pop quiz

[fflo]

What have we got here?



(a) nobody gives a damn, Lisa;
(b) phase portraits of quadratic polynomial vector fields;
(c) phase portraits of polynomially quadratic field vectors;
(d) quadratic vector portraits of topologically insignificant vector phase fields.

Anybody?

Comments

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

As a physicist, I can say with genuine professional authority that those are fields.

And a lot of them have freaky singularities that make them damned near physically impossible as magnetic, electric, or gravitational fields.

If this were physics, I'd be really curious about them, but as it's mathematics, I'm sure they really don't represent anything my tiny brain can imagine.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

well you sound as if you're kind of on the track anyway---care to venture a guess?

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Too late, you awarded it to paperkingdoms.

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

i'm gonna haveta go with a, jack. :)

[fflo.livejournal.com]

thanks jill.

[paperkingdoms]

I'm gonna go with b. They're definitely phase portraits. And I have no idea what "polynomially quadratic" would mean. And they shouldn't be topologically insignificant. There are sinks and sources and stuff like that.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

we have a winnah! unless we count sprig5's answer just above. ;)

btw, E, H & M asked me to ask you to pass on their thanks for the valentines. cads that they are, they sent none themselves.

[paperkingdoms]

Yay! They're very welcome. :^)