this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
196 points (96.2% liked)

Science Memes

15787 readers
3001 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Cawifre@lemmy.world 31 points 9 months ago (9 children)

Please, could someone disect this frog for me?

[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 70 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (8 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddle_point

Basically, its a mathematical function where if you start at 0,0, you might falsely believe you are at the (or a) maximum or minimum of the function, as the slope at 0,0 is 0.

But, if you go any direction in the x axis, your function value rises, any direction in the y axis, your function value falls.

Thus a saddle point is an illusory, false impression of being at the extreme extent of a function, when in fact you are not.

The idea is that there is more to determining if you're truly at a global max or min of a function than only finding a single point where the slope is 0.

Edit: This comment if mine has been sitting at 69 upvotes for a few days now, so uh... obligatory joke about taste testing each others saddle points or something, I don't know.

[–] ekky@sopuli.xyz 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Hurr hurr, I'm gonna plot f(x,y)=x^2+y^3 where y=x for x limit inf. Checkmate science!

Edit: the graph isn't actually linear, man, and here I just thought it'd be that easy. :(

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)