@weekend_editor@mathstodon.xyz
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weekend_editor

@weekend_editor@mathstodon.xyz

Retired physicist, after a career in machine learning & stats mostly for cancer drug discovery. Now blogging about stats in the news.

Avatar: convergence basins in the complex plane of Newton's algorithm searching for the cube roots of unity. (After a NYT column by https://mathstodon.xyz/@stevenstrogatz, long ago.)

Header: Quote from GK Chesterton, London Daily News, 1905-Aug-16 on epistemic humility and the ability to say "I am wrong" as the foundation of idealism.

#statistics #physics #r

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pauldrye, to random
@pauldrye@spacey.space avatar

So this happened. Given the colour and the fact they were working with nitric acid, I'm feeling somewhat doubtful this was (relatively benign) nitrous oxide.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd11xzjkvk0o

weekend_editor,
@weekend_editor@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@cstross @mmby @nyrath @pauldrye

It sure LOOKS like a cloud of NO2 -- at sufficiently high temperature, it has that red/orange color. No fun to breathe, as it makes nitric acid from water in lung tissue.

A fertilizer plant would plausibly be working with ammonia, which can produce NO2 by the Ostwald process (used for making nitric acid, and this apparently was a plant that did that):

4 NH3 + 7 O2 -> 4 NO2 + 6 H2O

Or a fertilizer plant might also have nitric acid around, and some knucklehead didn't understand to keep it away from copper fittings:

4 HNO3 + Cu -> Cu(NO3)2 + 2 NO2 + 2 H2O

Those are the ones that come to mind as bulk reactions likely to be in a fertilizer plant. There are others, but then you have to figure out why a fertilizer plant might be doing that.

But the spokesperson who said it was "nitrous oxide" (which is transparent) or the reporter who mis-heard it need to have a word with some industrial chemists.

johncarlosbaez, to random
@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Is there a chance that the physicist Oliver Heaviside was really Wolverine?

image/jpeg

weekend_editor,
@weekend_editor@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@johncarlosbaez

Well, that might explain why he kept obsessively painting his fingernails in his later years.

Maybe corrosion-resistant paint for the adamantium?

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

New blog entry: Harmless Fun! https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/05/harmless-fun.html

weekend_editor,
@weekend_editor@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@cstross

There is a promising line of thought you might wish to consider:

Ayn Rand is a Reptiloid.
Reptiloids are dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs are birds.
Birds aren't real.

Therefore, Ayn Rand isn't real.

gutenberg_org, to books
@gutenberg_org@mastodon.social avatar

English self-taught mathematician and physicist Oliver Heaviside was born in 1850.

He invented a new technique for solving differential equations, independently developed vector calculus, and rewrote Maxwell's equations in the form commonly used today. He significantly shaped the way Maxwell's equations are understood and applied in the decades following Maxwell's death. His practical experience in telegraphy provided a foundation for his later theoretical work.

Cover of Electromagnetic theory by Heaviside, Oliver, 1850-1925 Publication date 1922 Topics Electromagnetic theory, Vector analysis, Electric waves Publisher London : Benn

weekend_editor,
@weekend_editor@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@gutenberg_org

He was an unusual man, who had some unfortunate mental health problems in later life: signing his name with the "title" suffix "W.O.R.M.", painting his nails pink (more unusual then than it would be now), replacing his furniture with granite blocks, and so on. (See Wikipedia, below.)

On the other hand, I sorta like the idea that there's a lot more room for weirdness in the world than we normally allow for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside#Later_years_and_views:~:text=In%20later%20years,3%5D%3A%E2%80%8Axx

amoroso, to Lisp
@amoroso@fosstodon.org avatar

I didn't realize ACM makes available the full-ish archive of the LISP Pointers journal SIGPLAN published from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s. It contains most of the papers of most of the issues, an historical treasure of practical value.

https://dl.acm.org/loi/sigplan-lisppointers

#lisp #CommonLisp #retrocomputing

weekend_editor,
@weekend_editor@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@amoroso

I was just thinking how much I missed this, when it folded in the 90s!

weekend_editor,
@weekend_editor@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@amoroso

I may have some in a box around here somewhere. You can have them if you want, though given they're online, I dunno why anyone would want them.

Gotta find 'em first, though.

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