The maths-only board...

[Chris]

I think it should have a password, so we don't get any non-maths people posting. Or something. People could LOOK at it, but not post. Is that possible?
This board should be purely geek-shite territory, and nothing else!

[Indie Committee]

no. don't complain, i'm doing you a service. now, talk about maths. get it all out of your system. this is a board for cleansing the soul and sharing your maths addicition problems. you're all in the same boat; hopefully you will learn from each other's mistakes and come out as real, acceptable members of society.

[Chris]

Alex, you've got to only post once more EVER! Just for the post-count
re-register or something, it'd be so cooool!

[Ben]

piss off Alex! You art students all get your gratification from your topic simply by writing on the forum and expressing views! You hide your geekdom by incorporating in your opinions. In Maths there is no opinion so anything related to our subject looks mathematical. At least we don't claim to be anything else BUT geeks. You all hide behind your persona of 'topical' and 'interesting' when really you're just as influenced by your degrees as us.
Anyway, on that note, I've just been learning about the irreducability of polynomials over certain fields. Very interesting (although so intuitive it's obvious)
For example, x²-2 is reducible over |R but not over Q, for obvious reasons, since the factorisation is not valid within the quotients.
I have decided my favourite field is Z₂, since addition is equal to subtraction. TOP ACE.
We also had some fun with regards to learning about Compact Metric Spaces today and proved the Bolzano-Weierstrass Theorem, which states that in a compact metric space all sequences have a convergent subsequence. At least, that's how it was stated in lecture; Mathworld gives a different wording.

[Chris]

yo, why isn't (x+2)(x-2) valid for quotients? or am I missing the point...?

[Ben]

christophe said:

yo, why isn't (x+2)(x-2) valid for quotients? or am I missing the point...?

x²-2 doesnt factor to (x+2)(x-2)
it's the most obvious example of something that is in the reals but not in the quotients.

[Chris]

Christ, how stupid can I actually be!? Please, world, forgive me for thinking that x²-2=(x-2)(x+2).

Oh yeah, and the screw-up with the differentiation was caused by the ridiculous number of [sups] and [subs] and stuff... well annoying

[Ben]

no problem. i did have to check it once i'd written it; it was just much easier to spot the flaw after all the fake-tml had been addressed.

By the way, Chris, I've never actually asked...two questions: 1. Why did you do maths? and 2. what part of maths interests you the most?

[Indie Committee]

it was only in jest! maybe i should make an arts board too, would that make you happy?

[Chris]

hey, why not? it might work better as a "work" forum in the off-topic section, or something. That said, I don't know if that'd be necessary on an indie-soc website though.

ben said:

no problem. i did have to check it once i'd written it; it was just much easier to spot the flaw after all the fake-tml had been addressed.

By the way, Chris, I've never actually asked...two questions: 1. Why did you do maths? and 2. what part of maths interests you the most?

Same reason as everyone, Ben. The money and the women

[Tev]

ok........

if an engines compressor inlet pressure and temperature is 10 bar and 250K respectively, and the outlet pressure and temp is 30 bar and 290K respectively, find the stagnation properties and the compressor efficiency....

answers on a stamped, addressed envelope....

craig again....

[elaine]

i really liked maths at a-level and i still really like it now. i got 590/600 for 6 a-level modules.
not trying to boast (well maybe a little) but just showing that i loved it.

its a pity i dont do any now. i wish there was someway i could integrate pure maths (my favourite) into history of medicine.

i hate this segregation. people think that scientists cant write essays and that "essayists" cant do intergration. NOT TRUE.

[Lisa]

i do believe that all i remember about maths is x=y somedays and x doesn't = y on others.

[Rob]

rainbowhipster said:

i do believe that all i remember about maths is x=y somedays and x doesn't = y on others.

And so far, all I know about engineering is exactly the same thing. I am convinced that once I graduate, all I will need is a little book and nothing else to construct a plant. It is fun guessing and estimating though. Engineering is *not* an exact science.

[Tom]

i wonder how much of what we learn at uni will actually be useful for whatever jobs we end up doing. i cant really see how knowing what a orthogonal matrix is could help with any job to be honest.

[Ben]

it's not knowing what an orthogonal matrix is that's important, it's the properties of them that make them useful. For example, they are simple to invert (obviously!) which means that they are handy when solving systems of linear equations (and how often do you have to do that, especially in real life?). For example, orthogonal matrices lead to diagonalisation, and diagonalisation means that exponentiating matrices is very simple. Knowing a formula isn't useful unless you know exactly why it's useful, if you see what i mean.
If I told you that an ideal's definition is that it must be a subring and closed under multiplication from any item in the ring, who cares? Noone, but it leads to so many important results, like that every Ideal is the Kernel of a ring homomorphism.

Oh Maths, i love you.
Mostly, x=y for all x=y, but sometimes it doesn't. then you have a contradiction and your assumption was wrong