this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
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Math Memes
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It's fucking obvious!
Seriously, I once had to prove that mulplying a value by a number between 0 and 1 decreased it's original value, i.e. effectively defining the unary, which should be an axiom.
Mathematicians like to have as little axioms as possible because any axiom is essentially an assumption that can be wrong.
Also proving elementary results like your example with as little tools as possible is a great exercise to learn mathematical deduction and to understand the relation between certain elementary mathematical properties.
It can’t be an axiom if it can be defined by other axioms. An axiom can not be formally proven
So you need to proof x•c < x for 0<=c<1?
Isn't that just:
xc < x | ÷x
c < x/x (for x=/=0)
c < 1 q.e.d.
What am I missing?
My math teacher would be angry because you started from the conclusion and derived the premise, rather than the other way around. Note also that you assumed that division is defined. That may not have been the case in the original problem.
isnt that how methods like proof by contrapositive work ??
Proof by contrapositive would be c<0 ∨ c≥1 ⇒ … ⇒ xc≥x. That is not just starting from the conclusion and deriving the premise.
i really dont care
Then don’t get involved in this discussion.
Your math teacher is weird. But you can just turn it around:
c < 1
c < x/x | •x
xc < x q.e.d.
This also shows, that c≥0 is not actually a requirement, but x>0 is
I guess if your math teacher is completely insufferable, you need to add the definitions of the arithmetic operations but at that point you should also need to introduce Latin letters and Arabic numerals.