They seem the perfect thing to store your strongest booze in. Once you can’t figure out how to get the booze out, you should probably stop drinking.
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I remember reading “The Cuckoo’s Egg” in about 1990. Cool guy (in a maths / comp sci way).
The geometry of 4-dimensional space is much more complex than that of 3-dimensional space, mostly due to the extra degree of freedom.
In 3-dimensional space there are three orthogonal coordinate axes — usually labeled x, y, and z. The six cardinal directions in this space can be called up, down, east, west, north, and south. Positions along these axes can be called altitude, longitude, and latitude. Lengths measured along these axes can be called height, width, and depth.
However, 4-dimensional space has an extra orthogonal coordinate axis, which is usually labeled w. Hinton, our smart Irish lad from the 1880s described the two additional cardinal directions as ana and kata, from the Greek words meaning “up toward” and “down from”, respectively. However, this is a very restricted and particular space to work within.
I am tired now. I haven’t thought about this stuff in 30 years and it is giving me nightmare flashbacks, especially thinking of non-Euclidean spaces.
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You elfin fool.
Pretty much. We can see the dimension which is at right angles to the paper’s surface. But the ant can’t travel in that dimension - it’s stuck on the surface. To be honest all this stuff about ants and what we can see is an attempt to render a mathematical concept into something we are familiar with. It can help, but it can also cause confusion (e.g. because in reality even an ant has some ‘height’ so it isn’t really a two-dimensional thing). Proper mathematicians (I’m not one) steer clear of these analogies and just work with the abstract concepts. I have a friend whose PhD was about ‘knots’ in multi-dimensional spaces. He never really tried to explain any of this when we were down the pub.
VB
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Whaddaya mean?
Gamine
Dunno really. Just popped into my head.
Thanks to you and Graeme to make an attempt to explain earlier. Much appreciated.
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That’s alright then. I thought you were calling me short 
.
Don’t trust a word I typed 
. If you are interested, do a bit of proper reading 
.
Me neither. It’s maths. Words are a bit second-best for that I’m afraid. I reckon that everything Cliff Stoll writes is probably correct though.
VB
I agree. Also, some of it is extremely funny, which is an art in itself. I would like to have a beer with that chap. I reckon it would be a very enlightening visit to the Pub.
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M&S trousers, specifically the stitching in them that has all the integrity of Nigel Farage’s expense claims.
Wearers of M+S slacks. 
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When you have to wear black slacks as part of what is basically a uniform for work, trousers start to look like a bit of a consumable. At which point the £20 / £30 crap from M&S makes a lot of economic sense.
They’re still crap, mind, and their shirts are unspeakably shit.
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I was chatting to a guy who had been working in academia in a single obscure branch of mathematics for 30 years. He said that he couldn’t even explain vaguely what it was about to anyone who didn’t have at least a PhD in the field.
It gives me hope for society, that such people exist.
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Alas, none of them seem to be in the White House
This vile cunt needs firing into the sun.
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I am a pacifist but I’d happily make an exception for this cuntbag.
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we used to share offices with the mathematicians and they are the weirdest bunch,…in fact pretty much no one understands what they are on about…
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From the article…
“Rees-Mogg is one of the wealthiest MPs in Parliament. He has reportedly made millions of pounds in high finance and is due to inherit £100 million from his family estate. However, a recent profile of the MP reported that he once publicly complained about the size of a seven figure bonus he received”
Unless he’s giving some of his wealth to charity (which, somehow, I doubt) then he should shut his fucking mouth and get out of politics, Somerset and the country. A one way ticket to North Korea would be within his price range.
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