Unique Civ-Specific Great People Names

[Gaius Octavius]

This, too, is misleading IMHO. Physics is rarely more interesting than the mathematics behind it. Einstein would have disagreed with that, but that's my experience.

Consider the problem of a particle trapped in a finite square well potential whose length is 2a. If we treat the particle as wave and apply the time-independent Schrodinger wave equation, then we require the solution to satisfy d²u(x)/dx² + 2m/hbar² *E*u(x)=0. Because this is a wave, we can also calculate the reflection and transmission coefficients, the latter of which comes out to (if I can type this correctly) T = 4Kq exp(-2iKa) / ( (q² + k²)*(exp(-i2qa)-exp(i2qa)) + kq*(exp(-2qa)+exp(i2qa)) for this particular problem, where i is the imaginary number sqrt(-1), k is the wave vector, q² = 2m(V - E)/hbar² and V and E are the potential and energy, respectively. (I have left out many steps here because this is already long enough.)

This is not a very interesting mathematical solution (just use basic calculus and algebra to arrive at the answer), but it is a PROFOUND physical one. The transmission is non-zero, so there is a probability for the particle to be in places where it shouldn't be classically. This is equivalent to saying that I can walk through a wall. (This is the classic tunneling scenario.)

YAWN... From the back of the class... (I majored in political science...)

A friend of mine once told me a joke: When something new is discovered, the physicist asks, "What can it do?"; the engineer asks, "What can we build to harness it?"; and the philosopher asks, "Do you want fries with that?" Does this also apply to political science?

Then I guess Thaomas Mann and Lion Feuchtwanger, for instance, are both on the American list, too. Heinrich Heine and Joseph Roth on the French list. Alkibiades on the Persian one.

I think the major difference between Einstein and these guys is that most people have actually heard of him. My point was that it is more appropriate for Albert to be American than German; if you're going to base it on his relativity theories then maybe Switzerland would be better, but that's not really an option. And as for Alcibiades , he was the one who convinced the Athenians to invade Sicily during the Peloponnesian War, which turned into an absolute disaster and probably handed the victory to Sparta. (Afterwards, he defected to the Spartans and was instrumental in their establishment of a garrison in Attica.) So I'd say he's a pretty important Greek figure, wouldn't you?

I really don't care at all, I just don't like poor reasoning. Giving them numbers would be neat.

I don't like poor reasoning either. That's why I'm a physicist. BTW, your suggestion to quantize great people is interesting...

Here's a better idea: why don't we get rid of all city names, leader names, great people names, unit names, tech names, no-names, and every name in between, and then you can just play as "#17" with cities named 1, 2, 3... and you can declare war on civ "32" and take resources A, B and C away from them. J/K Oh yeah, and Montezuma will occasionally pop up demanding something or his "A's" will invade you.

The fact that Rhye took such pains to script real-life city names based on their historical locations suggests to me that realism is important to him, and having civ-specific great people is precisely the same kind of thing. You don't like realism and historicity in Civ 4, fine; but this mod is probably not for you, then.

Well, I like science-fiction movies and books . But part of the fun it's not understanding everything . In fact, I have checked that many physics students do hate sci-fi because it reminds them to their classes.

That's funny, most of the people I've talked to like sci-fi for this very reason! It gets them interested in their subjects. And those who don't like it usually don't because sci-fi these days is often written by people who have no scientific literacy, and they can spot the errors.

 

[Pottery]

there is a probability for the particle to be in places where it shouldn't be classically. This is equivalent to saying that I can walk through a wall.

I would not quite put it that way. What you have described is the Schrodinger equation for a particle inside a finite square well. Wave functions satisfying that equation go beyond the edges of the well. What is the physical meaning of this? It means that there is some small probability of finding the particle in a region where classic kinetic energy would be negative. However, if you tried to localize the particle within that region, your measurement of position would come with an uncertainty in the measurement of momentum, which would be just big enough to prevent you from measuring a negative energy (this follows from the uncertainty principle).

Now, this is not quite the same as saying that you can walk through a wall! It’s true that popular science books sometimes describe the phenomenon that way, but physics students should know better Having said that, I agree that the mathematical behaviour of the wave function you have described has important physical consequences to the theory of barrier penetration.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

But the fact remains that a particle under such conditions can in fact tunnel into regions that are classically forbidden, which is effectively like passing through a wall. Without getting into the negative energy issue, it's still a matter of being able to wind up in another region without having to gain the prerequisite energy. Walking through it "like it's not even there" is the point behind the comparison. You can't of course walk through a wall, though QM does give a small (very, very small) probability for this.

When you say you'd simply find it in a region where the classic KE is negative, that oversimplifies things. For one, it makes it sound like it's no big deal when it actually is. Again, the whole point is that a particle can be outside "the box" without overcoming the barriers! (The violation allowed by the uncertainty principle is equal to the negative kinetic energy required.) Imagine a prisoner who suddenly found himself outside the jail bars.

Tunneling has major applications in electronics, and it's more than just interesting mathematics, which is what I was really driving at. And as for popular books describing it this way, I should say that I have never read any that said that, but I have heard Ph.D. physicists describe it this way in physics classes to young physicists, my own prof. included. Imprecise? Sure. But there's a reason behind it. The potential barrier to a particle is what a wall would be to a human.

Perhaps a more humorous way (and more relevant for our purposes here!) to put it would be thus: Civ 4 and Warlords run at about, what, $40-50 for both these days? In other words, it takes so much money to buy Civ 4. If I don't have enough, I wouldn't expect to see Civ 4 on my computer any time soon. But this is sort of like suddenly finding it on my desk without having enough money to buy it! (Okay, this is really ridiculous, but you see my point.)

Anyway, enough with physics. We've probably already scared fearuin off for good. What happened to the real issue (so many posts ago), which was a compilation of names for Babylon?

 

[mitsho]

I think the major difference between Einstein and these guys is that most people have actually heard of him. My point was that it is more appropriate for Albert to be American than German; if you're going to base it on his relativity theories then maybe Switzerland would be better, but that's not really an option. And as for Alcibiades , he was the one who convinced the Athenians to invade Sicily during the Peloponnesian War, which turned into an absolute disaster and probably handed the victory to Sparta. (Afterwards, he defected to the Spartans and was instrumental in their establishment of a garrison in Attica.) So I'd say he's a pretty important Greek figure, wouldn't you?

You don't know Thomas Mann? That's a big deficit! Trust me, he is really known. Same goes with Heinrich Heine, both are well known German "authors". I really can advise you to go read a book of them sometimes soon. Joseph Roth is another example, but he isn't that famous though. I must admit I do not know Lion Feuchtwanger. Alcibiades on the other hand is another thing. In German he is written with k, in English with c, in Greek we have a whole other transliteration, so no need to correct the k with the c, that's just pedantery (on a international forum!).

mfG mick

 

[Wilhelm II]

My point was that Alcibiades was forced into Persian exile twice, worked for the Persians and was murdered by his own people. Therefore he has as much reason to be Persian as Einstein has to be American if exile (or being forced out of one's home) is the crucial factor.

Alcibiades is a different transliteration than Alkibiades but at least it has the same sound - that cannot be said of Frank/Franz. (I wonder if anyone at Firaxis has ever read one of Kafka's works.)

Great people have their history, too. And there is more to them than their nationality. And you will almost never ever have them born into a game world that's similar to the one they experienced and that shaped them. Since I know the curriculum vitae of some, adding civ-specific great people names is great for flavour but not for realism or historicity AT ALL in my eyes.

About physics and math: differential equations have always rather simple but illustrative solutions if you choose appropriate intitial or boundary values. But these simple examples are usually not relevant for practical use. So if you understand the math you understand the physics usually rather fast. E.g. QM or electrodynamics have rather simple concepts behind it. Simple in the way that you can explain the basic concepts behind it to almost everyone. The math is what leads to new results. And it is was makes QM unintuitive. We humans have little intuation for complex boundary value problems. Cooper pairs were first predicted by the formulae and only later measured or take Einstein's special theory of relativity as an example of classical physics.

About i: i²=-1.
i=sqrt(-1) => i²=sqrt(-1)*sqrt(-1)=sqrt((-1)*(-1))=sqrt(1)=1
That's why mathematicians don't like the "slang" of physicists or engineers.

Why didn't you use sin/cos in your solution as it saves some tipping? (2cosx=exp(-ix)+exp(ix); 2isinx=exp(-ix)-exp(ix))

The reason why I've included Joseph Roth is that he wrote "Radetzkymarsch", one of the best novels on the late Habsburg Monarchy/Austo-Hungarian Empire and was a brilliant journalist, who wrote some of the best articles against the Nazis before they rose to power. He died a rather tragic death in Paris. Lion Feuchtwanger was one of the most succesful German writers of his time, supporter of the early Bert Brecht, best-known for his historical novels like Jud Süß or his Josephus Trilogy. He, too, never returned to Germany after 1933 and died in California.
@mitsho: If you like German literature of this era, read at least one of Feuchtwanger's novels.

About Babylonia: I hope there are still some names to add since the current lists I've seen are too short for 5000 years worth of playing.

 

[Pottery]

When you say you'd simply find it in a region where the classic KE is negative, that oversimplifies things. ... Imagine a prisoner who suddenly found himself outside the jail bars ... I have heard Ph.D. physicists describe it this way in physics classes to young physicists, my own prof. included.

What oversimplifies - or, rather, distorts - the phenomenon is claiming that the solution to the quantum problem is “equivalent to people walking through walls” or to “prisoners being teleported out of their jails”. Once again, you professor probably wasn’t serious when he said that and you have taken him too literally. He must have used the prisoner analogy only as a way to dramatise the quantum effect and render it memorable to students. By the way, barrier penetration is by no means unique to Quantum Mechanics. Consider for example transmission of light across an optical barrier, or even transmission of water waves in a ripple tank. Yet I’ve never heard anybody claiming that these phenomena are “equivalent” to people walking through walls!

 

[Gaius Octavius]

I think everybody's taking what I say way too seriously and too literally!
About Alcibiades, the whole spelling thing was a joke! (That's why we have translations in TXT_KEY_. On the other thread people were arguing about how to spell Joan of Arc. Sheesh!)

And as far as QM and tunneling goes, this is the last I want to say about it: the transmission coefficient is non-zero, which is like being able to pass through a "wall", and that's the point behind what I was saying. All this controversy is over the one word "equivalent", so I now see it was bad to use that phrase--"similar" or "like" would have been better. Hyperboles have no place in internet forums (fora).

Yes, light passing thru optical barriers is another good illustration of this, for instance the two-prism tunneling effect observed by Newton in the case of total internal reflection. What makes this particular instance strange is that we are talking about electrons and whatnot, which are classically thought to be hard particles, little "billiard balls". The comparisons are imperfect but are meant to demonstrate something actually occurs, which according to all of our common perceptions about reality, just can't happen. That's the real novelty behind this: that QM predicts something that classical mechanics does not, and the one we observe is the QM one, which is evidence that it is the more fundamental theory. I trust this is what you were also thinking?

About sqrt(-1), yeah, it never ceases to amaze me how physicists, engineers and mathematicians can't get together on anything. Some use i, some use j, and of course math people reverse the angles in spherical coordinates (or maybe physicists do, dependening on your frame of reference ). I didn't use sines and cosines here simply because I prefer to use exponentials, but either works.

I'm not familiar with Joseph Roth and the others, but his story sounds very interesting. I can see why you would want him in. As for Frank/Franz, I got his name and spelling from another source (don't remember where) and that's the way it was. If it needs to be changed, that's fine.

I just have to disagree with Wilhem II, when you say adding civ-specific people doesn't add to realism. Again, it is much more realistic to me to have Einstein "born" in America than for him to be "born" in Zululand. Is that what this is really all about, the word "born"? Because it's silly in and of itself anyway; in the late game you can have somebody born in 1959 and use them on the same turn, before he/she is one year old! I've heard of child prodigies, but this is ridiculous.

(Just googled Albert Einstein to look up something. Now I see why you're understandably upset over this. He was born in Ulm!)

I think I know a way to solve all this: take a look at Pottery's thread about changing America's unique power. Should fix everything. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=208586


Can we please get back to suggestions for Babylon's names? The other civs already have enough, and we can change around one or two names later. Someone said something about using Abbasid names plus ancients, which I think is good because I'm having trouble finding decent ancient ones. Would it also be good to use modern Iraqi names, considering that Babylon is usually still in the game by that point?

 

[Wilhelm II]

About Einstein: All I ever wanted to know is what his importnace for America (or the importance of his American years) was in relation to his importance for Germany (or the importance of his years in Germany). Einstein shares the fate of many classics: everybody knows their names, almost noone their biography, way of thinking or works. If he inspired a whole generation of US physics students, fine. If his work was important for Princeton, fine. Both can be seen as founding an Academy in civ4 terms. But that he should not be German, because he was exiled as some people (not you) pointed out is in my eyes not enough. And as I've tried to convey: people who were exiled should not necessarily change their nationality. I'm not pariotic about him: I know well enough that the city he was born (Ulm) was as important to him like Augsburg was to Brecht. ("The best thing about Augsburg is the train to Munich.") On a side note: I only study in Ulm and am strongly against the idea the president of my university has: to rename Ulm University to Abert Einstein University, Ulm. Why? See above and half the students study medicine, only a minority physics and I'm against idolizing people.

About Pottery's idea: nice, but it doesn't really fit. Einstein, Mann and the other celebrities didn't just idle in their homecountry before they "brain-drained" to America. What would be better is that totalitarian civics (theocracy, police state, nationhood) should have the risk that Great people (even settled down ones) desert or Acedemies are closed down. Think of the Platonic Acedemy closed by a Byzantine emperor, or the confucian academies destroyed by the Yellow Emperor, the great purges of Stalin, Mao, the Nazis, etc.

I have no problem with "XY is born in Z". "XY has shown his brilliance" or something like this would be better and more accurate. The government just comes aware of some promising new genius. Just think of Napoleon commanding artillery at first. My problem was more that Mozart would not be the composer he was had he been born a century earlier or later. Having Rommel command German knights is maybe better than Zulu spearmen, but it's still not the real or historical Rommel. It's more a matter of flavour for me than realism. We're only using their names we do not simulate them or their lives. In my eyes great people are deeply rooted into the time and environment they lived in and that is what we take away when we just use their names whenever "their number comes up". But I guess, it's just a matter of taste and I really appreciate the effort you put into your work.

sqrt(-1) was just meant as an insider joke. It was used as a caveat to teach us that preciseness has it advantages and I thought you were probaby shown the same trick by your math prof/tutor. I study electronics and I shared an communications technology lecture with one of my friends who studies math. And he was not really amused about the way one tutor tried to teach ergodic theory etc to us.

I think we should use the Iraqi names, too, as we also use Italian names for Romes, e.g. Most names of the geniuses of the Ancient era are lost to history anyway.

 

[Prestidigitator]

Octavius, I have already gathered the names for Babylon, they are coded, but the only thing remaining is compiling them with the other names. If only I could find the time to do that .

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Wihelm:
After reading your post, I have to say that I pretty much agree with you. Chugginator and I have talked about making age-specific as well as civ-specific mods, as it seems strange (like you said) for Rommel to be leading knights or for Einstein to be born in 900 BC. Of course, doing this would create enormous difficulties, but you make a good point.

I didn't know about the university of Ulm being renamed to Albert Einstein university; that does seem a bit odd considering most people are medical students. It sounds like just an effort to generate publicity more than anything.

I really like your idea about police state and civics triggering population loss. That actually sounds like a good thing to implement (maybe not with great people, but just general population). Just like in civ 3 when you switched to fascism, your population would decrease. Another good line from Civ 3, as you suggested: "Our recent breakthrough in technology has proven the brilliance of a great scientific leader, $GREAT_LEADER0!"

Prestidigitator:
How exactly have you coded Babylon's names? Have you implemented an entirely new system, or just used my existing mod? If it's the latter then I think can help with the compiling process; if you made a new system I would very much like to see it--perhaps it's simpler than the XML coding I use now.

 

[Prestidigitator]

Octavius,
Perhaps it sounded a bit too fancy , what I meant is that I have created the code 'tags' for the xml:
ie:

<Greatperson>UNIT_GREAT_PERSON_NEBUCHADNEZZAR</Greatperson>
English
<Nebuchadnezzar>

etc..

your same system really, although I'm not quite sure about whether or not you have included unique names for the 'Warlord' unit have you?

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Yes, I have made UU's for Warlords, too. But there is currently a bug in the system such that Warlord names are not being used correctly. See my page for details. I have talked with several people, including Mexico, who developed the SDK mod that should fix this, but it doesn't work for some reason and no one knows how to fix it. Mexico's been pretty busy lately so he hasn't had time to look at it in detail yet.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Prestidigitator:
Forget about my previous post--it is now out of date. Mexico has since fixed the great general bug, so everything is now civ-specific, including the warlords. I have posted the fix on the other thread.

 

[Lord Apolon]

So since development is over can somebody turn this into a modcomp? I think it's a great idea and Gaius Octavius has put a lot of work into it, and I'd be delighted to install it. If only there were a download/I knew how!

 

[Mowque]

does it come with a physics lecture?

 

[fearuin]

I'd hope to have the physics lecture skippable . So, where we can download it? Was it tested with RFC?

 

[Gaius Octavius]

does it come with a physics lecture?

No, no physics necessary... Thank God! (And I hope no more emigration controversy. )

I haven't tested this with RFC yet, but from what I can tell from the older version I have (Nov. 2006), it looks like all that is necessary is to merge the two or three XML files that are in my great people mod with RFC, and implement Mexico's new SDK code in Rhye's CvGameCoreDLL.dll. Beyond that, there shouldn't be any difficulty at all.

One note: when I did my civ-specific mod I left out most of the translation tags (I got lazy after a while), and just put the names directly in Civ4UnitInfos.xml, so we'll have to use Prestidigitator's new tags in order to translate them from English. I don't know if RFC has already been translated, but that's obviously worth thinking about for those who aren't English-speakers.

The GG fix and mod can both be downloaded from here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=199344

You can also get Mexico's full uncompiled SDK work here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=189123

 

[Phallus]

I haven't tested this with RFC yet, but from what I can tell from the older version I have (Nov. 2006), it looks like all that is necessary is to merge the two or three XML files that are in my great people mod with RFC, and implement Mexico's new SDK code in Rhye's CvGameCoreDLL.dll. Beyond that, there shouldn't be any difficulty at all.

So, can anyone follow this up with an attempt to merge the mods? I'd gladly try, but I'm sure I'd destroy both mods in the process.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

I've never compiled SDK before, but I can merge the XML files.

 

[Mowque]

you guys want a laugh? go to the 13th page of RFC and go to the GP people one. Kinda funny compared to this one.