Another random newsgroup free-association

[kiya]

Someone made a snippy comment of, "I'm a Kinsey three," on rasseff.

One person responded with, "A little further and you'd be a Kinsey pi."

This provoked further rambling, including the idea of a Kinsey i.

I think I may be a Kinsey 1 + 4.5 i. (On the 1-6 scale; on the 0-6 scale just 4.5 i.)

I have a strange urge to get this on a t-shirt before next Pride.

Comments

[rosefox]

mactavish refers to herself as a Kinsey pi. JFTR.

[kiya]

I'm glad that someone does; I'm all in favor of the existence of irrational sexualities.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I like it! Complex numbers for Kinsey rankings. Coming next: Einstein tensor notation for poly webs?

But of course!

[brooksmoses]

Well, either that or quarternions for the Kinsey numbers....

- Brooks, pondering whether covariant and contravariant poly relationship-links can be said to have meaning....

Re: But of course!

[wcg.livejournal.com]

And, of course, cyclic and anticyclic permutations...

Re: But of course!

[kiya]

All right, you two. I want this again, in English. ;)

Re: But of course!

[wcg.livejournal.com]

You can google for "Einstein tensor notation" and "cyclic permutation" to get a sense of what I'm talking about. It'd be better if I could sit down with a copy of Arfken's Mathematical Methods for Physicists and just show you, but there's this 435 mile gulf between us...

Re: But of course!

[brooksmoses]

Would that be your top recommendation for a book on the matter, or just what's to hand?

This is the one subject where I feel that I've been significantly shortchanged by my college education; in the mechanical engineering curricula that I've been through, there is absolutely no course that provides even a basic introduction to tensors, despite having a year's worth of M.E.-specific masters'-level math classes on top of all the undergrad stuff. And then in the fluid dynamics classes, stress tensors are a fundamental part of the whole matter, but it's assumed that one already understands the concept and never really explained. "You pick up all you need to know by osmosis", they told me. Yeah, sure; I got through the class with no problem, but when I want to deal with something other than following formulaic treatments, I feel a bit lost....

I've picked up a couple of books that I've come across that purport to describe tensors, but they have a feel of being really quite dense and best coupled with a good lecture series to be understood from ground-state.

Maybe I should ask around the physics department next fall, and see if there's a general relativity class or something that discusses tensors in detail, that I can audit. (Any thoughts on what's good to look for?) Too bad I'm so far from Maryland; I figure you could probably explain it to me in a few hours and I'd know at least enough to pick up the details from the books I have.

- Brooks

Re: But of course!

[wcg.livejournal.com]

The canonical text is Arfken's Mathematical Methods for Physicists, Chapter 3 introduces tensors. The book is pretty formidible, but I imagine you can wade through it. There's a more manageable treatment of tensors and their use in Ohanion's Gravitation and Spacetime which was re-released in 1994. I have the 1969 edition, but from the notes it looks as if all the original material was preserved.

For engineering, I think the Arfken book would serve you better. But you may want to read Ohanion to get a clearer grasp of what tensors are and how they're used.

Re: But of course!

[oneironaut.livejournal.com]

You can google for "Einstein tensor notation"

I misread this, quite reasonably I think, as 'Einstein terror notation'.

Re: But of course!

[wcg.livejournal.com]

It can be hard to distinguish the difference during the second or third exam of a graduate Relativity class.