sethoflagos

My apologies. I should have avoided all ambiguity by referring to him as Doctor Watson 🤭

You're thinking about "A Catcher in the Rye" Hardly! Holden Caulfield is a puerile narcissist; a young Trump in the making. Similarly destructive of course, but quite a different character type. Do you identify with this rôle? ... and drink from the cattle trough of doom? No thanks. Not when the hedgerows have brambles and elderberries a-plenty.

Not if he wishes to remain in the priesthood. Then follow that path if you believe it's the one for you. Rubbish. One channels it, and all other negative impulses into positive, constructive action. Or you sit, wallowing in self-pity, and pretend that that somehow makes you a philosopher. Self-flagellation? Not for me. John's a pathetic, self-pitying wimp. I could however identify with Helmholtz, perhaps. Except that I chose exile in Nigeria rather than the Falkland Islands. Actually, when I think about it, the parallels are... interesting.

Then by the same token, you must fail to understand it too. Pointless and off topic. Why are they mutually exclusive? The priest promises relief from hardship in the afterlife; the engineer strives to deliver it in the present. Sorry, I don't do angst. As a palliative I'd recommend The Roads to Freedom. Both more constructive and on topic.

A rather extreme and melodramatic example, but with the appropriate life insurance policy... Kin altruism certainly shaped (or excused) many of the (free?) choices I made in my adult life; willingly accepting the responsibility of raising a brood of good little numerate atheists, well-equipped to fend for themselves in uncertain times. Strangely, I found that adapting to meet the economic constraints imposed by family responsibility did not have to compromise my personal freedom. Quite the reverse. Which leads me to suspect that just as one defines one's own purpose in life, one can also define what freedoms one can indulge in. However, there are always trade-offs. No free lunches and all that. I'm rather bored by the free-will debate. Evolution has given me the very strong impression that my significant choices are made freely, and it suits me to accept that at face value if not as an article of faith then at least by Occam's Razor. The principle of personal responsibility for one's actions seems a lot more useful. I'm going to call your 'mystical, god-shaped dimension' Luilekkerland; declare that there's nothing fundamental about it (it's just a childish fantasy); and leave Darwin to decide who made the best evolutionary choice: the priest or the engineer. The Epstein files are full of those weak-willed enough to be lured into Luilekkerland. Reality has now bitten a few of them on the bum. (Looking at you, Andy Mount-Battenburg)

We often get meningitis outbreaks in Northern Nigeria at this time of year where for the strains involved, high temperature, dust, and low humidity have been identified as significant factors. Perhaps for the strain(s) involved in the Kent outbreak, climatic conditions are similarly involved.

Responsibility is thrust upon us whether we would wish it or not. The way things seem to be going, 'most of us' need to grow up before reality bites us on the bum. Some perhaps. @DavidWahl 's definition of freedom is more the mediaeval utopian idealism of a Cockayne or Luilekkerland. I share some aspects of it myself to a certain extent. Who wouldn't want to live in a land where: It's an age old fantasy, still shared by many.

A normal Tuesday in Washington DC then.

But what of those who occupied that garden of Eden before you? Or those who would seek to displace you from it? What of their freedom? Biology has shown us that vacant, habitable niches are highly unstable. The occupant has to first fight for it and then defend it. ... or rely on some external agency to sacrifice some of their freedom to defend yours. So freedom only counts if it doesn't involve invasion, self-defence, gardening, or cooking? What about constructing shelter? Collecting firewood? Water and sanitation? Health care? ... perhaps that external agency would sacrifice more of their own precious freedom to supply you with some or all of these also? But it seems to me a) you have no inclination to repay that external agency (which we can call 'society') for the freedoms they have given away in order to create yours; and b) I cannot distinguish your use of the word 'freedom' from the general usage of the word 'comfort'. If that particular individual or group have chosen to sub-contract out responsibility for the vast majority of significant life choices to an external agency in return for: ... the copious free time and resources of a (not entirely metaphorical) prison cell. Your post reminded me that after 50 years thinking about it off and on, I still can't decide between Sartre and Camus on this. In short, Sartre’s answer would not be a fixed goal, but a task: ... to continually define oneself through free, responsible action in a meaningless universe, through communication, political involvement, and commitment to others. ie. to be a constructive, adult participant in society. Camus’ “purpose” would not be to define oneself, but to experience life intensely, lucidly, and defiantly—like Sisyphus, who finds contentment in endlessly pushing his rock. (or performing mathematical feats in his prison cell). Neither of these exercises in freedom are the safe and comfortable options. They both come with serious responsibilities.

... pose, perhaps?

For best results, you need a mildly abrasive component. Anybody's kitchen solution is usually given as a paste made from baking soda mixed with a few drops of lemon juice. Personally, I'd reach for the Duraglit as I always have a tin of it somewhere. When clean and dry, a dab of Vaseline on all bearing surfaces (eg threads etc) The 'blue' corrosion products appear to be coming from the 'thing' on the bottom right that appears to be made out of something else (phosphor bronze filter maybe?). The 'white' bits look more zincy or aluminiumy to me. So they're probable a scale coming from somewhere else too.

How many of the above components of the balanced, healthy lifestyle promoted by your inserted document are adhered to in appropriate proportion by committed bodybuilders do you think?

'Can I introduce you to my wife?' If I don't spot the tell-tales, the better half will.

Does this seem to confirm my original post? It occurred to me last night that it implied that helium should therefore have three 'liquid' phases: Helium I (2.7K to 4.2K @ ambient pressure) - a normal cryogenic liquid phase. Helium II (superfluid part) Helium II (BEC part) 'Condensate' is pretty much a wastebasket category in my industry for any liquid that has emerged from a condenser, and I've been caught out before confusing the composition of one condensate with that of another. Perhaps I'd been caught out again. However https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium contains the following that seems to confirm that Helium II is indeed a mixed phase state, albeit a somewhat different mix to what I had in mind. Why on earth did they pick 'condensation' as a name for this phase change? In the case of Helium II it leads to a decrease(!!!) in density from what one would expect. It's confusing the hell out of me and I'll bet I'm not the only one.

Strictly speaking, no. It's more of a mixed state, part condensate, part superfluid. The two properties are not synonymous and the relative proportions vary with temperature. Is this right? Or have I wrongly been assuming that the term 'condensate' referred specifically to BEC when it was being used more generally (ie for 'normal' liquid Helium)?

I had much the same impression of New England when I worked there (Maine, mainly). For years, I tried to avoid using sugar entirely except for that naturally contained in the fruit and veg I was using, but that meant I was rarely successful with eg. piccalilli (which I love) which really needs the sugar to keep undesirable microbes at bay. As with most things, I think it's a question of balance. I tend to stick to the BBC and Indian or Nigerian cuisine websites for recipe ideas as these are less inclined to wander off into the sickly sweet territory of most English language foodie sites.

Strictly speaking, no. It's more of a mixed state, part condensate, part superfluid. The two properties are not synonymous and the relative proportions vary with temperature. Note that the helium 4 nucleus is zero spin and therefore readily adopts condensate characteristics at a relatively high temperature. In contrast, the helium 3 nucleus is a fermion and can only take on a boson character by forming a cooper pair with another He-3 nucleus. This can only occur at much lower temperatures.

Much clearer! Thank you very much!

Unfortunately, your 'simple' involves a notation system that didn't make it into Chem Eng courses in the '70s. Think crayons and picture books. That's more my level. 😄

Unfortunately, Nigeria doesn't meet the winter chilling requirements for apricot flowering. However, a 600g mango can be had for about 40p and has a similar texture, so I made a batch of flapjacks with some diced mango I'd let dry off a bit in the fridge. Really nice! The fruity taste and slight acidity certainly take it to the next level, so thanks for that!

Must have been a partridge

... so a particular unitary operator cannot switch between Model Ts, As, Bs etc in the same production line?

This would imply that it was possible to create multiple exact copies of the system - if you can do it once, then why not do it again and again? It works in the classical world - we can design an operation that takes in arbitrary states of raw materials and converts them to multiple 'copies' of a predetermined state (Model T Ford, von Neumann probe etc). But if we try shrinking this principle down to the quantum level, we start running into some issues with the mechanics. The erasure of arbitrary information in the input states implies eg a loss of entropy from the universe (see No-deleting theorem) and teleporting the output states to some storage destination has the potential to break causality (see No-cloning theorem). And that's just the stuff that I think I can almost get my head around.

If we're limited to the typical geographical literacy of US citizenry, how do we stand with say, Belgium? Ostend log forever of gold net so.

A recent thread on the d''Alembert Operator had me scuttling back to this thread intent on trying to reconcile my previous work with the apparently unrelated Acoustic Wave equation. Wikipedia ''explains'' it with the following graphic which I found a little hard to follow: So I went back to scratch (Ideal Gas Equation) and plodded through it step by step (I'd be very grateful if someone would check this. Symbology as OP but clear enough, I think) Leaving aside the issue of sonic velocity variability, there are still some issues that puzzle me. The assumption of uxdux/dx ~ 0 I buy principally by virtue of the desire to find an analytic solution, though it does set a limit on applicability. The Taylor approximation of dP/P ~ dP/P0 makes less sense though. What's the problem with the substitution Y = ln(P/P0)? You would still obtain the preferred form of wave equation albeit not explicitly in P, and lose a seriously limiting constraint. Good enough for some HiFi applications perhaps, but nothing more intense than that. Unnecessary? Above all, I thought this form of wave equation implied that the mixed derivatives d2P/dxdt and d2ux/dxdt both must equal zero, which would (via Eqns 02.14,15,19,20) zero all the 2nd order derivatives. A beacon in the fog would be much appreciated here.