1. SPS Accounts:
    Do you find yourself coming back time after time? Do you appreciate the ongoing hard work to keep this community focused and successful in its mission? Please consider supporting us by upgrading to an SPS Account. Besides the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from supporting a good cause, you'll also get a significant number of ever-expanding perks and benefits on the site and the forums. Click here to find out more.
    Dismiss Notice
Dismiss Notice
You are currently viewing Boards o' Magick as a guest, but you can register an account here. Registration is fast, easy and free. Once registered you will have access to search the forums, create and respond to threads, PM other members, upload screenshots and access many other features unavailable to guests.

BoM cultivates a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. We have been aiming for quality over quantity with our forums from their inception, and believe that this distinction is truly tangible and valued by our members. We'd love to have you join us today!

(If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you've forgotten your username or password, click here.)

Let's make math fun!

Discussion in 'Whatnots' started by Blog, Dec 15, 2002.

  1. Blog Gems: 23/31
    Latest gem: Black Opal


    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2002
    Messages:
    1,634
    Likes Received:
    1
    That's certainly an interesting choice of disguise for Satan.

    Here's a math joke from a former math teacher. It's told in story style (I'll try to be as brief as possible), so bear with it.

    Back in the Medieval age, three kingdoms were at war. The war had lasted many months already, and all three kingdoms have lost all their veteran knights. All that remains were the squires. Two of the kingdoms were fortunate; hundreds of squires were prepared to fight. The third kingdom wasn't so lucky; just one squire was left.

    One night, each of the three kings decide that the war must end. They each decide that on the following sunrise, every last squire will be sent into the battlefield. May the best kingdom win.

    And so, intense preparations began that evening. In the first two kingdoms, the squires brandished their swords and planned a strategy towards conquest. In the third kingdom, the lone squire was also preparing. He grabbed a cauldron, tied a rope around it, and hung it up on a tree.

    The night came and went. At sunrise the next day, the hundreds of squires from the two kingdoms, plus the solitary squire from the third, charged into battle. (Battle battle battle) When the dust cleared, a single squire is left standing. And he belongs to the third kingdom!

    The squire hurries back to his king and reports his victory. The king, rightly surprised, asks the squire how he managed to win the war by himself.

    He simply answers, "The squire of the high-pot-and-noose is equal to the sum of the squires of the other two sides!"
     
  2. MagnusMagus Gems: 4/31
    Latest gem: Sunstone


    Joined:
    May 28, 2002
    Messages:
    81
    Likes Received:
    0
    Point taken, but how many people would think of it ?? 98% of people go for Denmark - Kangaroo - Orange.

    Pi is considered an exact value, just as the square root of two, and Euler's number. :)
     
  3. Blog Gems: 23/31
    Latest gem: Black Opal


    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2002
    Messages:
    1,634
    Likes Received:
    1
    [​IMG] I found another sneaky proof! And it doesn't use the division by zero trick:

    "Proof": 2 = 1 (yup, that's TWO equals ONE)

    -2 = -2

    4 - 6 = 1 - 3

    4 - 6 + 9/4 = 1 - 3 + 9/4

    (2 - 3/2)^2 = (1 - 3/2)^2

    2 - 3/2 = 1 - 3/2

    2 = 1
     
  4. Amon-Ra Gems: 10/31
    Latest gem: Zircon


    Joined:
    Nov 1, 2000
    Messages:
    396
    Likes Received:
    0
    You're taking too much liberty with square roots, Blog. The square root of (1-3/2)^2 is not (1-3/2). It is +- (1-3/2). this means it could either be 1/2 or -1/2. same for (2-3/2)^2. What you get in the end is:

    (+- 1/2) = (+- 1/2), not 2 = 1.

    I'm a PURE Mathematics major, so I love this stuff. My favorite interesting piece is Catalan's Conjecture:

    8 and 9 [2^3 and 3^2] are the only consecutive powers with integer elements greater than 1. That is, A^B - C^D = 1, for A, B, C, D are all > 1. Try PROVING that for every single combination of integers to certain powers. By finding tricks dealing with a special kind of prime numbers you can narrow down all the possible candidates, but proving it... that's something entirely different.

    Mathematician joke:
    3 men were in a hot-air balloon when suddenly they became lost. One man called to the ground below, "Where are we." In response, they heard a voice shout back, "Here." One of the men looked at the others and said, "Well, that was a mathematician." The others asked him how he knew. "What he said was concise, true, and absolutely worthless."

    Statistician joke:
    A businessman called in a theoretical mathematician, a mathematician, and a statistician into a room together. He asked them all, what is 1 + 1. The theoretical mathematician said, roughly 1.98, +- .03. The mathematician stared blankly, and then responded he couldn't say what 1 + 1 IS, but he could tell him what it was not. The statistician thought for a moment, leaned forward and asked, "What do you WANT it to be?"
     
  5. Blog Gems: 23/31
    Latest gem: Black Opal


    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2002
    Messages:
    1,634
    Likes Received:
    1
    Right on! I didn't think of it myself; I found it on a math site with "false proofs." Now if I only kept hold of that url...
     
Sorcerer's Place is a project run entirely by fans and for fans. Maintaining Sorcerer's Place and a stable environment for all our hosted sites requires a substantial amount of our time and funds on a regular basis, so please consider supporting us to keep the site up & running smoothly. Thank you!

Sorcerers.net is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to products on amazon.com, amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.