this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2024
321 points (96.8% liked)

Math Memes

1156 readers
1 users here now

Memes related to mathematics.

Rules:
1: Memes must be related to mathematics in some way.
2: No bigotry of any kind.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 month ago (3 children)

0

There’s an (x - x) in there

[–] copd 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Technically there is a (x - 𝑥) in there. U+1D465 != x so this post is a little meh

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Mathematicians do weird stuff to get more letters, but I've never seen anyone use x and 𝑥 for different things

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I've never seen anyone use x and 𝑥 for different things

Yeah, me neither. I have had situations where I needed to distinguish between u, v, nu, and upsilon though. I had to be very careful with my handwriting that day...

[–] joshthewaster 4 points 1 month ago

They also wouldn't want to be ambiguous. If I was trying to write this problem the a, b, c... would get replaced by something like a_1, a_2,..., a_26 to be clearer. This problem works as a fun gotcha but isn't something that would come up in the real world.

[–] pyre 1 points 4 weeks ago

the first variables aren't roman. they're italicized as well. idk where you're getting the x vs x thing.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Do do, do do do do do....

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Assuming both x represent the same number. There's no reason to assume the ellipses should include x-x. Why would alphabetic order be involved at all?

[–] pyre 6 points 1 month ago

have you never taken math? I'm seriously asking because you're incredibly wrong in both statements.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Why would alphabetic order be involved at all?

Because the ... notation effectively means: fill in the blanks. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis#In_mathematical_notation (or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iterated_binary_operation if you want more...)

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yes for numbers, which these are not.

[–] nyctre 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So your argument is that in the list "a, b, c, ..., z" the "..." Bit could be anything and we have no way of knowing what's there and therefore the problem is unsolvable? Or what are you saying exactly?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Yes. The variables a, b, c, and z must have a stated correlation. Variable names do not implicitly have any relation between them. Ellipses work for numbers because a series of 1, 2, 3 ... 100 can be inferred using the rules of mathematics. A series of a, b, c ... z cannot; the series can only be inferred using the rules of the English language.

[–] pyre 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

so is the word "simplify". I guess we'll never know what they mean by that because if you pretend you don't speak English, then there's no way of knowing!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

The variables a, b, c, and z must have a stated correlation

They do! a is the pronumeral in the 1st factor, b is the pronumeral in the 2nd factor, c is the pronumeral in the 3rd factor - i.e. the first 3 terms in a sequence - and the nth factor has the pronumeral z, and you think that ISN'T stating a relationship between term t of the sequence and the t-th pronumeral? 😂

"the series can only be inferred using the rules of the English language" - well, they haven't used Greek letters for it, have they?? 😂

[–] nyctre 0 points 1 month ago

Right. Well, yeah, I guess your pedantic response is a lot more logical than the intended answer that other people have pointed out. Have a nice day!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Yes for numbers, which these are not

Pronumeral literally means stand-in for a numeral. They are all numbers, we just don't know the value of them.