Ask the Zot!

[Moe]

Marvel has named Thanos' snap as "The Decimation". This is mathematically incorrect, as to 'Decimate' means only to remove 10%. Is there a term, similar to 'Decimate' that means to remove half, or 50%?

[Wesley]

Good question! Something like The Halfening does not sound nearly as cool, eh?

Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a word that means to reduce by half. However, I would like to remind you what a wild language English is. With time and use, words take on new meanings. The strict and original definition of Decimate comes from its root word, Deci. Deca. Ten. Removing ten percent of a standing army with one blow is a tremendous and devastating act. You can see where this is going. A commonly accepted definition of decimate nowadays is: A tremendous and devastating act.

I'm going to do some poking around and see what words I can find for The Halfening. Demi. Midi. .... I'll keep looking.

EDIT : It is just not as cool to call it "Halfsies." Ha ha ha!

[bella]

In German there is a word for it; "halbieren". What about "bisect"? Is that even used?

[Moe]

Been watching Designated Survivor.

Premise of the show, Tom Kirkman is the designated survivor while the president is giving a state of the union address when the capital is bombed.. Leaving Kirkman as president.

Question is, how does this work into election and re-election? I don't know how long the preceding president was in office, meaning I do not know how long Kirkman has in office. Let's just assume for the sake of conversation, that the preceding president had a short amount of time in office, leaving Kirkman around 3 years in office. He could then run for election in the next election. The question I'm posing, because I'm just curious, After his first term as the elected president, he could then fun for re-election right? For around 11 years as president?

[Wesley]

Yes. In theory, dude could serve 11 years as President. There are all sorts of permutations where he could run again as Vice, then the Pres die again, once again making him Pres. It is a strange system.

[Clarence]

Yes. In theory, dude could serve 11 years as President. There are all sorts of permutations where he could run again as Vice, then the Pres die again, once again making him Pres. It is a strange system.

Anyone who served 2 full terms but becomes a vice president later should be removed from the line of succession:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... succession

[Moe]

I'm not seeing where it says that they would be removed from the line of succession

[Moe]

Zotty Zot Zot Zotster

Physics question for you.

So, watched a video on time crystals, and it talks about how they have a perpetual motion, yadda yadda, and just like how with with a quantum system, the wave function dissipates and it just becomes one of the states. Is this like a permanent thing? Or does it start it's shifty thing again when you look away? Is that how they've proved this? Like "I observed this 3 days ago and it was X, and then I observe it for 3 days then today it was Y, so I know it's changing"

Can we break physics by always trying to observe these systems?

[Wesley]

I just watched a video by Physics Girl about Time Crystals. While it is fascinating, I don't think this new invention / discovery will "break" physics. It will provide opportunities to test some interesting theories as well as providing for some new ideas to grow. Much like Quantum Computing, maybe we can learn new ways of using the laws of Physics that we already know, and we will become more efficient in our uses of energy, etc. I'll sip some coffee and do some more reading ~