1=2

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1=2

Postby Clay » Tue Oct 31, 2006 12:46 pm UTC

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Postby Gelsamel » Tue Oct 31, 2006 1:25 pm UTC

He divides by zero, therefore he loses at elementary math.
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Postby Linoc » Tue Oct 31, 2006 2:41 pm UTC

specifically when he divides by x - y
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Postby phlip » Tue Oct 31, 2006 2:46 pm UTC

ab = ac → b = c or a = 0

People always forget the "or a = 0" bit.
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Postby Heirtopendragon » Tue Oct 31, 2006 5:49 pm UTC

Gelsamel wrote:He divides by zero, therefore he loses at elementary math.


Yeah if x-y = 0 then it's not 1/1 it's actually 0/0 which, well, I don't need to explain the problem there.
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Postby LE4dGOLEM » Tue Oct 31, 2006 6:30 pm UTC

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Nullcline wrote:What a colossal waste of stupidity.
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Postby phlip » Wed Nov 01, 2006 7:37 am UTC

Heh, there's some funny stuff there... though I feel the need to point out the flaw in the square-root proof...

√x √y = ±√(xy)
√x / √y = ±√(x/y)

That is, √x √y equals either √(xy) or −√(xy), (but not both if x,y≠0).

The ± isn't necessary in the real numbers, since the square root is defined to be the positive root of the number... but such a definition can't be made with the complex numbers, as there is no such thing as "positive".
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Postby EvanED » Sat Nov 04, 2006 1:39 am UTC

I've got a "higher-math" version of this:

x^2 = x*x = x + x + x + ... + x [x terms]

d(x^2)/dx = 2x
d(x^2)/dx = d(x + x + ... + x)/dx = 1 + 1 + 1 + ... + 1 = x
2x = x

So what this says is that either 2 = 1 (if x != 0) or that one of the above equalities only holds for x = 0. But all of the above equalities (except the last) hold for any x.

Where's the problem?
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Postby phlip » Sat Nov 04, 2006 2:21 am UTC

The problem is that the expansion:
x*x = x + x + x + ... + x [x terms]
Is only valid when x is an integer (which is implicit in the expansion itself)

Derivatives require a function that's defined over all the real numbers.

In particular, the derivative is just shorthand for:
lim_dx->0 {((x + dx) + (x + dx) + ... + (x + dx) [(x + dx) terms]) − (x + x + ... + x [x terms])}/dx
And how would you define "x + dx terms"?
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Postby archgoon » Mon Nov 06, 2006 10:53 am UTC

Replace

x*x = x+x+x... x [x terms]
with

Sum[x,{n,1,Floor[x]}}+x*(x-Floor[x])

This is now defined for real x (and is equal to x^2 for x>0). When x is not an integer, the sum doens't change its bound and its derivative is Floor[x]. The second term gives us 2x - Floor[x], the Floor[x] cancel out.
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