imdow123

The following situation happens to me regularly and makes me go crazy. I don't know if it will make sense but please try to read it and help me. It really makes me go crazy. I was reading an etymology book. One of the chapter's name was "words about common ideas". This started a train of thought. What does "common ideas" refer to? I realized that there can be a lot of ideas. Then I stared asking that how can you classify or organize all ideas? I looked up list of academic disciplines on wikipedia. The way it classifies knowledge is into Humanities, Social Science, Formal Science and Natural Science. On what basis have we classified knowledge like this? Can we do something similar to classify ideas? And my mind is filled with all these questions that I have no answers to. Then I stared reading each chapter's name from the book's index. The chapter names were "words about common ideas", "words about common phenomena", "words about everyday attitude". I started wondering what is the difference between "ideas", "phenomena" and "attitude"? How do we classify words into these three categories? A phenomena can be an idea and attitude can be a phenomena. So how does the book categorize words into these three chapters? And my mind is filled with all these questions that I have no answers to. It took me a lot of introspection to find out what's bugging me inside my head. I guess my problem is about organization and classification. Hope my questions make sense. Please give me an answer that can make my mind peaceful again.

In almost all colleges, a whole semester is spent on teaching algorithms in a computer science course. It starts with teaching some common algorithms used for sorting, searching in graphs etc. Then they teach different techniques like divide and conquer, dynamic programming etc. Yes, algorithms appear across all domains. But they don't teach different techniques to solve problems like in a computer science course is done. Techniques like divide and conquer, dynamic programming, greedy algorithms etc. is not taught elsewhere althought I guess they might be useful in all domains. Why?

I've just been wondering, why do we study algorithms in a computer science course. Algorithms are just a way to precisely define steps to solve a particular problem. This is not just important in computer science but basically in any field. I mean, algorithms just teach us how to solve problems step-by-step in a well-defined manner. These skills are useful not just for computer science but for every branch. Then why just computer science course has an algorithms course? Why not others?

Makes sense now. I have another question. There seems to be different algorithms to find power series, asymptotic series and formal power series. What does formal power series of a function mean? Won't that be same as power series? Why are there different algorithms to compute each type of series?

Okay, maybe I misunderstood the article. Then what is "formal" power series? WIll the techniques differ in finding power series, asymptotic series and formal power series? By techniques, I mean "proper" algorithms used in computer science as I'm interested in implementing these. Thank You!

What's the difference between these three? I read the Wikipedia article and all I understand is:- Formal power series are infinite and do not necessarily converge Power series converge Asymptotic series is converge after finite steps Am I right? Also if we want to implement these (I mean using a computer), there are different algorithms for each? Why is that? All feel like they do the same thing but I read many algorithms to compute formal power series, asmyptotic expansion etc. Why?

Then why is drinking so common in Europe (I only know about Europe)? Also it seems as if no one is sure about it's health affects.

Well I just crossed 18 and I was wondering what are the effects of alcoholic drinks on health. In my country, consuming alcohol is not that common. Some people regard it as bad ethics and mostly are for ill-behaving people while some consume it but only in parties and pubs. While in Europe, America and most countries it is a common beverage. People perhaps consume it frequently. I'm rather confused of whether it is healthy or not. Being a science forum I would like a rather scientific answer. Thank You!

I recently noticed that people have different kind of feelings towards their crush compared to other girls. Towards a boy's crush, he has less feelings of sex and more about caring, loving etc. while for other attractive girls he doesn't have feelings of caring but more of sex, kissing etc. I mean there is a considerable difference of emotions towards a girl you like and other attractive girls. Am I right? If yes, why is this?

Cartoons, games and stuff like these are mainly directed for kids and not for adults. Why is that? For me, sometimes they are interesting. They are interesting piece of art. Few cartoons have clever humour. Games also have nice references and ingenious plots. But still I here people saying - "You are grown up now! Stop with cartoons and games". Mind you, these are not said to me. I'm still young. But I was wondering why adults don't enjoy such things. Does the humour become too childish? If yes, then what exactly is childish humour? I'm looking for an elaborate answer. Thank You!

Is it only because of being a majority people talk about movies etc. I find people acting cool when they make some pop culture reference or make a movie quote. I think this has a different reason. Maybe the characters in the film were cool so quoting them makes people feel like they are being cool too.

Basically temperature is a measure of direction of flow of heat from one body to other. So according to this definition it should depend on physical properties of the bodies and not be a basic state itself. That is why, I asked if it is a fundamental state or a derived state.

I just realised my doubt more clearly. Can't temperature be derived from pressure, volume and moles? If yes, then the problem can be solved.

Everything is clear except this. I should've come to the point earlier. Why do we need temperature as a variable of state? Can't temperature be derived from Pressure, Volume and number of moles? I understood everything else. Just clear my concept of temperature.

Thanks for your effort. Please carry on. Observable variables are I suppose volume, pressure and moles. Please shed some light on temperature too. Is it a deduced relationship from existing variables? Why / why not?

As my question seems unclear I would like to rephrase it and make it clearer. I will also tell what I understand by specific terms, please correct me if I'm wrong. Thermodynamics to me is about defining some states that are observable and measurable instead of calculating motion of individual atoms which would be quite cumbersome. [i'm worried only about gases at the moment] So the standard way we start with thermodynamics is define things like pressure, volume, number of moles and temperature. A simple equation governs these states given by PV = nRT. What I'm now asking is that why do we need four states i.e. pressure, volume, moles and temperature. Why can't we do it with three things i.e. volume (amount of space that gas is occupying), moles (amount of matter in the system) and pressure (how the matter is moving). For me, these three things seem to be enough intuitively. Thank You!

I have done a course in statistical thermodynamics. Now I'm trying to understand it in a better way. As for your question in post #2 :- That's what I'm asking. Why isn't volume, moles and pressure enough to describe the dynamics of some system? Can you why we need more macrostates no describe the system?

I don't know if state has a different meaning in Thermodynamics but here I'm using it as a measurable physical quantity of the whole system. So you say that volume, pressure and moles are not enough to describe thermodynamics of a substance? Why is that? What else can you observe about a substance? Also an additional question - Why can't temperature be derived from volume, pressure and moles. For me volume, pressure and moles describe the whole dynamics of the system. There is space occupied (volume), amount of matter(moles) and how matter is behaving(pressure) all three things so intuitively it is enough. Where am I going wrong? Does my question even make sense?

I'm trying to understand thermodynamics in a more concrete and precise way and I'm planning to start by defining all the macrostates. One thing we do in thermodynamics is instead of calculating for every atom its momentum, energy etc. we define some microstates that are observable and measurable, right? So what all macrostates do we define? I tried to come up with macrostates without referring anywhere and here is the list:- 1) Volume - How much space the matter is occupying 2) Moles - How much matter is there in the volume 3) Pressure - How fast the matter is moving These are the only states I could come up. It seems as if all other states are derived from this. Temperature, entropy, energy in my opinion can be derived from these three. Am I right? EDIT: Mistake in title, should be macrostate instead of microstate

True, didn't think that through. Thanks for the reply

I have noticed that some people take a lot of pride in being aware of pop culture, movies, songs etc. Why is this? If you have not seen some famous movie, there is sense of ridicule. I don't really understand this. Any explanation?

Just recently, I was wondering what makes things funny and what makes us laugh? Simple deviation from normal behaviour causes us to laugh although if it's something serious, it will not. Just recently I saw on T.V. :- People talked in an unconventional way. They ommited prepositions and some other English words from their sentences, something like this:- I am going --> I going He is laughing --> He laugh This was very funny when they talked like this with each other. Now that I look back, it is stupid but nonetheless it made me laugh at that point of time. So in general, what actually makes us laugh? What is laughter?

I still see all philosophical questions as some sort of "tough" science or linguistics or neuro-biological questions. Taking your examples:- "Why are we here?" - This seems to me a scientific question questioning how universe got into existence. Science doesn't answer it yet but when it does, it will be science not philosophy "What morals to follow?" - This is a biological / psychological question. We could approach this studying human behavior and deciding what is good or bad. Isn't there a clear definition telling what philosophy is?

Two questions:- 1) No offence (if you are a philosopher) but how do you answer the "why" questions? I find it impossible to answer why questions as it cannot be experimentally verified. You can give theories but you cannot test it. 2) Why are topics like consciousness, language part of philosophy? Shouldn't it be under biology, linguistics or psychology? I'm still unclear what philosophy is.

What exactly comes under philosophy? To me, whatever questions science cannot answer currently seem to come under philosophy. For e.g. :- Consciousness is something that science cannot answer satisfactorily, so we put it under philosophy. Similarly the beginning of universe is largely unknown so it's philosophy. So when we know these answers, will it come under science? Am I right?