Skewray Research (ZF¬C)

The Federation of the States 🇺🇸 no longer functions as intended, nor serves the purpose for which it was created, and so should be dissolved.

Math interests:
• Foundations [dilettante]
• Probability
• Bayesian statistics
• Real Analysis and Numerical Computing
• Stable distributions
• Finance and Project Management

Astrophysics:
• Cosmology: detection of dark matter
• Neutrino detection (SNAPPY cubesat)

website: https://www.skewray.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8690-4830
Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/skewray

Public Key

npub1cd8m89atxa5zznp09awxczr0nvzq6kwv83jk4zp60748hy76t34qsur4z3

NIP-05 Address

skewray_at_mathstodon.xyz@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsvxnanj74nw6ppfshj7hrvpphekpqdt8xrcet23qa8l2nmj0d9c6spz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds93ynz6

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1cd8m89atxa5zznp09awxczr0nvzq6kwv83jk4zp60748hy76t34qsur4z3

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-04-20 23:34:51 UTC

- reply

The cores of the moons of the outer planets may have serpentinization going on at the boundary with an internal ocean, which is why some think there may be life inside. The oceans exist because of tidal heating from the orbit. Tricky to see under the frozen outer crust, though.

2026-04-20 22:40:31 UTC

- reply

Early life on Earth may have started by eating such rocks where they touched water, a process called serpentinization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpentinization

2026-04-12 00:24:35 UTC

- reply

Whew! At least there were no apes, right?

2026-04-07 17:25:24 UTC

- reply

Leaving us with President Vance. Uh-huh.

2026-04-06 19:56:36 UTC

- reply

They haven't found the mass of the neutrino either. Sometimes numbers are small. (In fact, the WIMP detection floor for small cross sections is due to Solar and Galactic neutrinos.)

2026-04-06 04:42:10 UTC

- reply

Neither had thousands of physicists, apparently. Quite shocking. Someone should update Wikipedia.

2026-04-06 04:37:00 UTC

- reply

There are literally hundreds of papers every month with some clever solution to dark matter, dark energy, and/or quantum gravity.
I had a proposal turned down last year because, according to the reviewer, it was on WIMPs, and most papers now are not on WIMPs, so apparently they are passé. Wut?

2026-03-26 21:58:09 UTC

- reply

I just posted a blog entry today with a Feynman diagram in it. No triangles, but it does have a W+ boson.

2026-02-19 18:06:23 UTC

- reply

I signed a contract for solar panels on April 16th. My panels have, so far, been very decorative.

2026-02-08 02:19:43 UTC

- reply

When I was growing up, my parents dragged me all over New Mexico, visiting sites like this one. I did not appreciate it at the time, but as long as there were not actual Indians still there to stare disdainfully at us tourists, I was okay with it.

2026-01-30 19:08:19 UTC

John Baez talk in Claremont
@npub1nf4…nqe4
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/985/616/254/251/928/original/926632a2d2201f7d.jpeg

2026-01-27 00:28:52 UTC

- reply

I am unable to answer the question you asked, as I have little to do with MO. Too snobby for me. However, I can bloviate ignorantly on why I think MO is not attractive to women:
The structure of MO (and SO) is to gamify mathematical problem solving as an incentive. Asking and answering questions builds "reputation" which can be compared to others, resulting in a game where the competitors jockey for higher rankings. I posit that this incentivization holds little attraction to most women. The dominant cultural paradigm is that men compete and women work together. In order to make a system like MO appeal to women, I would suggest that a solved problem congratulates everyone who helped, no matter how small the contribution, and no one gets brownie points to collect.

2026-01-15 18:23:35 UTC

- reply

Their rankings for the Arts includes Architecture. Perhaps MIT's Architecture school excels? Depending on how stupid the rankings are with the math, I can see this popping MIT to the top.

2026-01-15 03:21:30 UTC

- reply

Clearly, this should never have been unclassified. We will never put the Adolf back in the box now. How could we just hand out the roadmap?

2025-12-05 00:41:50 UTC

- reply

I am sure there is someone out there who thinks that handing a child a copy of Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis to work their way through is a good approach. "Okay, children. Let's draw the Cantor set!"

2025-11-29 16:50:02 UTC

- reply

Arrhenius assumes thermal equilibrium. 5.6 eV is about 220 nm, so UV light would accelerate decay substantially. Keep your diamonds inside and away from cosmic rays.

2025-11-04 16:23:59 UTC

- reply

Pinyin is not based on English; they just used a handy set of letters. Dropping that misconception makes Pinyin seem...less weird?
Your textbook was competing for the World's Worst Explanation...and won! I can't hear any difference between the ch's in church, and I've been speaking Mandarin daily for 25 years. Neither 'ch' nor 'c' sound anything like anything in church (in standard American English). Maybe the author spoke some arcane dialect of English?

2025-10-31 12:37:35 UTC

Breaking news! Physicists discover that Godel's incompleteness theorems apply to reality! And get it published! Who knew mathematics could be, yanno, used for something?
https://phys.org/news/2025-10-mathematical-proof-debunks-idea-universe.html

2025-10-25 14:34:06 UTC

- reply

Seems like a sad attempt at a pun, as oriented and oriental sound similar. Hardy-har-har-har.

2025-09-26 14:34:15 UTC

- reply

My God, someone reinvented Athenian democracy!

2025-07-02 15:51:55 UTC

- reply

I've never come across empty sets with regard to AoC. Just that, if the drawers contain shoes, which come in left and right varieties, then AoC is not required.
https://proofwiki.org/wiki/Axiom_of_Choice/Examples/Russell%27s_Socks_and_Shoes

2025-06-29 15:16:31 UTC

- reply

The cloud of particles, if left long enough, will settle into a planetary disk. This will increase the collision rate by shrinking the available volume.

2025-06-01 18:50:18 UTC

- reply

This is a horrific idea. Also, you will probably want to have a long stem with a nozzle to get the spray away from the fan thrust. Better than an aerosol can would be a CO₂ cylinder & paint tank. Airbrush parts would work for a lot of that. Software would need to use the camera to actively stabilize the drone position relative to the surface.

2025-06-01 00:36:58 UTC

- reply

Similarly, the Chinese space program began because Qian Xuesen, one of the founders of JPL, was treated poorly by the US and returned to China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen

2025-05-29 18:59:21 UTC

- reply

It is "just" systems analysis, but what I find new (to me) is that the approach is like software engineering patterns. There, someone can say, "Oh, this looks like a FactoryMakesLittleWhiteBunnies" and everyone knows what the structures and algorithms are. They've laid out the patterns the recur when people work together. That's pretty cool.

2025-05-29 17:26:41 UTC

- reply

I could easily come up with dozens of examples. The entire 6-sigma process, for example, is mathematically broken, so it often fails for the processes which appear to need it the most, while working on those that don't. I should write that up....

2025-05-29 17:05:36 UTC

- reply

Only 29 libraries in Worldcat have this book, and none are nearby me. But the PDF certainly is available.
I am interested because, over the ten years I was in industry, I saw the pattern in the image over and over. Just as an example, the industry facility I was at proudly displayed time since last injury. Then they asked how many people were injured but did not report it, since they didn't want to be blamed for breaking the safety streak. Result: overwhelming positive response. Solution: take down display of time since last injury.

2025-05-29 16:47:02 UTC

- reply

ISBN works...but the cheapest copy used is $100. Guess I'll hit the library.

2025-05-29 15:08:24 UTC

- reply

If I put "System Archetype Basics" into Bookfinder.com, nothing comes up. Is that really the title?

2025-05-19 18:51:21 UTC

- reply

I can sort of believe that, but it makes me wonder why vorticity is considered something about incompressible fluids.

2025-05-19 16:00:15 UTC

- reply

Pretty sure all conserved quantities have a symmetry. The Wiki article mentions chirality???

2025-05-17 15:59:00 UTC

- reply

This is all so upsetting because I was planning to lose weight by Hawking radiation, and now I have to diet.

2025-05-10 16:00:12 UTC

- reply

A really good use of ChatGPT would be to generate letters to academics that meet all 37 points of John's Crackpot Index.
When I was in grad school, there was some guy who printed up his ideas as a hardback book and mailed a copy to every physics professor is the US. I was surprised by how often I saw it retained on office bookshelves; for some of us back then, throwing out a book was blasphemy.

2025-05-05 15:30:12 UTC

- reply

I really think this is great...LLM training material.

2025-04-29 21:06:46 UTC

- reply

Is a grant a contract? I am slightly skeptical, admittedly through ignorance. I know Caltech has a prime contract with NASA to run JPL, but any grants JPL has can and often are stopped at will.

2025-04-19 22:44:46 UTC

- reply

Agreed, but whatever it is won’t be based on the Democratic Party. So, then what?

2025-04-12 19:40:08 UTC

- reply

Hi, Jennifer. @npub1nf4…nqe4 lives in Riverside, so that must be who this unknown caller is. Glad I could help!

2025-04-08 22:44:30 UTC

- reply

Just implying that killing entire families is very French Revolution. Otherwise, sign me up.

2025-04-08 22:16:36 UTC

- reply

The fortunes of the richest families in the world are generally far larger than single individuals. That doesn't lead to a good place.

2025-03-18 03:19:11 UTC

- reply

Over the last 75 years, America has had the economic power to reshape the world however it wanted. The result was, overall, pretty fucked up. Let’s see how the Chinese do, shall we? Unless, of course, Europe gets its act together. How about it?

2025-02-17 03:06:48 UTC

- reply

There occasionally giant methane leaks from oil fields around the southwest. Just be prepared.

2025-02-17 01:02:41 UTC

- reply

Could make a blimp with methane. That would be about half the lift of hydrogen.

2025-02-16 23:54:18 UTC

- reply

I’ve researched a bit. A hot air blimp would be huge and ungainly. Helium too expensive. Hydrogen perfect but illegal in the US, where I am. Laws from when morons here still thought the Hindenburg was a hydrogen fire.