Recent content by lavinia

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    I Topological argument principle

    All coverings are continuous and locally 1-1. If the covering space is compact then the covering map is also proper. For instance, take a finite discrete set and map it onto one of its points.
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    I Topological argument principle

    1) Take a rubber band and twist it into a figure 8. 2) Take a rubber band and push two oppose points together to make a figure 8. Keep pushing so that the rubber band intersects itself in two points. Try the same idea with a sphere.
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    Art What makes Japan's synchronized dance culture so astonishing?

    Pretty cool. I want to be a hip hop dancer in my next incarnation. Talk about karma.
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    Art What makes Japan's synchronized dance culture so astonishing?

    I have seen Butoh dancing performances a couple of times. This Japanese form is like no other I ever saw.
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    Forum seems less active compared to 10 years ago?

    You are absolutely correct. I was throwing it out there partly because my anecdotal experience has seen what appears to be a shift in the interests of young people. I did look for articles and there does seem to be data that shows a decline in interest in STEM but I didn't post any links because...
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    Has anyone on PF seen the film "Oppenheimer"?

    For me, there was little science and I did not feel that I understood Oppenheimer's character by the end of the movie. The contrast between the science and the war was underplayed and could have been the movie's dynamic, the frightening race to beat the Germans versus the amazing scientific...
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    Forum seems less active compared to 10 years ago?

    Maybe there is a decline in young people's interest in STEM.
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    Students' Complaint Gets Prof Fired

    It would be interesting to compare this professor's course with other Organic Chemistry courses in his department. On the surface it seems like he demanded less from his students than what he would have liked. So what did the other Organic Chemistry courses require? Even less? Or were the...
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    Students' Complaint Gets Prof Fired

    On the other hand, I sat in on a course elementary topology with Dennis Sullivan who was in his 70's and students and professional mathematicians alike flocked to listen to him lecture. It sounds like this Chemistry Professor was of similar caliber and probably would have inspired a genuinely...
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    Movie Recommendation for Students

    The Painted Veil https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446755/ This movie is about a scientifically trained person who is dedicated to understanding and stopping a cholera epidemic. There is no stuff about his intellectual talents but just about his unflinching moral commitment, hard work, and...
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    I Parallel Transport Along Geodesic

    That is correct. Comments: The key theorem to know is that starting with a vector at a point on a smooth curve there is exactly one way to parallel translate it along the curve to get a vector field whose covariant derivative is zero everywhere. This is true for any affine connection. It is a...
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    Is a Mobius Strip Truly a 2D Object in a 3D Space?

    So far the significance of the Mobius band has related to its topology, its non-orientability, its role in constructing other non-orientable surfaces, and as the simplest example of a non-trivial vector bundle. But it is also significant because it can be given a flat geometry. In this geometry...
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    Is a Mobius Strip Truly a 2D Object in a 3D Space?

    An interesting question. One could imagine that the Möbius band is embedded in three dimensional space and that the reflection is actually the result of a 180 degree rotation. If the Möbius band has the standard shape of a strip of paper pasted at its ends with a half twist, the flatlander will...
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