Math problems too big for our brains

Ottawa Citizen via The Windsor Star ^ | November 8 2005

[MarkL]

Really? I can prove that 2 + 2 = 11.

Yes, in Base 3.

A few milennia ago, I was working extensively in Motorolla 68000 assembly language, and I began balancing my checkbook in octal. Really screwed up my checking account. I had to go back and search for the '8's and '9's that were missing!

Mark

[MarkL]

Now, I do not know of a practical use for Base 3 math, although they may be one, if there is a physical system somewhere that has three states.

Heinlein wrote about computers that used "trinary" or base 3. It's an interesting thought... Circuits that used both positive and negative charges, as well as no charge. Of course this negates the possibility of using differential signaling...

Mark

[MarkL]

Anybody else here remember doing a two page mathematical proof, getting something screwed around, and winding up with the original equation?

Mark

[andy58-in-nh]

I began balancing my checkbook in octal. Really screwed up my checking account.

On the other hand, that's one way to make yourself a millionaire a lot faster.

[MarkL]

iThink, therefore, iAm.

Borrowed from another Freeper's tag-line...

(cogito, ergo Freepum) I Think, therefore I Freep!

I also like, "Freepito, ergo sum, "I Freep, therefore I am!"

Mark

[usapatriot28]

There are 10 types of people: Those who understand binary math, and those who don't.

I love that quote. I left it written on my whiteboard at my last job for over six months.

[MarkL]

Ummm, build better computers?

Don't build them too good!

That's right! You'll get the phillosopher's union all over you!

Mark

[5Madman2]

Colossus, the Forbin Project

[MarkL]

Majikthise and Vroomfondel...representatives of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons...declare that they stand in solidarity with the Pencil Pushers Union!

We have a winner, and it only took 76 posts!

Mark

[MikefromOhio]

actually, I could believe it.

I am only in Calc 1 right now, but I figure that as I get on into my Engineering degree, that I will see some things that will defy everything else I have learned as well.

I figure there are branches of math out there that HAVEN'T been discovered yet.

[MarkL]

First words out of our professor in (honors) calc I at SUNY @ Stonly Brook...

Please take out a piece of paper, and proove that between every 2 rational numbers, there's an irrational number, and between every 2 irrational numbers, there's a rational number.

I still have nightmares about that class, even though I did get a 'B' in the class.

Mark

[Tench_Coxe]

"Anybody else here remember doing a two page mathematical proof, getting something screwed around, and winding up with the original equation?"

I raise my hand. I also remember a couple of unorthodox solutions that I had to defend, but which, on balance were correct.

[MarkL]

The problem was when I went back to decimal without realizing I was changing base!

Mark

[RHINO369]

This is the entire reason we build computers! Not to get porn (thats what the personal computer was) but to solve math that would take so long it'd be impossible for a human to solve.

[TX Bluebonnet]

Our first homework assignment in non-Euclidean geometry was to prove 2 points determine a line. Oh, and the teacher thought having a textbook made the class too easy, so we had no reference material.

I love impossible homework assignments.

[Tench_Coxe]

Yeah. The fun part was with punch cards. Every see a grown man cry?

[IslandJeff]

Bookmark

[RightWhale]

The computer has to be programmed

Computers can self-program. Granted, they need to start somewhere.

[MarkL]

Yeah. The fun part was with punch cards. Every see a grown man cry?

That's why G-d invented rubber bands!

Mark

[Tench_Coxe]

"That's why G-d invented rubber bands!"

If only they didn't break.....