I can smell your smugness from here, you misguided, self-deluded and self-confused whipper-snapper!

You think you know everything, but you haven't even lived yet! You've been shuffled from one sheltered "learning" environment to another your entire life, and all you can do is misquote Proust and blame society's ills on "the establishment". The Establishment is what has fed and clothed you, you ungrateful snot-faced pimple factory! Where do you think those brand new Skechers came from, anyway? Do they grow on trees?

	4% (1)	+1 Intriguing
	8% (2)	+1 Super-Genius
	8% (2)	-1 Inchoherent
	16% (4)	-1 Jackass
	62% (15)	+ 5^(1/3) Irrational

Proust in his first book wrote about, wrote about...

(-5)^(1/2) is irrational.

In Response to Nagy_Vilmos (#34628):

(-5)^(1/2) is irrational.

Yes, and (5)^(1/3) is also irrational, and a bit more important.

Although, it's seen perhaps more often as (5^(1/2))/5.

Maybe Herr Kinyon can share some MathML to better describe.

In Response to zamphir (#34629):

Priceless, Zamphir. I didn't realize that option was Golden until you expressed it as a fraction. Duuhhh... i am becoming so slow and befuddled now that i'm middle aged.

The realization that i'd crested the hill probably came a few years ago. I was listening to a newly acquired psychedlic musical recording. Instead of exclaiming "This will be awesome to play during the next time i take hallucinogenics and bounce around!" i found myself thinking "This will be pleasant during the next time i want to sit quietly and meditate in a tranquil atmosphere."

That's when i realized my Youthful License had been permanently revoked.

Oh, well. I believe it was Bardot who quipped, "It might be sad to grow old, but it's nice to ripen." And she was probably having fun all through her eighties.

In Response to Teledildonix (#34632):

I haven't been into hallucinogens at any pint, but I got a big indication that I was getting older last year (when I was only 28). At the youth drop-in center where I work, a volunteer and a client, both about 19, were talking about an upcoming concert. I mentioned that it sounded great (which it did--I have six of the musician's albums, fer cryin out loud).

The volunteer looked up at me perplexedly, and said, "Matt, how do you know her music?"

I considered giving a lecture about how I used to see her back when she was an opening act, but then I feared that I'd look even older...

In Response to Llamarama (#34633):

hallucinogens at any pint

Freud loves you.

In Response to Teledildonix (#34634):

And I do love the occasional pint. Not much of a Freud fan, though I have a crush on someone with a Freud action figure.

In Response to Llamarama (#34635):

Freud action

Ow! The teeth! and the cocaine! and the flaven!

In Response to Teledildonix (#34636):

Wait, isn't the Golden Mean (1+5^(1/2))/2 ?

Now where on earth did my League of Pedants [goats.com] membership card go?

In Response to ShutUpEJ (#34637):

Wait, isn't the Golden Mean (1+5^(1/2))/2 ?

You're probably right, and maybe you're thinking, "He's an idiot!" It was the AIDS that got him. (Information for this strip has not yet been entered.)

Now where on earth did my League of Pedants membership card go?

You can learn [...] on Wikipedia. [...] Enjoy the hilarity [...] Please tell me about it. Perhaps League membership isn't as exciting as buzzword blabber under the pseudonym of an alter-ego. In my opinion, the two activities are occasionally equally funny [-ish].

In Response to zamphir (#34629):

(-5)^(1/2) is imaginary, not irrational.

5^(1/3) is indeed irrational. I'm not sure why it is more important.

(5^(1/2))/5 = 5^(-1/2) != 5^(1/3).

The golden mean is indeed (1 + 5^(1/2))/2 != any of the numbers listed above.

Maybe Herr Kinyon can share some MathML to better describe.

I tried. It doesn't seem to work here.

In Response to mkinyon (#34640):

...how to say "love and admiration" in Yiddish... preferably in the same tone as used by the guys performing Hoffman Dub (Albert's Bicycle Ride Mix) [discogs.com] or that more uptempo loungeadelia sample of "love and admiration for Doctor Hoffman" on a release in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of that fateful bicycle incident... (dang, i can't remember whether that was The Infinity Project or some other artists?)

I should know better than to comment on math and logic, given my terrible inaccuracies; all my studies of imaginary numbers took place two decades ago and my retention of facts has atrophied during disuse. I noticed that the square root of a negative argument was imaginary in Nagy's comment but didn't mention because i was certain somebody far more erudite could elaborate.

[P.S.- good mkinyon, i wish well of you're/your westward ho; and thank you for giving the right information when i make these silly mistakes. Cheers!]

In Response to mkinyon (#34640):

(5^(1/2))/5 = 5^(-1/2) != 5^(1/3)

I'd thought it was only my calculus that had eroded that badly. I guess I've lost my algebra, too.

I certainly meant the cube root of 5.

The number that I meant was "important" was the square root of 5 over five. But I don't recall why it was important.

But it was Tele who thought either of those numbers, or the ones I typed, were the golden ratio.

I also didn't expect the MathML to "work", in the sense of work as "display properly". But a little bit of htmlification might have made the text of the MathML readable, and been an interesting example of how verbose SGML-based languages are.

In Response to zamphir (#34629):

[5^(1/2)]/5 = 5^(-1/2), not 5^(1/3)

In Response to snipergirl (#34643):

[5^(1/2)]/5 = 5^(-1/2), not 5^(1/3)

I'd thought it was only my calculus that had eroded that badly. I guess I've lost my algebra, too.

In Response to Teledildonix (#34641):

i was certain somebody far more erudite could elaborate.

But instead, you had to settle for me. I think what Benjamin Franklin once wrote about Thomas Godfrey applies to me as well:

[H]e knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in everything said, or was for ever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation... [1]

The "great" part doesn't apply to me at all.

[1] The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Part 3 [eserver.org].

In Response to mkinyon (#34647):

Well, you probably smell nicer.

In Response to zamphir (#34642):

The number that I meant was "important" was the square root of 5 over five. But I don't recall why it was important.

It's a standard trigonometry textbook number (e.g., "Find the sine of the angle of the right triangle with adjacent side 2 and opposite side 1."), but I somehow doubt that's what your subconscious was dredging up.

... a little bit of htmlification might have made the text of the MathML readable ...

That would have been work. It's easier to blame Phillip [goats.com].

In Response to zamphir (#34646):

I wrote that hours before I actually pressed the "submit" button. Then I went "oh shit, -1 redundant. farkit"

In Response to zamphir (#34642):

But it was Tele who thought either of those numbers, or the ones I typed, were the golden ratio.

Maybe the Golden Mean is mean because it's cranky! Get it? Ha ha!

Oh man, I have to stop doing that.