[2012-Mar-13] Math!

[Kimra]

I think this is all very silly. No-one who knows things about math see anyone's penis but their own anyway.

[DonRetrasado]

Unless you go to the gym.

[GUTCHUCKER]

Or prison?

[Klip]

Or watch porn.

[GUTCHUCKER]

In prison

[Kimra]

Klip is the only one who's supplied a reasonable explanation.

[Apocalyptus]

I think this is all very silly. No-one who knows things about math see anyone's penis but their own anyway.

This is discriminatory to all those gay mathematicians out there. What about them, Kimra?

[Kimra]

I think this is all very silly. No-one who knows things about math see anyone's penis but their own anyway.

This is discriminatory to all those gay mathematicians out there. What about them, Kimra?

Wait. You think because they're gay they're getting some? Fool woman.

[Apocalyptus]

Oh so the joke was that mathematicians never get laid? Well that makes more sense, and also completely went over my head.
My apologies, Kimra.

[Kimra]

I'm not surprised you didn't get it. It was a terribly original joke after all.

[Kaharz]

Easy, Hoss.

Angle units are generally considered to be dimensionless. A radian, for example, is the ratio of a circumference to a radius, so it's length over length.

Meh, still a unit even if it is a derived, dimensionless one. There is a big difference between the sine of say 3.14 radian and 3.14 degrees. It matters what units you are using even if they are dimensionless. Mostly I was just peeved that gobaskof apparently didn't bother to read to previous explanations of the joke and was being all high and mighty physicist and seemed to be scoffing at those who weren't.

[gobaskof]

Kaharz, please learn to understand sarcasm, and a sense of humour. The joke wears off when one has to explain it, but the point was to be overly anal in a clearly sarcastic way, then complain about not being invited to parties. I assume you are also not invited to parties? That is probably because you're a grumpy ass.

However, if you do want to be anal then I will point out that mathematically it only really makes sense to talk about sine in terms of radians. Calculus, Euler's formula, small angle approximation, Taylor series, everything in maths uses radians. They are crap for every day situations so people use degrees, in maths we use radians. Radians are a ratio are a dimensionless quantity and have no units.

[GUTCHUCKER]

What the fuck?

[Dane Raider]

I'm guessing this means gobaskof is not really a physicist.

[Kaharz]

Kaharz, please learn to understand sarcasm, and a sense of humour.

Sarcasm can be hard to pick up on when you have no non-verbal cues to go by. Please be more clear when you are attempting to be sarcastic.

I may not be anywhere close to being a physicist or mathematician, but I did have to take some of both as part of engineering. I can't say whether mathematicians and physicists only use radians, but in my classes and in the real world, we use both radians and degrees. The mathematicians and physicists I do know typically use whatever is easiest. We used degree measurements far more commonly, since as you said, they are often much easier to work with. I don't think I ever saw the angle a vector departs from perpendicular to the direction of gravity expressed in radians in any kinematics problems.

Oh and I do get invited to parties. When I'm surrounded by my friends, I don't act like a grumpy asshole for the simple reason that they are my friends and I don't choose friends who annoy the crap out of me. When there are people who do they usually annoy my friends too and my grumpiness is sometimes exploited by my friends to drive those people away.