Mal ,'Out Of Gas'
[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risque (and frisque), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.
So, what I'm getting is that i is a hidden doorway to Negative Land, somwhere between A and B?
Well, numbers are arbitrary. We decided that two apples are two apples and not, say, four apples. All that matters is that we're internally consistent within the system we've devised. One day someone tried to come up with the square root of -1 and realized he couldn't do it. So he said, fuck it, let's call it i. Time for a beer.
I think that's how it went down.
ETA: Thanks, libkitty.
Erin, I edited your post because you're left an t i unclosed. Which segues neatly into answering Lee's list question:
As well as the quickedit
*
which turns
* items into
You can use
i text
to italicise
text,
Erin, or
> to perform traditional quoting like
traditional quoting.
Thanks, ita. So (doohickey i doohickey) does italics, but what does the trad quotes> I've never been able to figure that one out.
And so i is basically -- we don't know -- it's i?
Oh, by the way, it appears I should live in Vermont or Oregon, both states that I enjoy thoroughly, have lived in before, and would not mind living in again. The rest of New England and, apparently, one town in Wisconsin, are runners-up. For some reason, Alaska does not appear to exist, which is kind of funny because I love Juneau with a passion, except for the ice.
Well, numbers are arbitrary. We decided that two apples are two apples and not, say, four apples. All that matters is that we're internally consistent within the system we've devised.
Isn't it more that *numbers* are constant -- 2 apples will always be 2 apples and not twice as many, not ever -- but that the *symbols* used to describe them are arbitrary? The 2, the 4, the i?
OK, the best sort of example that I can come up with is that there are some problems in engineering and physics where, within solving the problem, you need to find the solutions to some equations like ax^2 + bx + c = 0, and then take those solutions and plug them into some other formula. The numbers you started out with are all real numbers, and the numbers you'll get, once you're done with everything you're doing, will be real numbers, but at that step, the solutions to that ax^2 + bx +c = 0 equation might be complex. If you limit yourself to the real number system, you'll get to that equation, and then you'll have to say "This equation has no solutions," and you won't be able to go any further. If you look at the complex solutions, you'll be able to continue with the bigger problem.
I must get ready to go to a movie. Life is rough that way on three day weekends.
What Steph said. I understand numbers are symbols, because letters are words are arbitrary agreed-upon signifiers, too.
but what does the trad quotes>
What are you trying to ask here? It may not be coming out.
Isn't it more that *numbers* are constant -- 2 apples will always be 2 apples and not twice as many, not ever -- but that the *symbols* used to describe them are arbitrary? The 2, the 4, the i?
Yeah, that's what I think, but I think there are some people who believe even that part's not true.
Basically. how do you do trad quotes? Not italics.