Spyke

Posts

Searching for a smooth function that goes from flat zero to exponential growth

Last night an old idea came back to me, an idea about a function where all the derivatives start from zero and then grow smoothly. I thought it would be impossible, but then I found some interesting stuff on Wikipedia. So, I learned to use SymPy and wasted a lot of time with it. Here's a report of my (non-)findings.

(UPDATE: I did some numerical differentiation, which showed that h(x) does have negative derivatives. See details in this comment. A disappointment, although perhaps not a surprising one. It doesn't however, necessarily mean the goal is impossible.)

So, if anyone knows whether such a function exists and what it looks like, please tell me.

View original on lemmy.world

Collecting Unruh effect particles

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39777765

So, I was reading about the Unruh effect. In short, if I understood correctly, it is about a constantly accelerating observer finding particles in vacuum that an inertial (non-accelerating) observer wouldn't, and relatedly, measuring a higher temperature there than an inertial observer would. This is due to a combination of quantum and relativistic phenomena. There even seems to be recent empirical support for this, but as I was reading about it, I accidentally stepped into some pseudoscience, which left me in an emotional state where I find everything suspicious.

Anyway, even though I technically am a physicist, this is far from my area of expertise. I came up with a thought experiment and would like to ask a couple of questions related to it.

Let's imagine a spacecraft that does a little trip where it goes into open space accelerating enormously, then stops and comes back. My first question is this: would it be (theoretically) possible for the spacecraft during the acceleration to capture some of those particles that from an inertial perspective don't even seem to exist, store them and bring them back as a very concrete evidence of the Unruh effect? If not, why not?

Another question or two: is my intuition correct when I think that if those collected particles were converted into energy, it would in no situation be possible to gather more energy this way than would be spent in the process of accelerating the spacecraft etc? If yes, could one in some sense say that the energy put into the acceleration is what created those particles in the first place?

View original on lemmy.world

Collecting Unruh effect particles

So, I was reading about the Unruh effect. In short, if I understood correctly, it is about a constantly accelerating observer finding particles in vacuum that an inertial (non-accelerating) observer wouldn't, and relatedly, measuring a higher temperature there than an inertial observer would. This is due to a combination of quantum and relativistic phenomena. There even seems to be recent empirical support for this, but as I was reading about it, I accidentally stepped into some pseudoscience, which left me in an emotional state where I find everything suspicious.

Anyway, even though I technically am a physicist, this is far from my area of expertise. I came up with a thought experiment and would like to ask a couple of questions related to it.

Let's imagine a spacecraft that does a little trip where it goes into open space accelerating enormously, then stops and comes back. My first question is this: would it be (theoretically) possible for the spacecraft during the acceleration to capture some of those particles that from an inertial perspective don't even seem to exist, store them and bring them back as a very concrete evidence of the Unruh effect? If not, why not?

Another question or two: is my intuition correct when I think that if those collected particles were converted into energy, it would in no situation be possible to gather more energy this way than would be spent in the process of accelerating the spacecraft etc? If yes, could one in some sense say that the energy put into the acceleration is what created those particles in the first place?

View original on lemmy.world
esolangs·Esoteric LanguagesbySurrealPartisan

Looking for anarchist esolangers to join a new avantgarde group

So, I've been toying with this idea of applying the anarchist concept of means ends unity to art (to be honest, mainly as a theoretical justification for doing what I wanted to do anyway). So, if you want to do art, and especially anarchist art, shouldn't your tools also be artistic and preferably anarchist?

I'll give an example. Poetry is art. Tools of poetry include things like language and font. Constructed languages can be seen as art projects, and they can implement and emphasize the values of anarchism. Fonts are also art projects and they can for example be inspired by anarchism and be freely distributed etc.

Other examples could include making specific image manipulation programs and algorithms and creating new image formats for visual arts, making esoteric programming languages for programs etc.

So, my idea is starting an avantgarde group/movement where we make art with artistic DIY tools and document the process in the art itself so that it doesn't hide its structure but shows how it was made.

Attached is the first poem I made specifically with this project in mind. But of course, not everything we produce as a group needs to resemble these little examples I came up with. The main thing is to try to break the expectations of art (if such a thing is possible anymore) and also to be an anarchist.

If any of this inspires you, hit me up. Perhaps we can start the group together.

View original on lemmy.world