Just citing what they cite I’m not a professional academician by any means. I’m just a medical student trying to write a paper in my spare time.  I don’t have an excellent grasp of the literature in this field. A lot of the information I’m learning comes from a single excellent review article/book chapter.  Here lies my question. This book chapter will say, e.g., ”such and such [1][2]”. Do I just cite the book chapter when I describe such and such in my background? I think not; I should probably cite [1], [2], or both.  So, the real question: is it OK/acceptable/ethical to just believe that [1] and [2] contain such and such; and just cite them without actually reading the papers? To be able to do this would save me quite a bit of time.
Is it unethical to cite a paper or book that you have never looked at? Suppose I see that Book X is cited by several papers with reference to some particular Fact Y. I wish to cite Fact Y. As far as I know, Book X is the only reference for Fact Y.   I have never looked at Book X. Nonetheless, I cite it like this:  'Fact Y' (see Book X)  My question is: Is this ethical, given that I've never looked at Book X?  More context for my question. I am NOT asking whether this is good scientific practice. I am NOT asking how a good scientist should actually go about citing Fact Y. I am NOT asking if this could undermine your credibility as a scientist.  Instead, I am asking this question because it seems to be a somewhat-common practice. And moreover, as far as I know, no scientist has ever been issued even an official rebuke (much less fired) for engaging in such practice. This would suggest to me that this practice is not considered to be unethical.   Of course, it is not binary as to whether a practice is unethical. But I would simply like to know whether the academic community in general considers this to be even a mildly unethical practice. Or if it is perhaps very slightly unethical, but not a big deal. Or if it is not in the least bit unethical.
Showing that $G/(H\cap K)\cong (G/H)\times (G/K)$ Applying MVT and IVT (?) to show something about f'''? (edit: actually, Taylor's Theorem using Lagrange remainder) I believe that the correct answer to this question will involve applying both the Mean Value Theorem and the Intermediate Value Theorem, perhaps several times.  However, I can't see how to proceed.  I went down what I thought were the typical paths and just reached dead ends.  Does someone maybe have a hint?  I think that with the appropriate nudge I should be able to solve this question.  If not, I'll edit and ask if someone knows how to solve the whole thing.  Here's the question:  Let $f: \mathbf R \to \mathbf R$ be such that $f$, $f'$, $f''$, and $f'''$ exist and are continuous on $\mathbf R$ and satisfying $f(-3)=-1$, $f(0)=0=f'(0)$, and $f(3)=8$.  Prove that there exists $\xi \in (-3, 3)$ such that $f'''(\xi) \ge 1$. How do I kill a process that won't die? I'm unable to kill a process using any of the techniques I'm aware of ("Force Quit" in Activity Monitor, top, killall from the Terminal) and wonder if there are some additional steps I can take.    ~ $ sudo killall -KILL 77439 Password: No matching processes were found ~ $ killall -KILL 77439 No matching processes belonging to you were found ~ $ killall 77439 No matching processes belonging to you were found ~ $ killall Mathematica No matching processes belonging to you were found   FWIW the process is "Mathematica" which I cannot relaunch, Quit, or Force Quit, or sample, either by name or PID, and it appears to have some odd side effects (screenshots don't appear, can't empty trash, and can't even shut down the system).  Are there additional steps that can be taken to really really kill a badly behaved process? when is this series convergent. Let $(x,y)\in \mathbb{R^2}$ and consider the series   $$\lim_{n\rightarrow \infty}\sum_{\ell,\,k=0}^n \frac{k^2 x^k y^\ell}{\ell!}$$  Then for what values $(x,y)$ the series converges. I have absolutely no idea how to deal with it. When would you call java's thread.run() instead of thread.start()? When would you call Java's thread.run() instead of thread.start()? I stumbled upon  on last weekend, it introduces an integral trick that exploits . On its last page, the author, Mr. Anonymous, left several exercises without any hints, one of them is to evaluate the Gaussian integral $$ \int^\infty_0 e^{-x^2} \,dx= \frac{\sqrt{\pi}}{2} $$ using this parametrization trick. I had been evaluating it through trial and error using different paramatrizations, but no luck so far.     Here are what I have tried so far:   A first instinct would be do something like:$$ I(b) = \int^\infty_0 e^{-f(b)x^2}\,dx $$ for some permissible function $f(\cdot)$, differentiating it will lead to a simple solvable ode: $$ \frac{I'(b)}{I(b)} = -\frac{f'(b)}{2f(b)} $$ which gives: $$ I(b) = \frac{C}{\sqrt{f(b)}}. $$ However, finding this constant $C$ basically is equivalent to evaluating the original integral, we are stuck here without leaving this parametrization trick framework. A second try involves an exercise on the same page: $$ I(b) = \int^\infty_0 e^{-\frac{b^2}{x^2}-x^2}dx. $$ Taking derivative and rescaling the integral using change of variable we have: $$ I'(b) = -2I(b). $$ This gives us another impossible to solve constant $C$ in: $$ I(b) = C e^{-2b} $$ without leaving this framework yet again. The third try is trying modify Américo Tavares's answer in this : $$ I(b) = \int^\infty_0 be^{-b^2x^2}\,dx. $$ It is easy to show that: $$ I'(b) = \int^\infty_0 e^{-b^2x^2}\,dx - \int^\infty_0 2b^2 x^2 e^{-b^2x^2}\,dx = 0 $$ by an integration by parts identity: $$ \int^\infty_0 x^2 e^{- c x^2}\,dx = \frac{1}{2c}\int^\infty_0 e^{- c x^2}\,dx . $$ Then $I(b) = C$, ouch, stuck again at this constant.     Notice in that  question, Bryan Yocks's answer is somewhat similar to the idea of parametrization, however he has to introduce another parametric integration to produce a definite integral leading to $\arctan$.  Is there such a one shot parametrization trick solution like the author Anonymous claimed to be "creative parameterizations and a dose of differentiation under the integral"? What does var prime = num != 1; mean? win 10 home how to rename my home directory and account login Why are my photos not crisp? In a very small static universe with only a particle, does it make sense to talk about time? I am sorry if this question is silly; it′s just one of those things I wished I asked before leaving university.  If there were a static universe only as big as the size of two particles, say electrons, and there were one electron in it going back and forth from point A to point B: would time also go back and forth in the future (point B) and in the past (point A), or would it be considered to  go forward as it does for us? would it be possible to know how long that electron stayed at point A or point B, would it even make sense to ask? I guess what I am asking is: does time move forward only because there are so many particles moving in this enormous space that it is almost impossible they would all be back in the same position they held at least once before relative to each other? does time exist only as a consequence of a lot of particles and their position relative to each other, and the space for them, just like heat? Shouldn't it be "he was the most famous fighter to have ever lived"? Why does WMI Provider Host (WmiPrvSE.exe) keep spiking my CPU? I generally keep my laptop on 24x7, and at the end of the day it's really annoying to have my thighs burnt because over overheating.   The overheating seems to be a result of WMI Provider Host (WmiPrvSE.exe) spiking the CPU utilization to 25% every few minutes.  Why does this happen?  I have an HP Envy 14 (with the HP bundled crap) running on Windows 7 Home Premium.  (Note: Based on @nhinkle's , it seems that HP Wireless Manager might be the culprit, is there any way to confirm this?)     This question was a .   Read the Feb 28, 2011  for more details or  Question of the Week. Why can we flag/vote a question on Meta as duplicate of another question which has no accepted/upvoted answers? When we flag/vote-to-close a question as a duplicate on Stack Overflow, and that potential duplicate doesn't have any upvoted or accepted answers, we are alerted that we can't use that question as a duplicate and can't continue. This same check does however not seem to apply to Meta questions. Why not? I was using Windows XP, I like Ubuntu, but I'm wondering,because as  I'm a professional photographer &amp; photo editor.  I do my work with Photoshop, so will photoshop work in ubuntu? Why intra-word ** highlighting is broken to protect programming_underscore_usage? Community user "stealing" tags? List of freely available physics books I'm trying to amass a list of physics books with open-source licenses, like Creative Commons, GPL, etc. The books can be about a particular field in physics or about physics  in general.  What are some freely available great physics books on the Internet? edit: I'm aware that there are tons of freely available lecture notes online. Still, it'd be nice to be able to know the best available free resources around.  As a starter:         Table of contents sorted by field (in alphabetical order): Where can I find a list of Magic Items by rarity? I am currently looking for a list of Magic Items (non-homebrew and preferably Armor/Weapons) arranged in Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, and Legendary. There is not one in the Players Handbook or Dungeon Masters Guide that is appropriate.  Does such a list exist and if so, where can I find it? Beamer and description environment text size What's the use of a decoupling capacitor near a reservoir capacitor? I've seen some circuits where a decoupling capacitor is used as well as a reservoir capacitor, like this (C4 and C5):    I've read about  and for me it looks as if they are meant to remove small fluctuations in the supply voltage. Then I thought - wasn't that the purpose of a  as well? Why wouldn't the reservoir capacitor be able to filter out the small fluctuations, if it is able to filter out the large fluctuations?  So I feel like I have a basic misunderstanding here. What is the purpose of a decoupling capacitor next to a reservoir capacitor, when we assume we place both equally near to the power consuming part? Or is the only advantage of the decoupling capacitor that it is smaller and can therefore be easily placed more near to the power consuming part?