# All Questions

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### Different kinds of infinities?

Can someone explain to me how there can be different kinds of infinities? I was reading "The man who loved only numbers" by Paul Hoffman and came across the concept of countable and uncountable ...
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### “Closed” form for $\sum \frac{1}{n^n}$

Earlier today, I was talking with my friend about some "cool" infinite series and the value they converge to like the Basel problem, Madhava-Leibniz formula for $\pi/4, \log 2$ and similar alternating ...
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### Conjugate subgroup strictly contained in the initial subgroup?

Probably a very stupid question: Let $G$ be a group, $H\subset G$ a subgroup, $a\in G$ an element. Is it possible that $aHa^{-1} \subset H$, but $aHa^{-1} \neq H$? If $H$ has finite index or finite ...
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### About a paper of Zermelo

This about the famous article Zermelo, E., Beweis, daß jede Menge wohlgeordnet werden kann, Math. Ann. 59 (4), 514–516 (1904), available here. Edit: Springer link to the ...
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### Is $0$ a natural number?

Is there a consensus in the mathematical community, or some accepted authority, to determine whether zero should be classified as a natural number? It seems as though formerly $0$ was considered in ...
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### Making Change for a Dollar (and other number partitioning problems)

I was trying to solve a problem similar to the "how many ways are there to make change for a dollar" problem. I ran across a site that said I could use a generating function similar to the one quoted ...
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### Motivation behind the definition of GCD and LCM

According to me, I can find the GCD of two integers (say $a$ and $b$) by finding all the common factors of them, and then finding the maximum of all these common factors. This also justifies the ...
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### Proof that an integral domain that is a finite-dimensional $F$-vector space is in fact a field

I'm reading Galois Theory by Steven H. Weintraub (second edition), and finding that I'm at least somewhat short on the prerequisites. However the following proof looks wrong to me - am I ...
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### How to prove this binomial identity $\sum_{r=0}^n {r {n \choose r}} = n2^{n-1}$?

I am trying to prove this binomial identity $\sum_{r=0}^n {r {n \choose r}} = n2^{n-1}$ but am not able to think something except induction,which is of-course not necessary (I think) here, so I am ...
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### How to compute the formula $\sum \limits_{r=1}^d r \cdot 2^r$?

Given $$1\cdot 2^1 + 2\cdot 2^2 + 3\cdot 2^3 + 4\cdot 2^4 + \cdots + d \cdot 2^d = \sum_{r=1}^d r \cdot 2^r,$$ how can we infer to the following solution? $$2 (d-1) \cdot 2^d + 2.$$ Thank you
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### Is infinity a number?

Is infinity a number? Why or why not? Some commentary: I've found that this is an incredibly simple question to ask — where I grew up, it was a popular argument starter in elementary school ...
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### When can a sum and integral be interchanged?

Let's say I have $\int_{0}^{\infty}\sum_{n = 0}^{\infty} f_{n}(x)\, dx$ with $f_{n}(x)$ being continuous functions. When can interchange the integral and summation? Is $f_{n}(x) \geq 0$ for all $x$ ...
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### How can I understand and prove the “sum and difference formulas” in trigonometry? (cos(a ± b) = …, etc.)?

The "sum and difference" formulas often come in handy, but it's not immediately obvious that they would be true. \begin{align} \sin(\alpha \pm \beta) &= \sin \alpha \cos \beta \pm \cos \alpha ...
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### What is $dx$ in integration?

When I was at school and learning integration in maths class at A Level my teacher wrote things like this on the board. $$\int f(x)\, dx$$ When he came to explain the meaning of the $dx$, he told us ...
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### What is a good book to study linear algebra?

I'm looking for a book to learn Algebra. The programme is the following. The units marked with a $\star$ are the ones I'm most interested in (in the sense I know nothing about) and those with a ...
### Alternative proof that $(a^2+b^2)/(ab+1)$ is a square when it's an integer
Let $a,b$ be positive integers. When $$k = \frac{a^2 + b^2}{ab+1}$$ is an integer, it is a square. Proof 1: (Ngô Bảo Châu): Rearrange to get $a^2-akb+b^2-k=0$, as a quadratic in $a$ this has two ...