Or maths, if you prefer. Including numbers large, small, positive, negative, real, imaginary, rational, irrational, and transcendental; infinities of all sizes; paradoxes, puzzles, and conundrums; and proofs by demonstration, contradiction, brute force, legerdemain, and intimidation. If you’ve got ’em, post ’em.
153 thoughts on “Math”
Comments are closed.
First comment! Woohoo! i agree with axa-staying up late definitely pays off.
unless some horrible person comes in to ruin my dreams. lol! jk! i would be too mad…at least i might not be. mwahaha
Math. or maths. or mathematics. or odd combinations of numbers and logic designed to overthrow the GPA of students everywhere. Um…I don’t like it. sorry. I do like logic though. especially twisting it around
no but seriously logic rocks.
actually math hw today was pretty easy. we’re doing parallel lines, parallelograms, angles, triangles, squares, rhombuses, trapezoids, isosceles, scalene blahblahblah. of course we already learned all this waaaay long ago so no issue there. until in comes the horribly complicated way of looking at it that you never even dreamed of the existence of sitting there as a little second-grader playing with your big yellow hexagonal blocks. (oooh those were fun!) it will come. it is the Doom of Higher Math. bum bum buuum.
I despise 2 column proofs. ickyickynasty. i like the paragraph proofs. they make sense. and the indirect proofs and all. but not the 2 columns. bleh.
infininty is cool cuz when some math geek tries to work with it they get messed up and can’t understand it and then the non-math-geek (aka me) get’s to say “give up. it’s hopeless”
infinity is not eligible for human comprehension at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience.
yes randomness. ok i’m gonna post this now cuz by this time somebody’s already pressed submit w/some nice little math problem…like…oh…i dunno…what’s 1+1?
don’t laugh!! yes i hear you snickering over there! 1+1 is an important mathematical question!! It’s certainly nothing to sneeze at! *aaaaaaaaaaaCHOO!* I would say that 1+1 is very well worth knowing and if you already know it, well, we can review ok? so who knows the answer?
Indirect proofs. You prove that the opposite of what you want to prove is false so what you originally wanted to prove is true.
It’s like this. Say I have a have a DVD. I know what movie it is( Return of the King, just because), and I want to prove it’s a long movie. First I ‘d say the opposite of what I want to prove: It’s not a long movie. Because it’s not a long movie, I would state that it’s not over three hours, the reason being movies over 3 hours are considered long ( Woohoo, that’s like a postulate, since you don’t prove it. I think) Then I would say it couldn’t be the movie Return of the King, as it is over 3 hours. This contradicts the given, which cannot happen, thus concluding that the assumption was false, and what you want to prove is true.
“Long” isn’t the best term to use, but whatever.
:reads Ebeth’s post: I have all these theories. You know, how time doesn’t exist, but the human mind is to weak to comprehend that sort of thing, and thus needs structure. Like how there is the definition of night and day. Same thing with ownership, you can’t own something, it just exist in your general area. And the same with equivalent exchange (as was put in Fullmetal Alchemist) You have to give to get. It applies to everything, if you think about it.
Hmm, numbers don’t really exist either, just a “complicated way to explain a simple thing” Something to that effect. Artemis Fowl, Book One.
wait aren’t you supposed to prove that it’s not something? like say you want to prove that ROTK is not boring even though it’s long. so you would assume that ROTK was boring and go from there to prove that that’s incorrect. and then once you figure out that it’s not boring you can say that it’s boring because that’s the only other option.
that’s how i learned it anyway. of course hilton’s already filled the E part of the I.E. classification for teachers. she might be I.E. i really hope not because i’ve already got an I.E teacher to ruin my life this year.
(fyi I.E. stands for Incompetent and Evil. It’s probably the worst teacher classification possible. I’ve had 3 I.E. teachers. icky icky. straight in a row too. 7th 8th and now 9th grade. possibly two in 9th. I really can’t figure out if hilton is competent or not. sometimes she’s good sometimes not. or it could be my attention span. she is pretty boring. but whatever. let me suffer my delusions. if any. ok. i just had sugar. don’t bug me.)
yeah! rock on axa!
h2g2 quote-“time is an illusion. lunchtime doubly so.”
but oh vell. let’s suffer our delusions of structure. it stops us from jumping in front of cement mixers in depression through inability to comprehend anything.
I need to read/see/both that book/movie. So lazy…
My math teacher is all into Geometry, so he gets mad if you say the wrong thing. ( Well, at least when it’s me. Hmph!)
I have to find a cement mixer now, and explain to it that it dosen’t exist. XD
*gasp* haven’t read that??? shock and horror!!! go read it!!! it’s in any decent library.
um..make sure you explain that from a safe distance. that wouldn’t be good to be run over by something that doesn’t exist. actually it’s better than being run over by something that does exist…
speaking of crazy theories of the world i had a crazy sort of idea type half-theory that we’re all inside a video game. and we just sorta go wherever some random alien kid moves us.
odd thing, the world…
ok i’m really gonna go now. i’ve been saying that for a while now but i really should go. so cu later!
Wohoo!!! MATH!!!
Has anybody ELSE figured out why the Lewis Caroll thing in the letter is wrong?
I have to go to the librabry to day for a history paper I’ve been putting off, so I will look for said book! ^^
Lewis Caroll?
November/December issue, page 45.
Interesting how math has already branched into philosophy. We be wierd. We want a board for math because we talk about math on all the other boards. Then, we talk about philosophy on the math board.
It’s math-based philosophy. scientific type philosophic math. something like that.
what are you guys talking about?? lewis caroll? i want my nov issue…
GIRLS ARE EVIL
~A Mathematical Proof~
It is common knowledge that:
(Girls) = (Time) x (Money).
It is also well-known that:
(Time) = (Money)
and:
(Money) = (Time)
Thus, by the substitution property of equality, we can find that:
(Girls) = (Money) x (Money)
and, by simplification:
(Girls) = (Money)^2.
We also know that:
(Money) = [root(Evil)].
Therefore, by substitution:
(Girls) = {[root(Evil)]^2}
And by simplification:
(Girls) = (Evil)
The answer to the math problem is that x-y equals 0. You can’t divide by 0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m tired… *yawn* I sort of like math… it’s fun… I’m expressing my tiredness.. by putting dots… in.. between.. the words… I had math… homework.. today… I know!… let’s do… a… contest!.. okay… whenever… you hear/see… this- 201395… and the poster’s name is mousie… type beep in bold italics and you’ll get virtual chocolate for a life time supply… no one had better.. dare to use my name!… if they do…. *grrrrr* … *spoils effect by yawning* then no virtual chocolate for them… robert and rosanne can be the referees!!.. sound good?…
See my post on the Caroll problem in the Nov/Dec issue board…
Oh, and girls aren’t evil. I’m VERY insulted. And anyhow, you’re overgeneralizing. If I were you, I’d substitute “Mega-shopper preppy girls” for “Girls” for my own good. Grr…
All I spend money on is books. Hmph.
Who else can prove that .9 repeating = 1?
.1 repeating= 1/9
Multiply both sides by 9.
.9 repeating= 9/9
9/9=1. Therefore, .9 repeating=1.
Easy, I know. Hey, I haven’t done proofs since last year! Go easy on me!
:cough Philosophy board cough gag: Ugh. Finding the slope of altitudes is confusing. Especially when you don’t know what the altitude is.
wow that’s all i spend my money on. BOOKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
201395!!!!!!!!
Ok quiz quistion what is the square root of 100?
10. Of course.
Very funny D_Q . So you say I am evil. Than suffer my wrath.:twisted:
DIE PROOFS DIE!
Where am I?
I had a nightmare that I was back in geometry. *shudders* What was/is everyone else’s least favorite math class? I obviously still have nightmares about the horrors of geometry. Although I slept through most of prealgebra, so maybe that was worse. I like algebra. Algebra makes SENSE. I mean, in algebra you don’t have to prove that angles that are obviously right are right in 27 steps and you don’t have to look at triangles and prove they’re not[rest of rant censored by RRF, who really has your best interests in mind in this case. Perhaps I should post this rant on the “Things that we
like heart consider flamabamabulousReally Really Hate.] DEATH TO PROOFS!Oh Geometry, by far. Algebra was somewhat dificult, but only because I never studied. My teacher was nice. Oh ho ho, not now. Mr Fain just had to assign more proofs over the three day weekend. As if History Day isn’t enough [ Rest of post similarly edited ]
:waves death to proofs flag:
proofs are evil. evil proofs. DIE PROOFS DIE!!! wow i’m the first to type in bold after mousie’s thing. do i get the choklit then??
D_Q, great proofs, except for one thing-GIRLS AREN’T LIKE THAT! at least not all girls. actually there are a lot of guys like that so by that you can say that guys are evil too. i g2g now study hall’s almost over.
beep
HA! EBETH DIDN’T SAY “BEEP”! THE CHOCOLATE IS MINE!!!
ooooooh i read it wrong. i thought it was deep bold letters.
I skipped Geometry. Someone told my mom that Saxon math really had all the Geometry I would need, so she let me skip it. This year in math I’m finishing up the last little part of Algebra 2, reviewing Algebra 1, and I think my mom is going to order a quick Geometry course. She’s having me review Algebra because she wants me to take the ACT in the spring, and it has a lot of just basic Algebra. It also has a tiny bit of Trigonometry, but I think I’ll just get my dad to explain the questions on the practice ACT that I don’t understand, and I’ll be good to go.
here’s some virtual choklit randomrohanfreak!!!!!!!!!! Here we go again!!!!!
201395!!!!!!!!!!!
remember type beep when you hear / see it!!!!! give or take exclamation points.
beep
I’m not really sure what’s going on. Did I do it right?
.9 repeating = 1 in a different way than randomrohanfreak
1/3 times 3 = 1
1/3 = .3 repeating
.3 repeating times 3 = .9 repeating
therefore .9 repeating = 1
I enjoyed geometry! It was so much fun! I had a really good teacher and I enjoy proofs and finding angle measures etc. The class I didn’t like was trigonometry. I had a bad teacher who took most of the hour explaining the homework. she then used the last 15 minutes to explain what we were doing next. Because of this I didn’t understand the homework as well as I could have. Her tests were really easy though. During her class I mainly sat and read.
I don’t like math very much.
Math is my favorite subject. Eeeeeevil Boxty!!!!!!!!!!!!!
my teacher is definitely E. maybe I.E. baaaaaad teacher baaaaad. her tests are hard though.
I have NO MATH HW THIS WEEKEND omg i am sooo happy i had stuff going on today from 8:45 to now and i’ll have about as much time for hw tomorrow. i will be up sooo late. plus my english thing is really gonna suck cuz i’m not really sure what i’m doing. i was busy failing the essay test. well actually i might get a B cuz i think i did a good job on the animal farm stuff. but anthem i don’t remember at all. none of this has anything to do with math so i’ll shut up now. oh yeah and paralell lines rock cuz i actually know what to do with them.
I have to insulate a bottle for science class. Ideas, anybody? This may not be maths. Oh well. I will add a mathsy bit so nobody complains.
Maths is my favorite subject in school, which isn’t saying much. All I have to do for maths this weekend is write a summary of arithmetic and geometric sequences and series. If you think this isn’t much of an “all” you don’t know my math teacher. Actually, he’s better than my sister’s, who assigns fifty problems a night.
MG here’s some virtual chocolate!!!!!! yes all you have to do is type beep in italics and boldness!!! like this- beep
beep
Hmm…. QUIZ TIME!!!
What is 0 divided by 0?
HINT: the answer is as obvious as it seems… and then again, it isn’t!
You can’t didvide by zero.
0/0 is undefined
what is 0!/0! ?
to #1: 1
to #2: 0.
I figured out the puzzle on the letters page! YOU CAN’T DIVIDE BY ZERO! I REIGN SUPREME!
Do my math hw for me. *puppy face* (Is there a puppy face smiley?)
Write down everything you know about arithmetic and geometric sequences and series.
Go.
anything divided by zero = infinity, if you want to get fancy!
There’s something special about zero factorial, though.
I forgot what a factorial is. Anyone?
I know it’s written like x!, though. I forgot what it actually is.
Math?!?!
I’m doing high school math and I’m still in fifth grade. How come? I go to regular school but I’m only math home schooled. I have to do “workbooks” after dinner everyday. I have a tendency to say
NOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo.
whenever we do this.
(don’t try me, I still have to use paper.)
Who knows what the smallest perfect number is?
____
And what does this mean? 3! (and no, it is not someone exclaiming 3.)
____
$1 dollar words.
if a= $0.01
b= $0.02, etc.,
what are some $1 dollar words?
factorial is a number multiplied by every consecutive number below it. so 5! is 5(4)(3)(2)(1), or 120.
I really like English. It’s just that math sometimes confooses me. Standard form point slope form slope intercept form…they all sound the same and they look even the samer.
Oh, and I think that people who accuse the opposite gender as being evil is trying to hide their own evil. Let’s think on that one
Girls = evil
cannot compute
Girls+job=money
D_Q = notknowingwhathe’stalkingabout + ignorance
Dairy Queen = Ice cream place down the street
Money + Dairy Queen = less money than before
Dairy Queen = DQ which looks like D_Q
There fore…
D_Q + ignorance = ice cream
Boxty = potato
potato = good
Boxty + potato = Irish
so in the end Irish people are all potatoes?
I think that I like this equation stuff
okay
have somebody count by fives like this:
5, 55, 555, 5555, 55555 until they get to 555555 and then say think of a vegetable. it will most likely be carrot.
Why a carrot?
I’m doing Algebra 2. I did most of it last year, but I still have to finish it up. Can anyone factor 64 p/\6 a/\4 – x/\3 y/\12? Can you prove that 4.123 with the 3 repeating is a rational number? Can you convert 4R-14U to polar form? These are just some of the problems I encounter on a daily basis in my math book. Believe it or not, math is my favorite subject. Once I learned all this stuff, it was pretty fun to start putting it into practice.
0! is one isn’t it? I forgot about that…
I tried to tell my mom that Lord of the Rings didn’t exist. It sounded a lot stupider allowed, me telling her that a movie could only exist if it was under three hours.
How do you make a squared thing, like the little 2 up in the corner, on a computer? A Mac computer to boot.
Did anybody else have to take the AMC-8 yesterday? Grrr…
How could 0! be 1? Zero multiplied by anything is zero.
Today in maths class we proved that the square root of 2 is irrational. (How do you get a square root symbol on a computer?)
Ahem. Indirect proof time.
Prove: root2 is irrational.
Assume that root2 is rational. root2 must be able to be expressed as a simplified fraction a/b. So root2b=a. 2b^2 (that’s 2b squared)=a^2. a^2 must be even b/c a and b are integers and a must be able to be divided by 2. So a^2=2k where k is some integer. By substitution, 2b^2=2k.
Wait a second. I think I screwed up somewhere here. I’ll figure out what I did wrong and repost the proof.
To square x, you can write either x^2 or x**2.
To make the square root of x on a computer, most people write “sqrt(x)”, the way you do in several computer languages. Or you could raise x to the one-halfth power, which is the same thing: x^(1/2) or x^0.5 or x**(1/2) or x**0.5.
Strange as it seems, 0! does indeed equal 1. To see why, note that (x+1)! = (x+1)*x! . (For example, 3 factorial equals 3 times 2 factorial. 4 factorial = 4 times 3 factorial. And so on.) If you divide both sides of the equation by (x+1) and turn the equation around, you get x! = (x+1)! / (x+1). Let x = 0. Then
0! = (0+1)!/(0+1) = 1!/1 = 1/1 = 1.
That makes sense when you consider that x! is the number of different ways you can arrange a set containing x objects. So 3! = 6 is the number of different ways you can write the numbers 1, 2, and 3 (1, 2, 3; 1, 3, 2; 2, 1, 3; 2, 3, 1; 3, 1, 2; 3, 2, 1). 2! = 2 is the number of different ways to write the numbers 1 and 2 (1, 2; 2, 1). There’s only 1 way to arrange a set with one member. There’s also only 1 way to arrange a set containing zero members, the empty set. So 1! = 1, and 0! also = 1.
Sound plausible?
Just so y’all know, it was, in fact, a GIRL, who showed that to me (Algebra I… good times…)
–D_Q
That factorial thingy is weird. I personally think that the maths behind the thing is very fishy, since multiplying anything by zero is zero. If I’m being difficult, stubborn, and dumb, I apologise, but I think we have a mathematical contradiction on our hands here. What is the official definition of factorial? Maybe that will clear it up.
Boxty, there’s another carrot trick.
Do all sorts of math that has to do with 6’s like, ‘
6×6 , 6/6 , 6+6 , 6-6 , 6 to the third power, and so on.
They will most likely say carrot when you ask them to say a veggie.
Mr. Coontz!!!! You belong in computer land!!!!!
I hate this thread because it makes me feel stupid. Ah, well. back to law books and launguages for me! (speaking of which, math is “mathimatica” in Hebrew”).
Computerland… Isn’t that where I am?
I do not like math.
It tries to poison me in my sleep.
Morbid?!! where did you come from?!!
welcome back, Agent Mothman!
Yay! Morbid’s back! Missed ya, kid. The blog’s been a trifle unbalanced. We need a bit of unrelenting pessimism.
Actually, there’s a reason it’s undefined. (see #39)
There’s more than one answer. Partial credit to Elasse-Adael and Phoenix. Phoenix is the closest by far, E-A’s answer isn’t TECHNICALLY one of them, but he’s raised an excellent point. I’ll leave you to think it out some more. Next Friday, the big hint comes if nobody’s figured it out. If people figure it out, I’ll award credit and virtual chocolate. If you don’t like chocolate, please specify desired virtual reward. Thank you, all.
Well, in a way, I suppose…
Hrm. Hrm.
Okay you need to become a computer!
or….
*light darkens*
Are you chad in disguise??
*evil laughter echoes off of hollow house’s walls*
0/0 would be either undefined or 1. Undefined because you can’t divide by zero, or 1 because a number divided by itself is 1. These are both basic rules of maths. The question in this case is which one supercedes the other. I don’t know the answer to that one.
Ahem she made an excellent point. I am a girl. maybe we should tell each other our genders?
If you take an empty space and don’t divide it at all, wouldn’t it still be an empty space so couldn’t an answer be 0?
I’m a girl. I think everyone knew that, but I had to clear it up. How do I get the feeling that most of the bloggers are?
Since this is math, we shall make the list of who is what gender (girl/boy/something else/genderless alien) and species (human/chimpanzee/vervet monkey/paramecium/mangrove/salmon/other) extremely ordered and boring.
randomrohanfreak is a girl and a human most of the time. Mangrove some of the time. Other some of the time.
Degree of insanity (on a scale of 1-10): Off the charts.
I’d say the answer would be zero, because when you’re dividing you’re seperating the items into groups and then seeing how many you have in each group (for example, 6/3- six items, three groups, two items in each group so 6/3=2 – it makes sense to me) so if you have 0 items, seperate them into 0 groups, you have 0 in each group.. Normally, though, you can’t divide by 0 because if you have any items at all they have to exist, so you have to have at least one group..
it makes sense ot me..
And I think I bombed my geometry test. I didn’t know how to do the proof. And so I took 21 steps and had to skip a few things on a supposidly 4-10 step proof.. wonderful. Of course, all of the kids I talked to also messed up so maybe he’ll give us a curve or let us do corrections or something but still…. I was doing so well in there.
Try this one. It is really easy I know but try it.
234-298=542
by adding one line, I make this statement true.( and no, slashing the equals sign is not the answer
)
234+298=542
234+298=542, easy
I get 532.
I’m getting 532, too. Hmm…
532
yep, it’s 532
does anyone remember…………. 201395!!!!!!!!!
beep
So… mousie is Kricket?
okay, you got me!!!! oh and here’s a message from kitten…
kitten says-
“hey, Queenie J.-youre veeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyy poetic…
kitten
i’d take that as a compliment…..
A little mathematical puzzle for you. You can convert it to Imperial if you want, but I like it in metric, because everything’s in nice easy tens, and the solution hurts my brain enough as it is.
The earth’s circumference is – oh, let’s say 10,000 km to keep things simple. That’s 10 million metres. OK?
Right, some idiot constructs an inelastic band (it doesn’t stretch) which fits exactly round the earth.
Now he cuts the band, adds 1 metre to its length, and joins it again. That gives the band some slack.
Assuming you could even out the slack all the way round, that would give you a tiny gap between the band and the surface.
Question : what’s the size of the gap?
I’m going to leave you with this one. It’s pretty simple geometry, and the only problem you’re likely to encounter is a calculator that won’t handle the required precision.
Warning : you may come up with a patently ridiculous answer that says adding 1 metre to a ten million metre band gives you nearly a sixth of a metre clearance all the way round. If you do get this, there’s a further question – what’s gone wrong with your calculations? You are allowed to ask your maths teacher.
Enjoy!
My calculator won’t go into that much detail, so I’ll just post the formula I think would solve it.
Circumfrence of the world divided by 3.14= A
square root of A= B (diameter of the world)
Circumfrence of the world+1 divided by 3.14=C
square root of C= D (diameter of the band)
D-B= difference between the two diameters, and consequently the gap that would be there.
Sorry if it was hard to understand how I found it, my computer didn’t have a lot of the symbols I wanted to use. Did I get it right?
Square root? You’re making it too complicated. OK, a little help.
Try C = 2 * pi * R
Or R = C / (2 * pi) the other way up.
where C is circumference, R is radius.
All you have to do is work out the original radius, then the radius with a mtere added, and subtract.
Now do the calculations, and see if you get that insane result. You probably will. The important bit is to try and see WHY you get a nonsensical answer.
I don’t have a calculator that will do that right now. In my formula where I said diameter, I really meant radius. I found the radius of both no problem, my calculator just wouldn’t go in to enough detail on the decimal points for the two numbers to have a difference. I’m also feeling very lazy right now, and I don’t want to strain my mind with numbers.
5 million…radius. i think…
add a meter to the radius or to the circumference?
i’ll say circumference just because.
erm…5,000,000.5 meters
subtract what??
meh…never mind.
wait if you need a calculator then never mind…
oh. pi.
k out comes the calc
31415926.55…
I’m having a strange feeling that I’m doing this totally wrong…
oh vell might as well guess through the rest of it…
wait why do i want the circumference?
hoom. half of that is the radius right? cuz that’s the circumference? or is it not? confoosed.
anyhoo… that makes 15707963.275
say what?
now w/the extra meter…
eeeeerrrrrmmmm…so w/another meter the radius of the earth is…5000000.5 right?
so circumference 31415929.691593
radius of that 15707965.845796…
so what the first one subtracted from the second one?
k…hey. that’s negative. other way round maybe?
second-first…
that’s 2.570796.
heh. that’s wrong isn’t it?
what was I supposed to get again?
meh. off to other threads. ones that i can understand…
Wot, just Ebeth? No-one else courageous enough to have a go? I’ll do the calcuation for you tomorrow, if no-one’s posted it. Incidentally, the calculator built in to Windows will do the math with more than enough precision if you set it to Scientific
*ahem*
*checks date on comp*
*ahem*
WELL??!!?!
meh. here I am, counting off the minutes since you said that…
jk i just remembered you were supposed to put that up.
whoo! lucky i remembered! I get to steal some of your virtual choklit from your virtual safe now.
Impossible you say? never. Mr. Green can always get in.
yuuummmm…
oh we’re doing planes in math. confusing until you get it. it’s odd you just sort of sit there going “huh?” and then one day you’re like “OOOOOHHHHH!!!!!!!!”
so yeah stuff like how planes have an infinite # of lines on them (heh i love infinity) and perpendicularity and all.
OK, sorry. I know it’s way past tomorrow. I got sidetracked. Had to don doublet & hose and go and play Tudor music to a bunch of kids in Dorridge.
Right then, you idle lot, excluding Ebeth who at least had a go. Calculation follows. CHECK IT CAREFULLY because I might be doing something nasty and tricky.
We want to find the gap produced by expanding this huge band by one metre. The gap’s been evened out, so we just have two circles, one very slightly bigger than the other. If we caclulate the radius of each circle, then subtract the small one from the big one, we get the gap.
Here goes. Let’s start with the original circle. To get the radius, divide the circumference by 2 times pi. I’ll work to the maximum precision of the Windows calculator to make sure I don’t inroduce errors.
pi = 3.1415926535897932384626433832795
2*pi = 6.283185307179586476925286766559
Circumference in metres = 10,000,000
Divide it by 2*pi, and you get 1591549.4309189533576888376337251
So that’s the original radius to about the accuracy of an amoeba.
With one metre added,
New circumference = 10,000,001
Divide that by 2*pi, and you get
1591549.5900738964495841734026089
Subtract the first radius from the second, and you get
0.1591549430918953357688837633725
And that’s that.
Now look at that result. About 0.16 metres, or 16 centimetres. Just over six inches if you’re an unreconstructed imperialist. So we add one metre in ten million, and get a 16 centimetre gap ALL ROUND? It’s insane. Surely we should end up with a result in microns, not centimetres.
OK, so now the question is – what’s wrong? What’s going on? Where’s the error?
This is the point at which I let you muse over it for several days, show it to your parents, friends, maths teachers, and the cat in a fit of desperation. I will provide you with the answer only if several of you BEG me, and come up with a host of ingenious (but wrong) suggestions. C’mon, get yer calculators out. The maths is pretty simple. It just needs checking.
But, you said that to find the radius you divide the circumfrence by pi x 2. That’s not true. the circumfrence is not pi x 2 x radius, it’s pi x radius squared, and that gives a very different answer. You have to divide it by pi and then find the square root of that number to get the radius.
No, the AREA is pi times the radius squared.
Oh, thank you Robert!!!! I was totally confused. I thought there was something I was missing, and you just told me what it was. I knew I was thinking wrong somehow, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I’m too lazy to try to figure out what’s wrong with the calculations. Maybe later.
One to Robert.
The circumference is indeed 2*pi*radius. No nasty square roots involved. We don’t want to mess around with complicated things like areas.
Paul, you’re being cruel.
Sorry. Can’t help it. I’m English.
This evil skool comp doesn’t have a calculator so i can’t try it. *sniffsobcry*
maybe it’s some kind of decimal place thingy? like it’s .016 instead of .16….
just a guess.
when is pb&j not being mean?
besides when he’s rambling to us about interesting bits of brit history that we can rant about to everybody within hearing distance…
anyhoo now i shall go pretend to do hw because i’m getting “looks”
My computer might have a calculator, but if it does I don’t know how to use it. I’m really computer illiterate. I’m also not that interested in the answer to the question. Sorry, but I’m in this really apathetic mood right now, so nothing seems to matter.
Instant Guide coming up.
I’m assuming you have some fairly recent version of Windows. If you’re running a mac, I have no idea. But someone on Museblog will enlighten you, no doubt.
Click on the “Start” button, choose “All Programs”, “Accessories”, then “Calculator”. When it loads, click on “view”, and choose “scientific”. That will give you a calculator with features beyond your wildest dreams. If you have wild dreams about calculator features.
But you can avoid those humongous numbers with a little algebra.
how??
enlighten us!
and tell the skool tech people they need calcs on their comps!!! desperately! I mean that’s really sad.
I have a mac go me. so i don’t know if this is the same as windows, but you can choose basic or advanced, and then it has a precision level from 1 to 16. Mine doesn’t have a scientific thing but that’s basically what the advanced is. might be missing a few things…
anyhoo! now that I have a calc!
seems to work…
wait why do you subtract the first from the second (talking about the radii) is that the part that’s wrong?
waaaaaaaait…maybe that’s the clearance all together! like all the space there…so you’d have to do some clever mathematical thingamajig to stretch it so you see the clearance all the way around…
maybe not…
but there’s one wrong suggestion anyway…maybe you’ll tell us now…
better make up some more then..
42! (when in doubt say 42)
The air speed velocity of an unladen swallow! An unladen swallow could fly through the gap and tell us how big it is!!!
MARTIANS!!! ask the martians!!
x^2! y*x=603! the square root of pi!!! 76!!
Well, it looks as if I’ve killed this thread stone dead. For the benefit of Ebeth, who made the attempt –
There’s actually nothing wrong with the maths. It’s utterly contrary to all one’s preconceptions, but if you do add a metre to the circumference of a 10 million metre circle, the radius increases by c/2*pi – about a sixth of a metre. You really do get that seemingly impossible gap.
OK, now you know, go an annoy your teachers with it. With a bit of kuck, they’ll be puzzling over it for days, the way you lot didn’t. You’re all just too sensible, aren’t you?
pb&j, you are so dead you don’t even know you’re dead.
got me!
unfortunately, you’re actually still alive because as much as i would LOVE to go to england and ensure your demise, i want to spread the hate and sleeplessness by telling everybody that q.
actually maybe i won’t kill you. maybe i’ll just imprison you for the rest of your life forcing you to write an article (or 2…mwahaha) for every single issue of muse. and in between i’ll feed you Spamabix and choklit-covered gherkins. then i’ll make you teach me how to play the hurdy-gurdy. oh and i’ll make you watch bob the builder (the ultimate torture) and make you listen to green day for hours at a time.
heh. devising tortures is fun! who else can i arrange a torturing session for? hm….
I was just about to say that the answer to the problem would be the difference between the two numbers, or 1, divided by pi x 2. That’s really weird.
Oh, PB, thanks for the calculator tip!!!! My scientific calculator doesn’t have some of the bottons, or I couldn’t find some of the bottons, that are essential to Algebra 2. I’m very glad, because this calculator does have them, and now I can figure out the answers to problems much easier. Converting 3R-4U to polar form isn’t quite so hard, now that I’ve found a calculator with an inverse function. Thanks a billion!!!!!
Glad to be of service, old fruit.
Most people never find the goodies that lurk under the Accessories menu. There are a few useful thingies :
WordPad is a perfectly useable and very small and fast wordprocessorfor simple stuff if you don”t fancy waiting aeons for Word to load. If you want an even simpler one, try Notepad. I use it for creating system files, but it’s fine for simple notes.
Character Map – for inserting an umlaut. You never know when you might need an umlaut. Or a copyright sign, or anything else your keyboard doesn’t have a key for.
The really funny one is Narrator. It’s a text-to-speech converter, and it’s very useful for partially sighted people. For the rest of us, having a robot voice reading out window tiles and menu options is hysterical. For five minutes. Make sure you know how to switch it off.
Yes, but Windows is made by Microsoft, and Microsoft is evil.
GO MICROSOFT!!!!!!!! I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THEM, BUT I LIKE TO GO AGAINST THE FLOW AND DO WHATEVER EVERYONE IS DISCOURAGING ME TO DO!!!!!!!!!!!! GO MICROSOFT!!!!!!!!! No, I’m not going to keep on typing like that.
Old…fruit….I’m using that. XD
Xbox sucks, but Bill Gates wins at life. He’s my role model. But not really. Loooooove Nintendo.
I got a C+ on my math test, I know you’re all happy for me.
If you run out of steam on the Windows caclualtor, pop over to
http://www.graphcalc.com/
GraphCalc is an open-source (ie. free) graphical calculator. It will draw 2d and 3d graphs of the most hideously complex function you can throw at it. Personally, I have no conceivable use for it, but I just like playing with it. You don’t really need a manual for it. Just remember that for lots of things like setting up equations, you need to right-click.
wooooooaaaaaaaaaaahhh…sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet…liiiiiiines…and…graaaaaaaaphs…and…stuuuuuuuff…tooooootally rooooocks…coooolllooooorsss…and liiiiiiines…graaaaaaphs…duuuuuuuuude…dooooon’t…miiiiiiiind…meeeee…IIII’m…reeeeeeeally…booooooored…graaaaaaphs…and…stuuuuuuuuuff…sweeeeeetnesssss…
But Microsoft creates monopolys and squeezes other honest businesses out of jobs!!
And their stuff is horrible also. It makes my head hurt. Use Linux instead. You don’t even need to know how to use a terminal to use Linux, although it helps. Or get a Mac. they have terminals too. if you want to program, go to the terminal and type in “vim”.
Whee. Random.
Sherman anti-trust act. I just abolished it in NationStates. Big mistahkay.
say what?
please keep nation state stuff in the nation stae thread. also, the earth problem is not so hard. phoenix, if i know you haven’t posted on this thread in a while but i am saying this for your benifit any way. tomorrow ill bug you to come on, that problem was the same as all of those really annoying “find the width of the track” problems we get, only with an extra step and bigger numbers.
i know this sounds stupid but it is really an incredibly complicated philisophical problem. What is a number?
A number is an idea, used to express the value of a collection of items. Or something like that, it’s been a long time since I’ve thought about it.
ok, here goes.
2 stores are having big sales. at the pick n go store, you can buy 6 cans for 5$. at the cheap buy store, you can get 8 cans for 7$. which store is the better buy?
6 cans/5$ = 1.2 cans per dollar. 8 cans/7$ = 1.14 cans per dollar. pick n go is better. also, 5$/6 cans = .83$ per can, and 7$/8 cans = .87$ per can.
algebra 1 advanced. Oooh burn.
Graph
3+5x
i don’t like graphing. it is a waste of time. id=f three birds are sitting on a fence and you shoot and kill one. how many birds are left on the fence
hehe– Sir Rup’s lesson. I figured this out a long while ago. A gun makes a loud noise, the other birds would have flown away.
i don’t like graphing either…..
X*93+66,666,666=Y.
do you want me to solve that? if you do, give me more info. X and Y can be anything, litterally.
i could solve that too if i knew what the X and the Y stood for….. i’m not in the highest math class for nothing!!! I’m taking the SAT in 7th grade!! (which i’m in this year)
Yeah, you got that too? Zyv and I did, but I didn’t do it because my parents say it’s an ego trap.
Hello again. Now thai I’ve returned, I’ll reveal the answer and reasoning to my question from a while ago.
Firstly, randomrohanfreak and Elasse-Adael jointly figured it out. Enjoy the choklit.
This is a 3-part answer and all the reasons are well-defined.
0/0=1 because any number divided by itself is 1
0/0=0 because 0 divided by anything is 0
0/0= infinity because anything divided by 0 is infinity
Hope you enjoyed that. And although I thought I was gone for good, now I’m back. Probably for good. I hope I’ve confused you. Don’t ask questions, I’m not explaining. MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
Ooh, I took the SAT in 7th grade too. Got a 720 verbal, 620 math, which was pretty good considering I hadn’t taken any algebra or geometry… All thanks to my wonderful TI-83+ silver edition calculator, which solves equations. (Go math, up, enter, and then enter the equation (you just have to subtract everything from one side so the entire think is on one side of the = because it has 0=(equation goes here) and then hit enter, alpha, enter. Wonderful tool. I use it all the time. If you get something weird like 7.99999999999999999 reset your memory.)
I haven’t taken the SAT, or the ACT yet. I imagine I will do pretty good on them, though, because I have the same I.Q. as my older brother, and he got a 31 on the ACT his junior year. I don’t know what he got on the SAT, but I think it was over 700 in both sections. So, theoretically, I should make just as high as him. Our I.Q. scores are exactly the same, it’s really weird.
Yeah, my brother did really well on both the PSAT and the SAT..
cool! Neat calculator, Lizzie.
Want to get into an older brother competition? I’m sorry, that was mean. But I will take this opportunity to brag about my brother. He made National Merit Semi-Finalist, and will probably make Finalist. He was intending to go to a college that offered him a full scholarship (and by that I mean tuition, room and board, books, and food for four years), but another college called him up out of the blue and asked him to apply for their presidential scholarship, which is their highest scholarship and which only eight people got last year. He’s not going to have to pay for college, and it’s entirely academic based. He’s only the second person ever at his high-school to make National Merit Semi-Finalist. Yay for Blake!!!!!!
I haven’t taken anything but the Iowas… I guess I did ok on them… I’m not really the geniusprodigychild most Musers are.
My brother was a national merit scholar.
Of course you’re a geniusprodigychild!!!!!! The very fact that you’re a Muser proves it!!!!
National Merit Scholar, or Semi-Finalist? Because I’m sure those are different things. How many Scholars are there every year? Because there are only 16,000 Semi-Finalists in the whole nation. Of course, your brother could be a ton smarter than my brother, but I would like to know about the Scholar thing. Probably my brother knows all about it, but he never passes up an opportunity to make me feel stupid, so I don’t think I’ll ask him. Okay, he’s not that bad, but sometimes it feels like it. Anyway, I’m curious, so let me know!!!!!
wow, i must ba a geniusprodigychild too if i’m a Muser…… and of course, being in the top math class never getting less than the top grades is just a side effect…
EVERYbody on Muse is a child genius-prodigy. First of all, we all thought you were 15, ‘member?
pshaw. i’m not a child genius/prodigy. i just pretend i know stuff and then people think i’m an amazingly smart child when really i’m just a moderately smart child slacking off.
i love fooling the world…
Pshaw? Fooling the world is a major part of Secret Plan “Mostly Harmless.” You’re just behaving like a good Ko-konspirator.
who are you talking to Phoenix? because, i’m 12
Mmmmm… The SAT wasn’t that bad. I got a 1200 or 1400 or something astounding like that as a 7th grader. 97th or so percentile of COLLEGE-BOUND SENIORS in the COUNTRY. Too easy for my taste. Tsk.
Phoebe. I thought she was 15 untill she told us otherwise.
yes GAPA, pshaw. pshaw is the Word That Totally Rocks.
ooooh konspiracies!!!! yesssss…
loved the conspiracies issue…
of course i loved all the issues…
oh wait. *coughcatanddogissuescough*
this has absolutely nothing to do with math, so i will say that two plus two equals four and leave you astounded with my genius.
i’ll be signing virtual autographs later…
Yeah, but that’s because I used all the big fancy mature words in my arsenal. I’m pretty much out. All I’ve got left is a couple of fancy prefixes and the odd bit of Yiddish. Oh well.
Math. Right.
Um…
I can do Algebra!
1 + X = 2
Answer: 1! So simple! So easy!
Unfortunately, I get hopelessly befuddled if I do any problem aside from that.
Tisk, tisk, MemyselfandI. Bad form. You notice, I didn’t brag about myself, just about my brother, who happens to have the exact same I.Q. as me. So I didn’t directly say “dude, I am soooo smart!!!” I just said “dude, my brother is soooo smart, and I am just as smart as him!!!!” See the difference? And you notice, I didn’t actually tell you what my I.Q. is, mainly because it will always be higher in your imagination. That’s how you brag about yourself and make yourself seem smarter, by a round-a-bout way, it’s a lot better.
Or you can talk in elvish. that always gets people. except the musers and Lotr obssessed. or the Lotr obssessed musers i guess.
I can’t brag about standardized tests. I always get bored and think what a useless waste of time it is and turn my brain off and end up with a grade that’s just decent.
of course i haven’t taken anything big like the SAT/PSAT…
i can do algebra…..
88X=123
X=35 see? i told you.
77X=Y+9-77=900. i dunno if that works, but it was random…..
wait…. 1st problem should be
88+X=123.
sorry….
I, unfortunately, can’t speak Elvish. I can speak ubbi-dubbi, an annoying language where you put an “ub” before every vowel subo thubat ubit ubends ubup lubookubing lubike thubis, uband thubis shubould rubealluby bube ubin thube “Cuboy Wuboodnubess” thrubead.
I like to take standarized tests, they’re fun. I get out of doing school and actually learning stuff, and all I have to do is answer pointless, inane questions that have an obvious abswer (at least to me). I always get pretty high, I guess. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten anything below a 75 percentile, and that was in my worst subject (aka study skills, that had questions about how to use library index cards, that nobody uses anymore). The only things I get below 90 percentile on are study skills, and spelling. I guess I can’t really count high math scores, since I did the math they’re asking me about two years ago, and I’ve had a lot more time to practice it then the average kid my age.
study skills???
you had part of a standardized test on study skills???
what was that??
wow. i would like die right there. My study skills are NON!!!!!!!!(but my french skills are three-oui, non, and sacre bleu. unless you’re counting my french history skills…french revolution! yessss. sry random history geek moment)
yeah i’m good at memorizing useless stuff but studying them doesn’t work. i just sort of learn them. in a weird way that no standardized test would ever understand.
mathy mathy math test sometime soooon.
exams coming up too. oooooooh boy. what fun. (AAAAAAHH!!!)
I can prove that studying means you fail!!!
Assume that study=nofail and that nostudy=fail. So study+nostudy=fail+nofail. Then study(1+no)=fail(1+no). Therefore, study=fail.
Unfortunately, my math teacher had to go puncture holes in my luverly little proof with a bit of incomprehensible legerdemain. I forget what they were, but too bad. STUDY=FAIL!!! MWAHAHA!
Study=fail, therefore nostudy=nofail. My entire success in school has been explained… I DON’T STUDY!!! It makes me go all nevous and forget stuff.
Has Zyviva been here yet? She’s a math genius.
Yes.
MG (from way back)- a National Merit Scholar is the highest National Merit thing. It’s commended, semi-finalist, finalist, scholar. I don’t know how many there are nationally.
A fair number of people sort of joke-hate me at school, because I keep getting hundreds on Geometry tests that everyone else is failing…
Well, good for your brother!!!! What did he make on his ACT? I just kind of want to know what the best and the brightest make on that test.