math

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General community for all things mathematics on @lemmy.world

Submit link and text posts about anything at all related to mathematics.

Questions about mathematical topics are allowed, but NO HOMEWORK HELP. Communities for general math and homework help should be firmly delineated just as they were on reddit.

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When you realize it (i.redd.it)

submitted 4 days ago by ooli@lemmy.world to c/math@lemmy.world

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[–] Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Correct. Let a-z be the first 26 prime numbers and x be an unknown real number, for example. It cannot be categorically stated in this case that it simplifies to zero.

[–] Carnelian@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Not correct. The variable “x” cannot represent both the 24th prime number as well as an unknown real number. If you wanted to represent your proposition it would need to be written differently than in the meme

[–] Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

But the problem with the meme is orecisely the ambiguity of whether or not x belongs to the set {a, b, c,...,z} due to x's universal use as "the" variable.

[–] Carnelian@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

It is not ambiguous. The set {a, b, c,…z} contains every letter. “x” being a popular choice to use as a variable in general does not confer to it any other special significance that would exclude it from the set of alphabetically arranged letters