If the apocalypse comes, beep me.

Buffy ,'Selfless'


Natter .38 Special  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


billytea - Sep 15, 2005 4:55:36 pm PDT #7983 of 10002
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

ALL numbers are complex to me.

Behold... 3. Become mesmerised in its intricacies! You are powerless to resist its seductive fascination as it saps your will and makes you its willing slave!

This post brought to you by John Nash's Guide to Suggesting a Threesome.


Emily - Sep 15, 2005 4:57:22 pm PDT #7984 of 10002
"In the equation E = mc⬧, c⬧ is a pretty big honking number." - Scola

Don't you mean (3 + 0i), nudge nudge, wink wink?


Amy - Sep 15, 2005 4:58:29 pm PDT #7985 of 10002
Because books.

This is about polar forms, or how to express 3-4i as |z|(cos theta + i sin theta). I'm okay with the z (it's 5), but I'm a little unsure about theta.

This is like Charlie Brown's teacher talking to me.

~

Anyone watch all of Supernatural Tuesday or tonight? I watched the last 40 minutes, roughly, but I am baffled about what happened there with the dead girlfriend on the ceiling (?!) and the spontaneous combustion at the end. Can anyone fill me in?


Dana - Sep 15, 2005 4:59:27 pm PDT #7986 of 10002
I'm terrifically busy with my ennui.

Amy, what happened at the end is the same way their mother died in the first five minutes of the show.


Amy - Sep 15, 2005 5:01:05 pm PDT #7987 of 10002
Because books.

Ah! And, oh. That's sad. Thanks, Dana!

I might actually watch it for a few more episodes. I like spooky stuff. And they're both very pretty.


Sean K - Sep 15, 2005 5:01:39 pm PDT #7988 of 10002
You can't leave me to my own devices; my devices are Nap and Eat. -Zenkitty

Can anyone fill me in?

AmyLiz, that's a callback to the opening sequence. What happened to his girlfriend is exactly what happened to his mother, when he and his brother were very young boys.


Emily - Sep 15, 2005 5:02:07 pm PDT #7989 of 10002
"In the equation E = mc⬧, c⬧ is a pretty big honking number." - Scola

This is like Charlie Brown's teacher talking to me.

Oh, I know. Where the hell are we supposed to learn about complex numbers, anyway? It wasn't in the Trig for Dummies book I read. Is it a precalculus thing? Because those are the two (general track) math courses I didn't take, and I keep running into "Of course, we all remember how to do the blah blah..."


Trudy Booth - Sep 15, 2005 5:02:35 pm PDT #7990 of 10002
Greece's financial crisis threatens to take down all of Western civilization - a civilization they themselves founded. A rather tragic irony - which is something they also invented. - Jon Stewart

Behold... 3. Become mesmerised in its intricacies! You are powerless to resist its seductive fascination as it saps your will and makes you its willing slave!

This post brought to you by John Nash's Guide to Suggesting a Threesome.

to ACTUARIES


Dana - Sep 15, 2005 5:02:46 pm PDT #7991 of 10002
I'm terrifically busy with my ennui.

Yeah, I thought it wasn't bad fluff. And I've always liked Dean from Gilmore Girls. Who is not Dean on this show.


billytea - Sep 15, 2005 5:03:16 pm PDT #7992 of 10002
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

No! This is about polar forms, or how to express 3-4i as |z|(cos theta + i sin theta). I'm okay with the z (it's 5), but I'm a little unsure about theta. From my notes, apparently it's inverse tangent(-4/3), but then I should check to make sure the angle measurement I come up with is in the right quadrant, and that's where I get a little uncertain.

All true, and the quadrant you wind up in will be the lower right quadrant. The real part of your number (i.e. the 3) appears on your x axis, so you'll be right rather than left. The imaginary part (the -4, i.e. the coefficient of i) appears on the y axis, so you're lower rather than upper.