The perpetual calendar
in [Physics]
|
Prev: simple question power, resistance, current, etc
Next: OBSERVATIONS: Einstein's gravitational redshift measured with unprecedented precision
From: Adam Funk on 2 Mar 2010 15:30 On 2010-03-02, Nick wrote: > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim(a)verizon.net> writes: > >> On Mar 2, 3:04 am, Nick <3-nos...(a)temporary-address.org.uk> wrote: >>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> writes: >>> >>> > Then where are you posting from? >>> >>> You're the persistent Google groups user IIRC. Look it up, or don't > ^ > Look! There's another one. Whenever you quote me there's a little > underscore-like character appears where the second of my double spaces > are. It's 0xA0, the ISO Latin-1 non-breaking space --- completely unnecessary, just another stupid Google Groups thing. -- Usenet is a cesspool, a dung heap. [Patrick A. Townson]
From: Nick on 2 Mar 2010 15:55 "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim(a)verizon.net> writes: > On Mar 2, 2:34 pm, Nick <3-nos...(a)temporary-address.org.uk> wrote: >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> writes: >> >> > On Mar 2, 3:04 am, Nick <3-nos...(a)temporary-address.org.uk> wrote: >> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> writes: >> >> >> > Then where are you posting from? >> >> >> You're the persistent Google groups user IIRC. Look it up, or don't >> >> ^ >> Look! There's another one. Whenever you quote me there's a little >> underscore-like character appears where the second of my double spaces >> are. > > I see a caret. It has never happened when I quote any other poster, so > it's not me. No, the caret is me pointing at the symbol. The symbol is immediately before the L of Look. There's another before the T of There and the W of Whenever in the next line. > Right, writing "somewhere in England" you wouldn't know what "English > major" means. I don't know the British nominalization for someone who > "reads English" "in university." If I'd done that and completed the course, I'd be an English Graduate. Otherwise I don't think we have a noun term for what you are when an undergraduate on a particular course of study ("reading", btw, is in fairly limited use these days, most of us (and it's 25 years since I was an undergraduate) would have said that we were "studying English" (or whatever)). I always assumed that "major" meant that you were studying two courses, but one was the most important. Is that the case? These days that's far more common over here, people seem to take what we used to call "joint honours" in bizarre combinations of subjects. -- Online waterways route planner | http://canalplan.eu Plan trips, see photos, check facilities | http://canalplan.org.uk
From: Glenn Knickerbocker on 2 Mar 2010 16:31 Nick wrote: > >> You're the persistent Google groups user IIRC. � Look it up, or don't > ^ > Look! There's another one. Whenever you quote me there's a little > underscore-like character appears where the second of my double spaces > was. Google is translating your second space into a nonbreaking space (0xA0) so that it will be displayed in a Web page. It's properly displayed as just a space, but Emacs must be showing it to you as something else to alert you that it's not a "normal" space. Google does change the data, but it's your tool, not Peter's, that's changing its graphical image. Then, when you post it, Gnus encodes it in UTF-8. My ancient Netscape (which I may finally replace with Thunderbird now that a few more of the missing basic functions have been added in version 3) then displays it without decoding it, so I wind up quoting it as an A-circumflex followed by a space (0x4120). I still think it would be nice if mail and news tools left 8-bit data unencoded when it didn't use any of the code points that differ between the ISO 8859 and Windows code pages, unless some other code page was specified. �R
From: Evan Kirshenbaum on 2 Mar 2010 16:38 Nick <3-nospam(a)temporary-address.org.uk> writes: > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim(a)verizon.net> writes: >> Right, writing "somewhere in England" you wouldn't know what >> "English major" means. I don't know the British nominalization for >> someone who "reads English" "in university." > > If I'd done that and completed the course, I'd be an English > Graduate. Otherwise I don't think we have a noun term for what you > are when an undergraduate on a particular course of study > ("reading", btw, is in fairly limited use these days, most of us > (and it's 25 years since I was an undergraduate) would have said > that we were "studying English" (or whatever)). > > I always assumed that "major" meant that you were studying two > courses, but one was the most important. Is that the case? No. Your "major" is the subject that you're intending to get a degree in. It's short, I believe, for "major concentration", referring to the fact that a certain number of courses[1] (and certain specified courses or choices of courses) need to be taken from a set that have been pre-selected by the department to count toward the degree and which will suffice to warrant granting it. (Not all of these courses need be taught by that department.) Other courses might be taken to satisfy general university requirements or as "electives". When I was at Stanford, to get a bachelor's degree required 180 "units", where each quarter-long course (three quarters per year) was worth, typically, 3-5 units[2]. Roughly four or five classes a quarter for four years, so about 50 courses in all. My linguistics major had a requirement of at least 45 units courses designated as contributing to the the major, but I think that that was on the low end. Looking at an old _Courses and Degrees_, it looks as though a math major was about 80 units, English about 55 units, physics about 95, various engineering disciplines about 105. (Of course, when the number was small, most people took courses in their departments over and above the minimum. Those in more structured departments just had less free choice; it was more "at least one from each of these groups of two or three".) If you actually have a second concentrationm, that will be a "double major" if you actually satisfy the requirements for both majors (which often involves counting some courses, e.g., beginning calculus or physics, toward both). Otherwise if one department certifies that you've done a fair amount in their field but not enough for a degree, you're considered to have a "minor" in that subject. I don't know of any universities that will give you a degree based on just minors. You have to actually fulfil the requirements of some major. [1] Where "course", in the American sense, might be "class" elsewhere. It's (typically) a quarter's or semester's worth of class sessions meeting a certain number of times per week on a specific topic, taught by (usually) a faculty member. So the Math department might offer courses in linear algebra or differential equations. [2] Typically less a measure of how much work it was than how many courses that department thought you should be taking at one time. -- Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |There's been so much ado already 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |that any further ado would be Palo Alto, CA 94304 |excessive. | Lori Karkosky kirshenbaum(a)hpl.hp.com (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/
From: Skitt on 2 Mar 2010 16:48
Evan Kirshenbaum wrote: > Nick writes: >> "Peter T. Daniels" writes: >>> Right, writing "somewhere in England" you wouldn't know what >>> "English major" means. I don't know the British nominalization for >>> someone who "reads English" "in university." >> >> If I'd done that and completed the course, I'd be an English >> Graduate. Otherwise I don't think we have a noun term for what you >> are when an undergraduate on a particular course of study >> ("reading", btw, is in fairly limited use these days, most of us >> (and it's 25 years since I was an undergraduate) would have said >> that we were "studying English" (or whatever)). >> >> I always assumed that "major" meant that you were studying two >> courses, but one was the most important. Is that the case? > > No. Your "major" is the subject that you're intending to get a degree > in. It's short, I believe, for "major concentration", referring to > the fact that a certain number of courses[1] (and certain specified > courses or choices of courses) need to be taken from a set that have > been pre-selected by the department to count toward the degree and > which will suffice to warrant granting it. (Not all of these courses > need be taught by that department.) Other courses might be taken to > satisfy general university requirements or as "electives". > > When I was at Stanford, to get a bachelor's degree required 180 > "units", where each quarter-long course (three quarters per year) was > worth, typically, 3-5 units[2]. Roughly four or five classes a > quarter for four years, so about 50 courses in all. My linguistics > major had a requirement of at least 45 units courses designated as > contributing to the the major, but I think that that was on the low > end. Looking at an old _Courses and Degrees_, it looks as though a > math major was about 80 units, English about 55 units, physics about > 95, various engineering disciplines about 105. (Of course, when the > number was small, most people took courses in their departments over > and above the minimum. Those in more structured departments just had > less free choice; it was more "at least one from each of these groups > of two or three".) > > If you actually have a second concentrationm, that will be a "double > major" if you actually satisfy the requirements for both majors (which > often involves counting some courses, e.g., beginning calculus or > physics, toward both). Otherwise if one department certifies that > you've done a fair amount in their field but not enough for a degree, > you're considered to have a "minor" in that subject. I don't know of > any universities that will give you a degree based on just minors. > You have to actually fulfil the requirements of some major. > > [1] Where "course", in the American sense, might be "class" > elsewhere. It's (typically) a quarter's or semester's worth of > class sessions meeting a certain number of times per week on a > specific topic, taught by (usually) a faculty member. So the Math > department might offer courses in linear algebra or differential > equations. > > [2] Typically less a measure of how much work it was than how many > courses that department thought you should be taking at one time. At the time when I was in college, the courses required for an engineering degree almost met the requirements for a mathematics minor. All I would have had to take were two additional math courses, one of which was History of Mathematics. I don't remember the name of the other one, but it was similar in subject matter. I also don't remember what a "minor in math" was good for. -- Skitt (AmE) |