Kenny’s Blog

In this blog post, I'll guide you through the process of installing wxMaxima on your macOS machine and resolve a common issue related to the plotdf() function in macos Sonoma with maxima 5.47, and all other functions that call the tcl-tk interpreter wish . The plotdf() Function Issue MacOS Sonoma comes with a preinstalled Tcl-TK package. One problem you might encounter when using Maxima is that the plotdf() function or ploteq() , which is used for plotting differential equations, crashes. This issue arises because Maxima calls the wish script from the tcl-tk package, but the version of tcl-tk that comes pre-installed with macOS can be problematic. There's an easy fix for this problem: installing tcl-tk and Maxima using Homebrew. Step-by-Step Installation with Homebrew Homebrew is a popular package manager for macOS that makes installing software a breeze. Follow these simple steps to install wxMaxima and resolve the plotdf() issue:...

LaTeX is a powerful typesetting system that can help you achieve that. In this post, I'll guide you through the process of installing a minimal LaTeX distribution called BasicTex on your macOS machine and setting it up with the popular Visual Studio Code (VSCode) editor. Step 1: Install BasicTex While the full MacTeX distribution provides a comprehensive LaTeX installation, it can be quite large (over 5GB). If you're just starting with LaTeX or have limited storage space, you might want to consider installing BasicTex instead. BasicTex is a smaller alternative that contains all the essential tools you need to create and compile LaTeX documents. Here's how to install BasicTex: Visit the MacTeX website and navigate to the More Packages section . Scroll down to the "A Smaller Distribution, Basic TeX" section and click on the "BasicTeX.pkg" link to download the installer. Once the download is ...

Photo by  Alex Ghizila  on  Unsplash The Pomodoro technique is a way to study that helps you manage your time better. It works by breaking up your study time into small chunks, traditionally 25 minutes long, with short breaks in between. This method is named after a tomato-shaped timer that was used by the person who came up with it, Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s.. The idea is to work hard for a short period, then take a quick break, and then start again. This can help you stay focused and productive, especially when you have a lot of work to do that requires a lot of concentration. The Pomodoro technique step by step Here's a step by step guide to using the Pomodoro technique: Choose a task that you want to work on. Set a timer for 25 minutes. This is called a "Pomodoro". Work on the task until the timer goes off. Take a 5-minute break. After four Pomodoros, take a longer break of 15-20 minutes. Repeat this process until you finish the task. Remember to avoid distr...

New Podcast episode https://anchor.fm/kennymingt/episodes/What-is-matter---The-Natural-World-EP-3-e178kap Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2bBXJdUKst9O0AZhVPTMHW Apple podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-natural-world/id1583904938 Google podcasts https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy82NzExMTM0Yy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw==

 Here is the second episode of The Natural World Podcast, "Talking about gravity". https://anchor.fm/kennymingt/episodes/Talking-about-gravity---The-Natural-World-Ep-2-e17287a

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash The pilot episode is already uploaded Anchor.fm: https://anchor.fm/kennymingt Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2bBXJdUKst9O0AZhVPTMHW Website: https://thenaturalworld.blog Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/thenaturalworldpodcast/

Photo by NASA on Unsplash [Working draft] Stars have a limit on how big they can be, and when talking about big we are referring to different properties of a star. Some of a star properties are the diameter of the sphere, mass and density. Depending on mass, a star can reach a point when it collapses on its on gravity. It is a this time when nuclear reactions, which releases energy, maintains the star from collapsing completely. The size of the star depends on the relationship between these two forces. Where is the limit? Very massive stars have such a density that their gravity ends up defeating the energy proceded by nuclear fusion, and collapse on their nucleus turning into neutron stars or black holes. We also have 'red giants', which are a kind of stars in their latest phase of their lives. Stars in this phase inflate and grow enormously, as an example when our sun finishes it current main sequence phase and turn into a red giant, we think it will expand enough to cover t...

 Gravity is a phenomena of the physical world. We can observer this phenomena when an object falls to the ground, or in ourselves standing up on the surface of the Earth. Gravity is responsible for tides, keeping our satellite and natural satellites in orbit, planet formation, their orbits around the Sun, ... . Gravity can be observed at grater scales giving structure to galaxies and clusters in the universe. It gathers gas into nebulosas, where hydrogen compacts creating the conditions for nuclear fusion and the birth of stars. It gives us the most mysterious and exotic places and events in the universe: gravitational lensing, supernovas, neutron stars, and blackholes!. Some ideas about gravity Early in the 17th century Galileo Galilei discovered that every object will accelerate in the same amount when falling to the ground, and he proposed his basic principle of relativity. The idea was a constant for gravity that was explored during the second half of the 17th century [^1]. The...

Photo by Shopify Partners from Burst So I finally enrolled in Math and Physics Bsc degree. This has been one of my passions in life, and a pending subject for my personal development. I am so excited I woke up at 6am this morning, sorted out a few things for work and home, made a cup of coffee, and sipped while logging into the math subject web-page. Of course I was met with the first exercise, a quiz. One of those "let’s see how rusted you are"-quiz . Actually, the course will be starting in October, but there is some introduction material to review, and to make sure all the basics are in place in one's head. I find this really cool, especially for a distance learning degree. So how was my first day back to school? Well, lately, I have been checking quite a few of Math videos in the internet. Very interesting are those from PBS infinite series, 3Blue1Brown, Khan Academy and MIT OCW. So I gave the quiz a go. I believe my understanding was good ...