[FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] The DeFrocked English Major Strikes Again

[Pedersen, David John II]

Good morning,

Can you take me off this list?

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David J. Pedersen II
Training Instructor
P.O. Box 1663 MS-G724 | Los Alamos, NM  87545
Office 555-555-5555
Mobile 555-555-5555
Northern New Mexico Integrated Security – A Centerra-TCS Joint Venture

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2024 9:33 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [FRIAM] The DeFrocked English Major Strikes Again

I am pretty sure this the stupidest question I have ever asked this forum,, so I am at your mercy.
I am in one of those situations where language and mathematics are rubbing together and driving crazy.
Let say that my patio is ten steps down from my back door.  I have two cats,  Dee and Ess, and  Dee is dominant to Ess.  So, if I go out to let them in, and I find  Ess on step -2   and  Dee on step -8,  I know I have an unstable situation .   And I would  rate the degree of instability as a positive 6.  How would I compare the two numbers mathematically to get  a minus 6.
But let’s say that for conceptual reasons I want to conceive of the situation as a degree of stability, with negative stability corresponding  to instability.   Now, according  to my index, the situation is a minus 6.  How would I compare the two numbers mathematically to get  a minus 6.
The situation I am trying to model here is the origin of the notion of static stability in meteorology.  Static Stability has a lot to do with differential lapse rates.  But lapse rates are minus numbers.  So a parcel is unstable if it has a lower lapse rate than surrounding parcels, and the greater the absolute value the difference between them, the greater the instability.
I asked “George” (GPT) to help me with this, but he suggested I just take absolute values and give them whatever sign I want, but somebody told me, way back when, that taking absolute values was not kosher in mathematics.  (Why else would the variance be the mean SQUARED deviation about  the mean?).
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