Science Memes @mander.xyz fossilesque @mander.xyz 2mo ago

Conversing with Mathematicians

40 comments

What about plain old x = -10?

-10 ^ 2 = 100
-10 ^ 3 = -1000
-10 ^ 5 = -100000
- Isn't that the joke?
- That's what he wrote, I imagine.
  
  It is, but with imaginary numbets
- i² = -1 so...
- 10 * i^2 is -10.
- Nothing gets past you eh?
  
  people being pedantic showoffs doesn't really register as humor for me, TBH
- That was my immediate thought too.
- Boooooring
When all you have is an imaginary hammer, everything looks like a rotation around the imaginary unit circle.

Explanation of maths

x = -10, i = √-1 so i² = -1 and 10i²=-10
- Found the math but no explanation.
  
  The squareroot of 100 is ±10.
Wait, isn’t x just -10 if x^3 is not 1000?
- yes, it is
that is a very long way to write -10
My brain

It hurts
- That's because the explanation was about 10 times as complicated as it needs to be
  
  Math pun intended?
- He is trolling with overcomplicating
No definition what values are suitable for x.
- x has to be -10, right? Or am I missing something?
  
  Yeah, I think the point is that the person answering was wrong/over complicating. If x=10i, then x^2 would be -100 (or potentially -10 depending on what you think the ^2 is applied to).
  
  The answer in the meme (10i^2) is -10
  
  Depends on what are the allowed values for x are. Real numbers, complexe numbers, binary or I made up my own numbers ;)
What an extremely unnecessary explanation. As a math teacher I would have deducted points for this answer.
- "show your work"
  
  Malicious compliance intensifies
- Unless I was in that clas where we had to write mathematical proofs. I HATED those. Sure, you solved the question but write out this complicated reason for why your answer is the correct answer.

40 comments