Introversion

.edu is not worldwide academia...

.ac.<Country Code> ???

ewanm wrote:.edu is not worldwide academia... .ac.<Country Code> ???

I stand corrected. Thank you.

mathematical "formulas" site:.ac.uk ... 4160
mathematical "formulae" site:.ac.uk ... 47,600

So in the UK formulae wins 10:1, and it does seem like this is one of those A vs B English things. Unfortunately for you (in the long term), the .edu hit figures are an order of magnitude greater, and plenty of Brits come here for school, post grad, etc.

Language errodes. And all the pedants can do is forestall the inevitable effects of entropy. (Young people are amazing and boundless sources of linguistic entropy!) Just look at Shakespeare in the original Folio (I have the facsimile) and compare usage and spelling to modern British English. Was the greatest playwright wrong? Or his typesetters (who liberally changed all kinds of spellings based on how many of each letters they had left for a given page, because type was limited and expensive)?

I must confess that I have no problem understanding his wonderful plays, despite the 400 year old chaotic spellings. Just takes a little practice. Plus everything is spelled phonetically, so if it looks strange, just sound it out and all will be revealed.

Yes, so no you only have stats for UK and USA, what about any other country?

ewanm wrote:Yes, so no you only have stats for UK and USA, what about any other country?

I've already shown you how to google these stats... You are free to pursue this if you feel righteous about it. I await your results breathlessly.

But sarcasm aside, it doesn't matter which of us has more hits on our side. My point was that both usages currently have large userbases. Only time will tell if one of them will be exiled to the OED as an historical footnote.

The U.S. uses approximately 75% of the internet last I heard. It is automatically tilted to looking like the U.S.A.'s usage will be correct.

Derekristow wrote:The U.S. uses approximately 75% of the internet last I heard. It is automatically tilted to looking like the U.S.A.'s usage will be correct.

You both fail to see my point. I'm *not* arguing one spelling is more correct than the other. I honestly couldn't care less which spelling anyone uses -- I'll know what they mean either way.

I'm arguing that *neither* spelling is "wrong".

And of course ad hoc google stats is a horrible way to collect reliable data. But it does prove that both spellings are widely used. And furthermore both are widely used at US academic institutions in connection with the word "mathematical". So ewanm's original points can hardly stand, now can they?

Pick another context and the usage might shift. But ewanm was berating me for abusing the language of mathematicians. Quite silly and untennable if you ask me.

I have had chats with tenured mathematicians in the math dept. where I was an undergrad. Most of them are not the least bit interested in concrete worldly details like spellings. If you don't want to discuss mathematical abstractions you will be wasting their time (and yours). Real mathematicians don't speak of their work in English; they use the alien language of mathematics. Learn some of it and you'll see that English is not up to the task (nor is any other spoken language). Words often just get in the way.

As I study Computer Science (Could be described as the application of mathematics), I'm pretty well grounded, and a lot of mathematicians I know use spelling and language (crosswords to cryptography) to keep their brains tuned.

I think that says something about US academic institutions, don't you?

I realise that I'm a bit late on this thread, but that 3 page discussion on maths is just plain wrong

At DG values above 5000, NeoThermic's graph approaches an inverse curve y = k/x rather than an exponentional decay. (at <5000 the number of DGs isn't the limiting factor). There's definitely some kind of a phase transition to inverse around the 5000 mark - rather than, at martin suggested, the 10 FPS mark

So martin was kinda right after all, as the first part of the graph _looks_ exponential with a half life of 5000 DGs, until the 10 fps point is reached, at which point it's clearly in the inverse phase

Nyah! Maths (and chemistry analogies) on all your asses

Cheers, Tripper

Well, I decided I didn't want to print out the decay graph and analyse the kind of regression that needs to be used...

Hey guys! I have a suggestion.

Who the hell cares?

You apparently. Since you found it relevant enough to ressurrect a thread dead for nearly 3 months

-snippety doo dah, snippety day-

Gothic wrote:Meh. As long as it's still on the first page, anything goes.

No. There's only one page of topics. Ergo in that situation normal rules apply, don't bump old topics for no reason.

NeoThermic

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