The Geniuses' Thread

A Neurotic

jumpguy wrote: »

Ohh God this is frustrating. It's the simplest co-ordinate geometry question (of the line) EVER.

Find the perpendicular distance from (2, -4) to 3x - 4y - 17

Yeah so as you'd expect I just plugged it into the formula and bam, I came out with 1. 1 seemed like a grand answer.

Check back of the book, the answer is 3. WTF. I've checked everything like 3 times... :eek:

HAAAAAAAAAAAAALP!

Those answers is wrong sometimes.

Very rarely, but sometimes.

jumpguy

Davidius wrote: »

I haven't actually checked what you're doing but you did remember to use the absolute value in the formula, right? (Ex: |-3| = |3|= 3)

Ja mann, it's the entire top line that's absolute (as opposed to every individual product), right?

|ax1 + by1 + c|/Roota^2-+b^2

Instead of |ax1| + |by1| + |c|

Gwan Dave, do it out. Ya won't be 2 seconds. :P If you get one the book may be wrong...

Pygmalion

Easiest way to check would be to draw the line and mark the point, then measuere the distance.

Davidius

The book's probably wrong then.

EDIT:
Got 1.

Richard Cranium

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar... and doesn't.




:pac:

Davidius

Richard Cranium wrote: »

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar... and doesn't.




:pac:

You know I've never actually read up on that thought experiment so I don't really know what it's about.

To Wikipedia!

sock puppet

Lets integrate 2x between 10 and 13.

Pygmalion

Hexadecimal counting systems are awesome.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I give them a D

syncosised

I started learning Python today by solving Project Euler problems. Pyg would be proud!

syncosised

syncosised wrote: »

I started learning Python today by solving Project Euler problems. Pyg would be proud!

Same here - a week or two ago. (Well, I'd looked at Python before, but not for doing anything proper).

Had a weird thought today - what if there was a quantum in-between state between the Universe being quantum and the Universe not being quantum? It's a nice paradox methinks.

Insect Overlord

Davidius

In fairness you don't have to have that deep of an understanding to get that joke.

And what's wrong with having no friends?

Pygmalion

Davidius wrote: »

In fairness you don't have to have that deep of an understanding to get that joke.

True, the joke is just that letters can't talk right?

Davidius

Pygmalion wrote: »

True, the joke is just that letters can't talk right?

Actually I think the joke is that one's a Roman and the other's Greek, which is probably funny in some way.

I'd say it's open to interpretation though.

Mushy

So on the advice of Phlegms...any other history people here (bar him of course)? What be your favourite areas of history?

phlegms

Mushy wrote: »

So on the advice of Phlegms...any other history people here (bar him of course)? What be your favourite areas of history?

I'm a complete history whore, I love it all. Well, anything past 1000ad that is. Anything before that is a little too near ancient history for me which I kinda loathe. Gonna read an obscene amount of books on the Napoleonic wars during the summer for funsies. Also need to brush up on my Crimean and Boer wars. But again, once I get finished with college history stuff for the summer I'm delving into a couple of books on them.

Pygmalion

Mushy wrote: »

So on the advice of Phlegms...any other history people here (bar him of course)? What be your favourite areas of history?

tbh

Mushy

phlegms wrote: »

I'm a complete history whore, I love it all. Well, anything past 1000ad that is. Anything before that is a little too near ancient history for me which I kinda loathe. Gonna read an obscene amount of books on the Napoleonic wars during the summer for funsies. Also need to brush up on my Crimean and Boer wars. But again, once I get finished with college history stuff for the summer I'm delving into a couple of books on them.

Deadly, theres still loads of areas I wanna know about. Would be in similar vein to yourself regards interest areas, ancient history is tedious. My preferred area is Russian history, and to be even more common about it, just after the Revolution. Prefer social history in comparison with the others, specially as I do sociology as well. Will be weird never been taught history again. Have a load of books ready to read for after exams though, and more to buy.

thatone!

Mushy wrote: »

So on the advice of Phlegms...any other history people here (bar him of course)? What be your favourite areas of history?

Oh I love history! Really interested in Irish history, especially the 1803 rebellion. Irish history in general I find incredibly interesting to read about, can't wait to start 2nd year now!

Arcade Panda

I history....I know I dropped out of it but I still really like it! I did my history project for my leaving cert on Pol Pot's regime in Cambodia, specifically on a prison camp called S-21. 7,000 people interned and only 7 survived. Chilling stuff but very interesting.

I love the history of Northern Ireland. I think it should become compulsory to learn about the troubles in schools. It's a massive part of our past that a lot of people don't seem to understand.

I love Native American history, Indian, African and Chinese history aswell. Most of the books I read are History books.

I really want to get into learning about countries like Finland and Norway's histories too. I havn't a clue about them and I'd say they could be interesting.

Mushy

Chinese history is going to be one I'll try to take on over the summer. Don't know tap about it. Scandanavia would be cool, will try that at some point in life.

For those in Trinity, what areas do ye cover in 2nd year? UCD one is weird, makes it unfortunate cos there was a lot I wanted to do but couldn't.

ohthebaby

I am another history lover. I can tolerate all this middle ages stuff I'm doing in college at the minute but at times it makes me want to cry of boredom. I am more of a modernish history person.

I love love love modern Irish history, I could sit and read about it for days, which is what I plan on doing over the summer. Home Rule, Sinn Fein, establishment of the Free State would be my favourite historical things to read about it the whole wide world. And Michael Collins and Parnell are my fav history peeps to read about ever. The other day something came up at home about work houses and I got all excited. I hadn't thought of the famine in ages and I love reading about that whole period.

I like the two world wars as well, I went on a very interesting trip around Belgium and parts of France to visit places that were very prominent in them and that made me want to learn even more. The whole evolution of warfare in the 20th century as well is so exciting. They went from trenches to planes to atomic bombs. It's just all so interesting to read about.

Also the French Revolution.

And, glad to see the artsy students take over from all this maths / science talk. Go us.

ohthebaby

Mushy wrote: »

Deadly, theres still loads of areas I wanna know about. Would be in similar vein to yourself regards interest areas, ancient history is tedious. My preferred area is Russian history, and to be even more common about it, just after the Revolution. Prefer social history in comparison with the others, specially as I do sociology as well. Will be weird never been taught history again. Have a load of books ready to read for after exams though, and more to buy.

Completely forgot about Russia. A very interesting country to learn about. And I love the sounds of all the Russian names.

Mushy

ohthebaby wrote: »

Also the French Revolution.

And, glad to see the artsy students take over from all this maths / science talk. Go us.

Haha, I'm doing pre-French Revolution right now. For a module where I thought I'd be extremely bored, its actually compelling stuff. A lot of modern affairs could learn a thing or two, which is probably why I find history so interesting.

Russian history is, I won't lie, absolutely bonkers.Especially how Stalin came to take over and the lengths he went. As for his reign....disgusting man, vle creature but ridiculously interesting to learn. Was clarified the other day that it was he who signed off the Katyn massacre. An extra few thousand murders to his name.

Davidius

Ah now I liked history back during the Leaving Cert. Just haven't read anything on it lately. Sure it's sort of like maths except not at all but you know what I mean (but you don't really).

phlegms

Mushy wrote: »

Deadly, theres still loads of areas I wanna know about. Would be in similar vein to yourself regards interest areas, ancient history is tedious. My preferred area is Russian history, and to be even more common about it, just after the Revolution. Prefer social history in comparison with the others, specially as I do sociology as well. Will be weird never been taught history again. Have a load of books ready to read for after exams though, and more to buy.

My problem with Ancient history is that its too hard to contextualise what information we have. Too much of it is left to guess work and it entirely depends on our interpretation of what little facts we have. Its kinda the same reason why I always hated dinosaurs and shíte like that. Because essentially our knowledge of dinosaurs is pretty much just a really detailed artists impression :pac:

Hopefully I can graduate with a decent enough grade at the end of my degree so I can do some sort of post-grad or masters. That would be absolutely lovely. Would love to lecture in it one day.

Davidius

phlegms wrote: »

Its kinda the same reason why I always hated dinosaurs and shíte like that.

phlegms

Davidius wrote: »

Soz, but they suck.

jefreywithonef

Mushy wrote: »

So on the advice of Phlegms...any other history people here (bar him of course)? What be your favourite areas of history?

Early 20th century Irish history would be mine, but because of Leo Tolstoy I've a real urge to get some books on 18th and 19th century Russia.

I love stuff about Prohibition-era America as well.

Arcade Panda

phlegms wrote: »

Soz, but they suck.

:eek: Dinosaurs do not suck! Dinosaurs rock!:cool: