113 reputation
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bio website kutulu.org
location Florida
age 37
visits member for 1 year, 2 months
seen Jun 14 at 14:48
stats profile views 17

Jun
11
comment My sister absolutely refuses to learn math
The most important part of your entire answer, IMO, was that the OP needs to show some willingness to help with her immediate needs, or she will just stop asking for help.
Jun
11
comment My sister absolutely refuses to learn math
@JoelReyesNoche if I could +10000 this answer I would.
May
26
comment Does half-life mean something can never completely decay?
@DanZimm He's actually asking about the pharmacological half-life, which is slightly different from the nuclear half-life. In particular, it's far less regular and predictable :)
May
21
awarded  Commentator
May
21
comment What is a proof?
@dkbose The only thing that really stops you from doing that on an exam is that your professor will probably fail you :) I took an MIT OCW course on discrete math where the professor said basically that: "You can use any basic rules of math that you already knew coming into this course as an axiom in your proofs, as long as you don't claim to 'already know' everything we're asking you to prove." :)
Mar
31
comment What does the notation $f\colon A\to B$ mean?
I had the same question, though to me the meaning was pretty obvious from context I cannot figure out which "pre-req" class I should have learned this notation in. I did up through multi-dimensional calculus in college without ever seeing it, but when I started a discrete math course online it was taken for granted.
Aug
29
comment Why does the logarithm require a special notation?
@MJD +1 for the examples; I think an explicit mention of the fact that there are actually several "special notations" for logarithms is right on-topic for this question and would make a good addition to your answer.
Jul
5
comment why have we chosen our number system to be decimal (base 10)
@Jens you're pretty much right on; Europes use of place-valued base-10 numbers comes from the Arabic numbers, which were introduced by The Pope in ~1000AD. You don't get a bigger stick in Middle Ages Europe than the Church. (It also made accounting easier, which was why powerful people tended to like them and teach their kids how to use them)
Jun
24
comment Why doesn't the indirect proof of irrational roots apply to rational roots?
(of course I meant "rational roots")
Jun
24
comment Why doesn't the indirect proof of irrational roots apply to rational roots?
Ah. So for example, we know that $\sqrt{2}$ is not an integer because it must be 1 < x < 2, so we can use this proof to further prove that it cannot be rational either.
Jun
23
awarded  Scholar
Jun
23
accepted Why doesn't the indirect proof of irrational roots apply to rational roots?
Jun
23
comment Why doesn't the indirect proof of irrational roots apply to rational roots?
+1 because that was actually another question I had -- is it true that all rational squares of integers are themselves integers.
Jun
23
comment Why doesn't the indirect proof of irrational roots apply to rational roots?
hm. so that part of the proof is true iff x is not a perfect square; isn't that just begging the question then? Aren't we trying to prove that x is not a perfect square?
Jun
23
awarded  Student
Jun
23
asked Why doesn't the indirect proof of irrational roots apply to rational roots?
Jun
10
comment Michael Spivak in “Calculus” asserts that $\sqrt2$ cannot be proven to exist, and that such a proof is impossible. What does he mean by “exist”?
Regarding your question "How do you prove that a number 'exists'", you may enjoy this Numberphile video on that very topic: youtu.be/1EGDCh75SpQ
Apr
24
comment Direct Proof that $1 + 3 + 5 + \cdots+ (2n - 1) = n\cdot n$
cuz its easy and people get to name-drop Gauss? who knows.
Apr
17
awarded  Supporter