User talk:Phoenixia1177

Welcome!

Hello Phoenixia1177, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay.

At Wikipedia, new Users do not automatically receive a welcome; not even a machine-generated welcome. Welcome messages come from other Users. They are personal and genuine. They contain an offer of assistance if such assistance is ever desired.

I suggest to everyone I welcome that they may find some of the following helpful — there’s nothing personal in my suggestion and you may not need any of them:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome! Dolphin (t) 06:18, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar

		The Reference Desk Barnstar
		For your help on the Mathematics Reference Desk, December 19, much appreciated. IBE (talk) 09:49, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the Barnstar and an extremely interesting discussion:-) Sorry for the delayed responsePhoenixia1177 (talk) 11:32, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I've set up and confirmed email at last, but I don't know why it doesn't show up on my userpage. I don't know if it'll work, so let me know and I'll just post the address here (I set it up just for Wikipedia, so no worries about spam bots - I can change it at any time). I would be interested to receive any resources you have to offer, as you mentioned - although I won't have much time in the near future to actually go through anything, due to work/other hassles. Many thanks again, IBE (talk) 18:48, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't get mine to show up either, email me at WikiPhoenix1177@hotmail.com. I completely understand about time, I would be happy with even just one more hour each day...:-)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 04:55, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just on the off-chance that it should end up in your spam folder, I've emailed you, thanks again, IBE (talk) 04:23, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Where are you? :( Anyway, hope you return sometime, your presence was most welcome here. IBE (talk) 07:47, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt you're ever going to see this, but sorry about not reaching you. I lost the email password, then I had multiple deaths in the family and didn't really come by for a few months.* Sadly, I just kind of forgot until I looked at this; I feel like a jackass, I hat when people offer me something useful and disappear, I'm very sorry I did it to you. Anyways, if you're still around and catch this, just give me any address and I'll send the things over. *that reads quite bizarre:-) 209.252.235.206 (talk) 09:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, a chance diversion has brought me here, so I'll get back to you some time. I don't have much time at the moment because of study (I'm engrossed in an IT PhD, having changed from maths about 18 months ago). You could have left a note on my talk page, but not to worry. I got the feeling it was something serious at your end, because people don't usually vanish without a trace. Great that you are back, and I'll leave a non-mainline email address sometime - still curious to see what you have, but I will only be able to browse for the foreseeable future. The PhD deadlines are looming... IBE (talk) 16:57, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your input is needed on the SOPA initiative

Hi Phoenixia1177,

You are receiving this message either because you expressed an opinion about the proposed SOPA blackout before full blackout and soft blackout were adequately differentiated, or because you expressed general support without specifying a preference. Please ensure that your voice is heard by clarifying your position accordingly.

Thank you.

Message delivered as per request on ANI. -- The Helpful Bot 16:39, 14 January 2012 (UTC) [reply]

Maths font

You mentioned that you weren't able to get fancy maths symbols on the Wiki. You need to use the tag <math> to tell Wikipedia that you're about to start writing maths, and you need to use </math> to tell it you've finished. The code between <math> and </math> is more or less LaTeX syntax. There are lots of nice symbols, e.g. <math> \int_1^0 f(x) \, dx</math> gives

\int _{1}^{0}f(x)\,dx

.

The \, tells it to do a small space. A \ does a normal space while a \! reduces the space. To do fractions, type <math> \frac{a+b}{c-d} </math> to give

{\frac {a+b}{c-d}}

There's loads of syntax on the web and on here. Just Google it. Another idea is to click "edit" and to read the raw code that people have written. If you click edit, you'll notice I've used "nowiki" in pointy brackets to stop Wikipedia reading my text examples as real maths. One I leave out the "nowiki" and "/nowiki" it print the LaTeX output. Give me a shout if you have anything you can't work out the code for. All the best. — Fly by Night (talk) 21:30, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

personal attacks

You are not new, so you are obviously aware of the policy against personal attacks. WP:CIVIL. μηδείς (talk) 01:33, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That you are asking a serious question is dubious, I hardly see how asking for references to a physics article discussing a rotting quantum cat is of value to the reference desk. Seriously, your insistence on references just looks ridiculous. The only other place I've seen anything like it is from undergraduates who don't understand a concept and are trying to write it off and from trolls/people with an ax to grind. Whatever your intent, I don't accept that you were seriously asking such a question and, thus, your response seems ridiculous to me.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 02:00, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a big fan of deleting things once written, so just excuse the above as me being a giant ass labouring under a wrong impression.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 03:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

edit

Why did you revert my latest edit? It was a legitimate question. 71.146.4.142 (talk) 04:37, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Whether it was a sincere question, or not, it was asking for medical advice, this is not allowed on the reference desk.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 04:44, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You should consider consulting a doctor, they would be able to provide both answers and assistance; as well as help you plan a course of treatment if required- all things we cannot, and should not, do here.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 05:02, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, my, no

Thanks for the book recommendation, I will req it as an interlibrary loan. The Structure and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is definitely beyond my mathematical skill, the appendix as visible at amazon is inscrutable, but I did follow the introduction. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 01:34, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll dig around sometime this weekend, I'm sure I have something.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 01:36, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ehrenfeucht–Fraïssé games

Hi Phoenixia,

was the example I posted clear? Did it help? --Trovatore (talk) 21:44, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is very late, but yes it was helpful; sorry for not responding.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 09:10, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Amateur mathematics

Hi, I saw your thread on the math desk, but thought I'd just chime in here since that thread seemed mostly done. So first: it will require a lot of work and luck to get anything published in a serious math journal, on your own. The way to do this would be to make contact with mathematicians working in your areas of interest. As others have said, read up on those fields. If e.g. Jones (2009) wrote a paper that you would cite, contact Jones via email, and ask if they are willing to discuss their work. At that stage, you don't even have to say much about yourself, just politely indicate your interest, ask a minor question, and say you are working on similar problems in that subfield. My advice would specifically to be to contact Associate Profs, Full profs, grad students, postdocs, then assistant profs, in that order of preference. The reason being, assistant profs have far too much to loose, and are very busy gunning for tenure. Once they have tenure, they have the luxury of listening to outsiders. In fact, some of the oldest/most established profs get a little weird and adventurous in their later years, and this could work to your advantage. Perhaps a better track: go meet some researchers in person. What country are your in? Are you near a university? You can find listings for seminars on math dept. web pages. You could either contact the organizer ahead of time to introduce yourself and explain your interest, or you could just show up. As long as you are polite and interested, they will likely be happy to have you. Finally, if you get to the point where you are showing any "real" math folks your work, use LaTeX as best you can, and lean towards over-citing other works. It will help you be taken seriously. I have received true crackpot letters while working in a math dept., and one key giveaway was that they claimed to solve famous open problems, had many typos, and cited very little other work. Anyway, some food for thought-- good luck! SemanticMantis (talk) 15:19, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Realizing I didn't spell out the main point: take the long view, spend some time trying to build some general discussions and relationships within the community. Eventually (if your ideas/work are useful/interesting), you may find someone inside the establishment who is willing to co-author a paper with you. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:03, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much, both for your advice and for going through the trouble of posting on my page (when you could have just ignored a dying topic). Outside of the desks here, I don't think anyone even knows that I study mathematics, let alone care about it; so I'm greatly appreciative of the help; especially the detailed nature (I'm not always good at conveying things, so if it isn't evident, I'll just be blunt: your reply is extremely helpful, I am deeply appreciative.)

For some goofy reason, I always assume that, not having any form of degree (etc.), I wouldn't be welcome at seminars (that kind of thing). It's kind of funny, really, because thinking about it, if I had taken a different path and were giving a seminar, I'd welcome anyone who was interested. But, actually hearing someone who knows what they're talking about recommend it, I'm going to start attending them as often as I'm able- I live in the Pittsburgh area, which works out nicely since I've got both Pitt and CMU nearby, not to mention several other schools within a short road trip. The advice on who to contact, and in what order, is very useful; I'd never really considered that angle of it, but it makes perfect sense- that's interesting about the more established professors, and good to know- honestly, I'd never considered about assistant profs. having the most to lose, I'd probably have figured they would be the most approachable; of course, after reading what you've said, it makes perfect sense why they wouldn't be.
Citations have always been a possible weak point for me. Not that I don't have them, but I'm not sure about the appearance of the ones I have. I don't have access to many journal articles except what I can find for free online, however, I have (literally) several thousands of mathematics textbooks (almost all of the Springer Graduate Texts, UTM, CUP, many others) At any rate, does it look overly "amateurish" to cite mostly textbooks and online publications (legitimate ones; not random blogs or that sort of thing)?
That's interesting about receiving "crackpot" letters- I've always heard that professors/academics (I'm not sure the right word) receive a good bit of those. Honestly, while there are some well known, and popularly famous, problems I've found interesting (and had some ideas about), I had a feeling that those wouldn't get taken seriously (not that I think I've solved them, but I imagine there's enough claiming they have to cover up the distinction).
I know this is a long reply; hopefully not overly long:-) In any case, thank you once again for your interest and advice, it really means a lot and is very very helpful:-)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 22:20, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I don't have much time now, but first, get yourself some library access! See e.g. here [1]. I'm pretty sure either Pitt or CMU will give you a card that comes with online access to journals and things like JSTOR. It might cost a nominal fee (maybe $50 a year?), but will be worth it. Citing books is fine for discussions and presentations, but I believe that, for research papers, textbooks are cited far less often than research papers. Things like Arxiv.org may or may not be ok, depending on the journal. Anyway, it looks like you have the right idea: get out there and participate in the community, and even if no papers come out of it, I'm sure it will be fun for you to get some involvement in math that is not just on WP ref desks :) In hindsight, you probably should email the organizer of a seminar before you show up. You don't even have to "ask permission" per se, just say some thing like "Dear Dr. X, I see you are organizing talk/seminar on topic Y, which I am very interested in. I plan to come see event Z, I look forward to meeting you soon." Also, while I'm flattered that you like my advice, I should point out that though I've worked in 3 different math departments and have a Ph.D in math, I've never published any pure math research! So some of my advice may be a bit off. Talk pages are a bit awkward to for longer discussion, feel free to email if you want to talk further. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:58, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much again:-) I'm in the process of getting a libcard with online access (I didn't realize you got that much access, that's awesome!). Your advice is all very useful and very direct (as in I can act on it directly). I agree about talk pages being awkward; I'm going to see where this takes me (a lot to do), not to mention that I'm sure your time is very valuable and you've already given me a lot of good advice:-) If I am able to get something published (or else), I'll let you know. Thank you:-) *(I don't look at my page unless it tells me I have a message, it never told me you responded, it wasn't till the response below lit up; I apologize for taking a few days to say something back.)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 05:10, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Finding the value of an angle involving inverse trigonometric function

Thank you a lot for helping me. Your step by step solution on Maths desk was really very helpful. Please, help me solving an another problem. Find the value of angle X such that it satisfies Sin X = 0.45. Publisher54321 (talk) 14:01, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In this case, if you apply the inverse sin to 0.45, you'll get the answer. Using a calculator gives sin^-1(.45) = 0.466765339. If you have sin Y = X, then Y = (3X + 2X²) / 4 will get you pretty close. In this case it gives 0.43875. It's pretty easy to remember too. *The formula's good for X between 0 and 1; if X is negative, then do it for the positive value, then just take the negative of the result.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 05:03, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh! You are not understanding my problem; my previous question was same as this one. Find the value of angle X such that it satisfies Sin X = 0.5. And the answer of this question is 30 degrees, 390 degrees, etc. This means the Sin of 30 degree is 0.5. So, again I am repeating my previous question - Find the value of an angle whose Sin is 0.45. Perhaps my English is not so good, but I think you have understood my question this time. Once again thank you. Publisher54321 (talk) 16:45, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]