Worm-like chain by Wikipedia Bot 0
A worm-like chain (WLC) is a theoretical model used in polymer physics and biophysics to describe the conformational properties of long, flexible polymers. The model helps in understanding the behavior of macromolecules such as DNA, proteins, and synthetic polymers. Key characteristics of the worm-like chain model include: 1. **Continuous Chain**: The worm-like chain is often represented as a continuous chain of tangent segments, where each segment maintains a certain angle with respect to its neighbors.
Enriques surface by Wikipedia Bot 0
An Enriques surface is a specific type of algebraic surface that has several interesting geometric and topological properties. They are named after the Italian mathematician Federigo Enriques, who studied these types of surfaces in the early 20th century. Here are some key characteristics and properties of Enriques surfaces: 1. **Classification**: Enriques surfaces belong to a broader classification of surfaces in algebraic geometry, which includes other types like K3 surfaces, rational surfaces, and so on.
Horrors of open source by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated +Created
Not everything is perfect.
One big problem of many big open source projects is that they are contributed to by separate selfish organizations, that have private information. Then what happens is that:
  • people implement the same thing twice, or one change makes the other completely unmergeable
  • you get bugs but can't share your closed source test cases, and then you can't automate tests for them, or clearly demonstrate the problem
  • other contributors don't see your full semi secret important motivation, and may either nitpick too much or take too long to review your stuff
Another common difficulty is that open source maintainers may simply not care enough about their own project (maybe they did in the past but lost interest) to review external patches by people they don't know.
This is understandable: a new patch, is a new risk of things breaking.
Therefore, if you ever submit patches and they get ignore, don't be too sad. It just comes down to a question of maintenance cost, and means that you will waste some extra time on the next rebase. You just have to decide your goals and be cold about it:
  • are you doing the right thing and going for a specific goal backward design? Then just fork, run as fast as possible towards a minimum viable product, and if you start to feel that rebase is costing you a lot, or feel you could get some open source fame for cheap, open reviews and see what upstream says. If they ignore you, politely tell yourself in your mind silently "fuck them", and carry on with the MVP
  • otherwise, e.g. you just want to randomly help out, you have to ask them before doing anything big "how can I be of help". If I propose a patch for this issue, do you promise to review it?
Writing documentation in an open source project in which you don't have immediate push rights is another major pain due to code reviews. Code code reviews tend to be much less subjective, because if you do something wrong, stuff crashes, runs slower, or you need more lines of code to reach the same goal. There are tradeoffs, but in a limited number. Documentation code reviews on the other hand, are an open invitation to infinite bike-shedding, since you can't "run" documentation through a standardized brain model. Much better is for one good documenter person to just make one cohesive Stack Overflow post, and ping others with more knowledge to review details or add any missing pieces :-)
MISRA C by Wikipedia Bot 0
MISRA C (Motor Industry Software Reliability Association C) is a set of software development guidelines and coding standards specifically designed for the C programming language to promote safety, portability, and reliability in software used in automotive and other critical systems. The guidelines were established in 1998 and have undergone several revisions since then, with the latest version being MISRA C:2012.
Rigour by Wikipedia Bot 0
"Rigour" generally refers to strictness, precision, and thoroughness in processes, thinking, analysis, or application. The term is often used in various contexts, including: 1. **Education**: Refers to the depth and quality of learning experiences. A rigorous educational program challenges students with demanding coursework, promotes critical thinking, and requires substantial effort and mastery of subjects.
Atomic Spy (book) by Wikipedia Bot 0
"Atomic Spy" is a historical non-fiction book written by the journalist and author Gina McKinnon. The book details the life of Klaus Fuchs, a German-born physicist who became a key figure in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. Fuchs was also a spy for the Soviet Union, passing critical information about nuclear weapons to the Soviets, which had significant implications during the Cold War.
How to diagnose a genius by Wilhelm Ostwald (1909) by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated +Created
From the abstract:
Much money, his student went on to say, is spent by various Governments in attempting to discover those people whose thorough education may be expected to bring in a return of value to the State, and the question how best to discover latent genius is an eminently practical one. After cogitation, Prof. Ostwald came to the conclusion that it is those students who cannot be kept on the rails - that is, who are not contented with methodical teaching - who have within them the seeds of genius
Ciro Santilli couldn't agree more... notably students must have a flexible choice of what to learn.
Boson by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated +Created
"The Big Bang" is a book by Indian author and historian of science, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. The book explores not only the scientific concepts surrounding the Big Bang theory but also delves into the philosophical, cultural, and historical aspects of how humanity has come to understand the universe's origin. In the narrative, there's typically a mix of scientific explanation alongside personal reflections and insights from the author.
Simply connected space by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated +Created
"Einstein's Unfinished Symphony" is a term often used to refer to the ongoing quest to unify the fundamental forces of nature in physics. It metaphorically draws upon the image of an unfinished musical composition to highlight the incomplete nature of our understanding of the universe, particularly in the context of theoretical physics.
Howard Wilson is a physicist known for his contributions to research in areas such as condensed matter physics and materials science. His work often involves the study of electronic materials and their properties. However, specific details about his research, achievements, or professional background may not be widely known or documented in popular literature.
How to store data in the Bitcoin blockchain by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated +Created
There are apparently two methods:
Specific implementations:
"Physics and Beyond" is a book written by the renowned physicist and Nobel laureate, Wolfgang Pauli. Published posthumously in 1994, the book is a collection of essays and lectures that explore not only the fundamental principles of physics but also the philosophical implications and broader contexts of those principles.
Madge Networks by Wikipedia Bot 0
Madge Networks, founded in the early 1990s, was a technology company known for its networking solutions, particularly in the field of local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs). The company specialized in providing products and services related to connectivity and network infrastructure, including bridges, routers, and network management software. One of Madge Networks' notable contributions was its work with token ring technology, which was an important networking standard before the widespread adoption of Ethernet.
Idaho stop by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated +Created
The traffic is designed for cars, which makes many red stops for bicycles completely stupid.
In a bicycle you just have too much more control and awareness than in a car, so if the way is completely clear, you should be allowed to stop, look if the way is clear, and then run reds.
Of course, this does increase the chances of hitting pedestrians a little bit. But the risk change feels so little that it would be worth it. Studies quoted by Wikipedia corroborate. It just feels extremely unintuitive to make cyclists stop in certain places when the street is clear.
Priest of Nature by Wikipedia Bot 0
"Priest of Nature" is a term that can refer to a few different concepts, depending on the context. In gaming, specifically in the context of tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons or similar settings, it may refer to a character class or archetype that specializes in nature-based magic and abilities.
How to teach / Exams and homework are useless, only projects matter by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated +Created
The only thing that matters is that students aim towards the goals described at explain how to make money with the lesson.
Any "homework for which the student cannot use existing resources available online" is a waste of time.
The ideal way to go about it is to reach some intermediate milestone, and then document it. You don't have to do the hole thing! Just go until your patience with it runs out. But while you are doing it, go as deep and wide as you possibly can, without mercy.
The Moonshots in Education project also has a fantastic related quote:
Real World Work. Students must produce learning projects with real world applications and an authentic audience.

Pinned article: ourbigbook/introduction-to-the-ourbigbook-project

Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
We have two killer features:
  1. topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculus
    Articles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
    • a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
    • a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
    This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
    Figure 1.
    Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page
    . View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivative
  2. local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:
    This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
    Figure 5. . You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.
    Video 3.
    Edit locally and publish demo
    . Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.
  3. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook-media/master/feature/x/hilbert-space-arrow.png
  4. Infinitely deep tables of contents:
    Figure 6.
    Dynamic article tree with infinitely deep table of contents
    .
    Descendant pages can also show up as toplevel e.g.: ourbigbook.com/cirosantilli/chordate-subclade
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact