this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
794 points (95.0% liked)
Science Memes
15837 readers
2117 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- !abiogenesis@mander.xyz
- !animal-behavior@mander.xyz
- !anthropology@mander.xyz
- !arachnology@mander.xyz
- !balconygardening@slrpnk.net
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !biology@mander.xyz
- !biophysics@mander.xyz
- !botany@mander.xyz
- !ecology@mander.xyz
- !entomology@mander.xyz
- !fermentation@mander.xyz
- !herpetology@mander.xyz
- !houseplants@mander.xyz
- !medicine@mander.xyz
- !microscopy@mander.xyz
- !mycology@mander.xyz
- !nudibranchs@mander.xyz
- !nutrition@mander.xyz
- !palaeoecology@mander.xyz
- !palaeontology@mander.xyz
- !photosynthesis@mander.xyz
- !plantid@mander.xyz
- !plants@mander.xyz
- !reptiles and amphibians@mander.xyz
Physical Sciences
- !astronomy@mander.xyz
- !chemistry@mander.xyz
- !earthscience@mander.xyz
- !geography@mander.xyz
- !geospatial@mander.xyz
- !nuclear@mander.xyz
- !physics@mander.xyz
- !quantum-computing@mander.xyz
- !spectroscopy@mander.xyz
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and sports-science@mander.xyz
- !gardening@mander.xyz
- !self sufficiency@mander.xyz
- !soilscience@slrpnk.net
- !terrariums@mander.xyz
- !timelapse@mander.xyz
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Wait bottom mathematican is using j=√-1 instead of i and not the engineer? Because I'm EE gang, and all my homies use j.
That part also got me really confused. All the mathematicans I know use i while engineers use i or j depending on the kind of engineer. I've never seen a Pikachu engineer using anything other than j.
That's a fucking favorite now. Keeping that in my back pocket.
OPs boyfriend is obviously an i engineer and hates j engineers. No one can stay angry at mathematicians - engineers on the other hand...
The fun starts when you study quaternions
i^2 = j^2 = k^2 = ijk = −1This can't be real
They're actually very useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternion
(...I think you may have gotten whooshed...)
Hehe, maybe a little, but wanted to share just in case someone didn't know :3
I clicked your link, I barely made it out of highschool so I have no idea what any of it means, but I like reading things I shouldn't understand anyway, sometines it's so interesting even without understanding.
So I thank you!
Quaternions are the closest we get to lovecraftian horror in real life.
Four dimensional and mostly imaginary, they were carved into a stone bridge by a crazy mathematician in a fit of madness, Lord Kelvin called them "unmixed evil", and the Mad Hatter from Alice may have been inspired by them.
Also they have been a curiosity at best for a long time, despite the efforts of a ~~secret~~ Quaternion Society, but they suddenly blew up in usefulness in modern times as they happen to be an easy and fast way for computers to describe rotations in 3D space, so they're everywhere.
Yeah, lovecraftian as shit.
It gets worse actually. You can define a number system using any power of 2 amount of i-like units in a similar relationship to quaternions using the Cayley-Dickson construction
Fascinatingly, you lose some property of the algebra at each step. Quaternions aren't commutative: ABC != CBA. Octonians aren't associative: (AB)C != A(BC). Once you get into 16 i's with subscripts, it really gets crazy.
(Also, I just got the joke. Damnit @HappyFrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone your serious answer threw me off!)
Hehe, yeah, the joke was too good :P
Maybe a bit too complex for its own good.
this isn't real
I agree. Clearly i is current. What is this i=√-1 nonsense.
[Lapsed] mechanical engineering gang checking in. I was also surprised. Though, tbh, I think it came down to personal preference of the professor more than field-wide consensus.
a real mathematician would use
(0, 1)instead ofi