where it feels necessary for personal safety or to gain confidence or comfort of whoever is being interacted with, and i always feel gross when doing it. 

while i do take this stuff seriously, i reckon it is coming off as much less light-hearted than i live it (as with other exchanges on the boards:)



folks, folks, folks,  when people say "my girlfriend" or boyfriend or child, nobody and i mean nobody takes it to mean that you own them.  and (at least i think) it is quite a leap to feel awkward using a possessive in this context.

choatime

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Re: Introduce Yourself: Newcomers and Lurkers, We Mean You!
« Reply #1045 on: January 04, 2008, 11:52:40 AM »
as a mathematician, are you a mathematical realist?  do you think math was discovered or invented?  thanks

Well, I'm an applied mathematician, and so generally I don't really care so much.  One important idea of proving that something possesses a certain quality is to assume it does not have this quality and then show that this implies something that cannot be true given everything else we assume to be true.  If mathematical entities are truly "discovered" in the sense that they exist apart from a human's ability to describe them, then what about the concept of the odd number 4?   I can prove that 4 is not odd by assuming is odd and then showing that as an odd number 4=2k+1, where k is an integer.  However, this implies k=3/2, which is not an integer, and therefore 4 cannot satisfy the definition of an odd number.  Not the most elegant of proofs, but important to it is the notion of the odd number 4.  Can this thing exist?  Well, I'm talking about it, and so I suppose it does.  However, can it be "discovered"?  I don't really think so.  It was something I had to construct in order to probe the qualities possessed by the even number 4.

I guess I'd say I have a modified version of "God made the integers, but all else is the work of man" idea, but without the intent of besmirching things like irrational numbers or infinity.  There are certain concepts, like what the symbol 2 represents, that, well, they're so fundamental I don't think they really are even "discovered."  Maybe even like how Chomsky says there's something innate about language in a child's brain.  I hadn't really thought of it before, but if math is the language of science, then this has some credence.  However, if you look at something like the Cantor set, it seems pretty clear to me that it was invented.  Or maybe constructed is a better word.  This in no way diminishes its importance or beauty, though.

An equation that I try to solve represents an idealization of physical phenomenon; it came to me because certain simplifying assumptions were made about the shape of the molecules, and certain forces where included whereas others were excluded, and then I chose to apply these specific boundary conditions.  Did this equation exist before I wrote it down?  I suppose one could argue that it did, and indeed very different physical phenomena are often modeled by the same equations.  However, the context that led me to meet this equation is connected to it.  Furthermore, just because I can write down the solution to an equation does necessarily mean that I have a good understanding of its behavior.  This is something that is definitely discovered through experimentation.  And perhaps I will discover that for some parameter values, its prediction doesn't match the physical phenomenon at all, indicating that one of those forces I ignored turned out to be pretty significant after all.   

alexarch

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Re: Introduce Yourself: Newcomers and Lurkers, We Mean You!
« Reply #1046 on: January 04, 2008, 12:02:25 PM »
Choa, if you haven't already, please read A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines by Janna Levin.  The concept behind the original question is in there.

ryanwtyler

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Re: Introduce Yourself: Newcomers and Lurkers, We Mean You!
« Reply #1047 on: January 04, 2008, 12:08:29 PM »
Also read "new directions in the philosophy of mathematics"

choatime

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Re: Introduce Yourself: Newcomers and Lurkers, We Mean You!
« Reply #1048 on: January 04, 2008, 12:35:47 PM »
Ah yes, I heard an interview with Janna Levin about that book, but then I forgot about it.  Thanks for the reminder, Alex.

Ryan, are your interests more mathematical or philosophical?  What your feelings about mathematical realism?

ryanwtyler

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Re: Introduce Yourself: Newcomers and Lurkers, We Mean You!
« Reply #1049 on: January 04, 2008, 12:42:12 PM »
I dont have enough expertise in either.  I just find the subject interesting. I think I agree with hilary putnam who is a realist