This is a thread where we try to out-troll each other in some field of study by claiming something ridiculous to be true pertaining to that field. If you don't want to be a troll and rather be a scholar and a gentleman, provide explanation as to why some of the claims made by the trolls are not true.

I'll start, trolling physics:

Dude, that image is AWESOME. I'm afraid I can't out-troll that, since I'm not very well versed in the art of trolling.

Hegel trolled astronomy by giving an a priori proof that there were seven planets. And I just trolled philosophy by mentioning it.

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Occupy Babel!

I'm not sure if there are a lot of physicists on this forum (though you really don't need to be one to see what's wrong with the first image), so here's one for the mathematicians (and oh, if you want to debunk something, use the hide tag so others can try to figure it out):



Q.E.D.

This is not accurate in letter, but it is accurate in spirit.

http://www.hegel.net/en/v2133healan.htm



Emphasis on the "if" in:



There are many silly attempts to derive facts regarding celestial bodies a priori, but there is no a priori proof that there are seven planets that I have encountered in Hegel.

I should have said I was trolling philosophers, Monadology. But I'm glad I didn't have to wait twenty posts to take it back and say there was no such proof.

You'd be surprised how many philosophy papers reference the proof as an indication that Hegel was crazy. Sometimes they'll add a "supposedly" as if to halfway take it back.

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Occupy Babel!

Bah, who needs a phony seven planets argument to prove Hegel was crazy?

As a physicist (or maybe just a trolling one?), let me try this here:

Take a newspaper with a big headline and stand before a mirror. Hold up the newspaper so that you can see the headline and try to read it. You will notice that the letters are flipped:
The first letter of each word is not at the left side, but on the right. Also, the letters itself are flipped regarding left and right. BUT: the letters are NOT flipped regarding up and down. Also the headline is above the article as expected, not below.

This proves that a mirror is flipping right and left, but not up and down - despite the perfectly symetric position where there should be no difference between the up-down and left-right direction.

Physics has gone crazy!!

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Stay out of my territory! (W. White, aka Heisenberg)

This is awesome.

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My plan to become an SDK is here.

According to Ing rules, the marked stones in the following diagram are alive if they are still on the board after four consecutive passes:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | X X O O O X . X . . X O O O . . . . . |
$$ | . X O O X X X . X . X X O . O . . O O |
$$ | X X O O X O X . X X X . X O . O O X O |
$$ | X X X O O O O X X X . . X O O X X X O |
$$ | . X X X X X O O X X X . X X X X . X X |
$$ | X . X O O O O X X O X X X X . . X O O |
$$ | T X . X O . O X O O O X . . . X X O . |
$$ | T T X X O O X X O X O O X X X X O O . |
$$ | T T X X O O X O O X X O O O O O . . O |
$$ | X T X O . O X X O O X X O O . B O O . |
$$ | . X O O O O O X O X X X O X O B O . O |
$$ | . . X X X O . O O X . X X X X O . . O |
$$ | . . X . X O O . O O X X . X O O . O O |
$$ | . . X X X X X O . O O O X X X O O B O |
$$ | . X X O X O O . O X X O O X O O B B . |
$$ | X X O O X O O . O O X X O X X O B . B |
$$ | X X O . O O O O . . O X X X O O B O B |
$$ | X O O . . . . B O O O O X X O X O O . |
$$ | O O O . . . . . . . O X X X X X X O . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

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be immersed

Now here is one I challenge you with... ( I swear i so made this one up in highschool lol)

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I'm thinking...

That's why I mount all my mirrors sideways. Keeping the left-to-right consistent is more important to me than keeping vertical right. I don't mind if my reflection is upside down so long as my right in the reflection is my actual right.

Kids, try it out at home.

Computer Science:

Wapedia describes the Selection Algorithm (Selectiōn Algōrithm) here. They do a decent job of describing the algorithm, but they are too STUPID to realize that the so-called "Best case performance" for selection is not as slow as they claim - O(n) - but actually can be executed in constant time in the best case.

Computer scientists these days go through so much THEORETICAL NONSENSE that they overlook the obvious considerations for algorithm complexity analysis.

Anyone with half a brain can tell that the best case performance for finding such a selectiōn is not O(n), but is actually constant time, but I will take the time to explain it slowly for the slow-minded

We are considering the *BEST CASE* performance of the selectiōn, and not an average case analysis. So suppose we are selecting the minimum from the set of nonnegative integers, for example, 5 numbers: 0, 3, 8, 9, and 15. Suppose also that, when the set is given as input, the numbers are already sorted - it's the best case afterall.

Then no further investigation is necessary. On the first hit of the input, 0 is reached, and nothing else is less than that. Hence, we have found the minimum in constant time - in the best case.

Of course, in the worst case, the algorithm is O(n) as quoted. But the authors are so stuck up in THEORETICAL NONSENSE that they do not realize that constant time can be achieved in the best case.

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be immersed

I'm not sure exactly what this thread is doing... But since people are discussing their own fascinating discoveries, let me talk about my own. This is something I've been working on for a few years now, and it's really coming together! Once I complete my research and coding, this may turn out be one of the most important developments in information technology.

The problem I've been working has to do with the vast amount of electronic data generated daily by so many computers. And the trick is to find a way to store it without constantly adding more storage space. The answer suddenly hit me, and since I've just submitted patents applications, I will share it with you: The trick is to simply apply multiple compression schemes repeatedly, in a particular sequence, to reduce the size of the original data image to any desired storage size. Along with the resulting compressed image, one also needs to store the sequence information used to reach the final result -- but that's just a small list of numbers. Choosing the correct sequence, of course, depends on the image at each step of the process. For every image, there's always a compression algorithm that will reduce it at least somewhat. The part I'm working on now is to efficiently select the appropriate compressor at each step so as to always guarantee some reduction in image size. Once that's worked out, then in theory, you can reduce those vast amounts of data as much as you want. It becomes a direct trade-off between compute time (the repeated compression steps) and the resulting image size.

Brilliant, eh?

I propose selecting trolling topics brought up to argue about. Trolling is much more fun when somebody is there to argue with.

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be immersed

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Occupy Babel!

That's right, Boys and Girls!
We do not yet have enough Trolls in here, lets make sure the few we do have feel really welcome and don't be too shy about what they do best!!
I will spread the news on rgg: L19 needs more Trolls!! With your permission, of course.

Man, I am grumpy today, lol.
My apologies...

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

@hyperpape:

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I'm thinking...

Indeed this is brilliant, but imagine how much better this idea would be with an infinite energy system:

Bless you, Araban. I would not have figured out the mirror one for a million years and it might have kept me up at night.

For a contribution, here's something that's more of a joke than a troll unless you're telling it to an overly serious philosophy student:

On Twin Earth, a brain in a vat is at the wheel of a runaway trolley. There are only two options that the brain can take: the right side of the fork in the track or the left side of the fork. There is no way in sight of derailing or stopping the trolley and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows trolleys. The brain is causally hooked up to the trolley such that the brain can determine the course which the trolley will take.

On the right side of the track there is a single railroad worker, Jones, who will definitely be killed if the brain steers the trolley to the right. If the railman on the right lives, he will go on to kill five men for the sake of killing them, but in doing so will inadvertently save the lives of thirty orphans (one of the five men he will kill is planning to destroy a bridge that the orphans' bus will be crossing later that night). One of the orphans that will be killed would have grown up to become a tyrant who would make good utilitarian men do bad things. Another of the orphans would grow up to become G.E.M. Anscombe, while a third would invent the pop-top can.

If the brain in the vat chooses the left side of the track, the trolley will definitely hit and kill a railman on the left side of the track, "Leftie" and will hit and destroy ten beating hearts on the track that could (and would) have been transplanted into ten patients in the local hospital that will die without donor hearts. These are the only hearts available, and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows hearts. If the railman on the left side of the track lives, he too will kill five men, in fact the same five that the railman on the right would kill. However, "Leftie" will kill the five as an unintended consequence of saving ten men: he will inadvertently kill the five men rushing the ten hearts to the local hospital for transplantation. A further result of "Leftie's" act would be that the busload of orphans will be spared. Among the five men killed by "Leftie" are both the man responsible for putting the brain at the controls of the trolley, and the author of this example. If the ten hearts and "Leftie" are killed by the trolley, the ten prospective heart-transplant patients will die and their kidneys will be used to save the lives of twenty kidney-transplant patients, one of whom will grow up to cure cancer, and one of whom will grow up to be Hitler. There are other kidneys and dialysis machines available, however the brain does not know kidneys, and this is not a factor.

Assume that the brain's choice, whatever it turns out to be, will serve as an example to other brains-in-vats and so the effects of his decision will be amplified. Also assume that if the brain chooses the right side of the fork, an unjust war free of war crimes will ensue, while if the brain chooses the left fork, a just war fraught with war crimes will result. Furthermore, there is an intermittently active Cartesian demon deceiving the brain in such a manner that the brain is never sure if it is being deceived.

QUESTION: What should the brain do?

[ALTERNATIVE EXAMPLE: Same as above, except the brain has had a commisurotomy, and the left half of the brain is a consequentialist and the right side is an absolutist.]

(from: http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/Tissues.htm)