EA Countdown!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
21

<p>JLP- the mail will reach you in negative time if it is moving towards the east coast. Maybe, as Feynman postulated, antimatter is simply matter moving forwards in backwards time. So, if you get your letter in negative 2-4 business days, don't touch it- your hands will collide with the mail and you'll annihilate all of Illinois. Assuming the rejection letter weighs 3 grams, you'll free 1.3 megatons of energy, and destroy everything within five miles of your house. If you get accepted, and get a letter weighing 12 grams, you'll release 5.2 megatons of energy, destroying everything within ten miles of your house.</p>

<p>Let's just hope you get rejected.</p>

22

<p>hahaha, that's great</p>

23

<p>Bwahaha. That's true. Heheh. </p>

<p>I used the formula: Beginning point - destination point = travel distance, assuming that the East Coast is 1A (since that's where America has been longest... but perhaps since it was the "starting point" of America it should be 0A instead of California?) and California is 0A, with Hawaii/Alaska being approximately -1A and -1/2A respectively. The mail will be moving toward the West coast as it comes to me, so they are safe to accept me. (You hear that, MIT?)</p>

<p>But then of course we have to deal with the fact that if you start going east you'll eventually have gone west. Let's just convert Massachusetts into spherical coordinates and be done with it!</p>

<p>I call my house = origin!</p>

24

<p>In all fairness, shouldn't MIT be the origin? (I'm blatently buttering you up here. Nudge. Wink. Accept?)</p>

<p>Spherical works for me. R doesn't change, just phi and theta.</p>

25

<p>Heehee. The center of the earth should really be the origin, but my house ROCKS. I SLEEP there. Or MIT since it's BASICALLY the center of the earth.</p>

<p>Actually I think they've already converted it into spherical, and it's called latitude and longitude lines. But I forgot that. Or I may be wrong about it, but I don't feel like googling it.</p>

26

<p>yeah. I think that theta refers to longitude (except measured in radians, up to 2pi, none of this east/west nonsense) and phi is kinda latitude. More like azimuth--0 radians is straight "up" (north?) , pi radians is straight "down" (south?)</p>

<p>Ug, and this as I'm doing it for homework. Why don't they just teach us these things as soon as we learn of the graphability of round things! They're...strange...now.</p>

27

<p>Now spherical coordinates are boring if they've already done that. Let's make up our own coordinate system. </p>

<p>I vote for (awesome, sexy, smart), and I will accept either MIT or my house as the origin. The closer you are to the origin the less awesome units you have, but the more awesome you are, etc.</p>

28

<p>Mmm, I'd have to go with MIT, because I'm closer to your house, geographically. But that's still using the established system of coordinates. The flipping this would be confusing, I think. But if the reverse were true (ie more awesome units=more awesome) I can't say that I'm really close to the origin/MIT becasue that would make me un-awesome, un-sexy (geez, I think I'm on the awesome, smart plane, there...) and un-smart. Which means that the farther away from MIT you are, the more it attracts you. And the closer you are, the more it repells you. Which somehow doesn't work, even though it intuitively makes more sense to have more units=more awesomeness. There has to be some kind of inverse system that works, though. where in the closer you are, the more awesome, sexier, and smarter you are. Maybe if we use (boring, disgusting, dull) (or appropriate antonyms) as the coordinate system.</p>

29

<p>Hmmm. The limit as JLP (b, d, s)-->MIT (0, 0, 0) = 0. Or something thereabouts. </p>

<p>I still like the coordinate system being positive words. It takes just as much thinking to remember that 0 awesome units make you awesome as to infer 0 boring units makes you awesome by default.</p>

<p>Perhaps we can discover a whole new way of looking at mathematics. Let's set MIT to be the anti-origin at infinity. Therefore the more awesome units you get, the closer you are to MIT. </p>

<p>Harvard can be the origin.</p>

30

<p>Hmm, it would be more like the limit of JLP as MIT(b, d, s)-->(0,0,0). </p>

<p>CLARIFYING TO SOUND COOL. Or stoopid if I'm wrong.</p>

31

<p>Very true. I like the idea of an anti-origin. Maybe, (once we learn a bit of quantum theory) it will prove useful. Maybe. But I wouldn't get too ambitious about it. I was going to say Princeton instead of Harvard, because there seems to be a greater rivalry there, but Harvard is great because it removes the concept of physical/x,y,z distance completely. And Princeton can't be that bad, can it? I mean, there wouldn't be a rivalry if the two schools weren't comparable, would there? (Why do I think that I have just scuttled my chances of acceptance....?)</p>

32

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<p>CLARIFYING TO SOUND COOL. Or stoopid if I'm wrong.>>>>></p>

<p>Your coordinate system....</p>

<p>What, exactly are the independent/dependent variables here. Let's call a person, P, the independent.
So, limit as P->MIT is (uber awesome, uber sexy, uber smahhht)</p>

33

<p>Well, you would have to take the partial derivatives of JLP with respect to boring, disgusting, and stupid.</p>

34

<p>It's the triple integrals to find out the total coolness of someone that I'm worried about.</p>

35

<p>Stop that. You're giving me pain in my head :(</p>

36

<p>Bwahaha.</p>

<p>Well when we both get to MIT we'll work out the particulars!</p>

<p>And if they don't let us in, the anti-origin is considered MOVED. thmaaa.</p>

37

<p>This thread reminded me of just how much I hate MATH! :D</p>

38

<p>Haha, well, you can add to it to in subjective ways. </p>

<p>Such as, are there three better adjectives to describe MIT/cool people, ones more all-encompassing? </p>

<p>And... other stuff!</p>

39

<p>I love math,</p>

<p>but this is... too much for my tired tired brain.</p>

40

<p>anyone here make the USAMO??</p>