Status Update

Alright I guess I should actually let you folks know what's going on with this.

I'm not sure if I intend to continue, but I have felt zero drive to post about math for the past few months, and I think it is better to just sit on that than to force myself to turn out posts that I feel are low quality and uninformative. I kinda feel like I'm spinning my wheels here and not actually being helpful at all.

So hiatus is extended to be indefinite.

I do want to pick this back up at some future point, but probably not anytime real soon.

Takin' a break

So it's crunch time for school and I think it would probably be best if I took a 2-3 week hiatus from this blog to concentrate on actually doing my linear algebra work.

Back after finals.

Whoops

Argh.

Confession: I've been sick and haven't written any new posts, so I have nothing for you guys today.

I was planning to put up a bunch of problem-solving examples for limits, but I haven't been able to get it done. Here's a rain check; I'll post that sometime this week, and try to have an entirely new post up next Monday.

Apologies, dudes.

In Which Guindo Is A Killjoy

Here's something you might've seen around the internet. A "proof" (and I use the term loosely) that shows how 2=1 using apparently sound math.

That is, it looks sound until you realize it's complete garbage.

Here's the proof in question:



WOW! AMAZING! A mathematical fallacy, surely the universe is torn asunder or at the very least flipped turn-ways.

No. Sorry. Here's the problem with this proof:



Since a=b, a-b=0, and you CAN'T DIVIDE BY (a-b) TO CANCEL IT BECAUSE IT'S ZERO AND YOU CAN'T DIVIDE BY ZERO.

QED.

Proof disproven. Stop showing me this as if it is a novelty; it's troll math.

Similar case of troll math that I found while looking up the first case:



This one seems sound and then takes a huge leap off the deep end. I actually had to whip out my calculator to figure out just what was wrong with this one because it looks sound, and the problem isn't where I was expecting it to be.



When you square something, it's going to be positive. When you take the square root, you're going to get two answers: a positive answer and a negative answer. This proof takes the negative answer for one and the positive answer for the other one and says they're equal. They're not. This should actually read -4+9/2 = 5-9/2, which is true. Unfortunately for this "proof," it means the rest of the problem isn't anything particularly mind-blowing. If you cancel everything out, you'll get 0=0.

Guys, if you're going to try to disprove math can you at least do it using real logic?

Oh wait. You can't. Because math is pure logic.

Q E fucking D.

Not quite hitchless

No blog post today, unfortunately. My computer was in the shop for most of the past week, so I didn't have the time to work on anything. I'll try to make up for it with a mid-week post in the next few days. The promised number line post is postponed 'til next Monday because it still needs ~*images*~ and that's too much work for me to deal with right now to get a post up by tonight.

I will, however, share with you what happened when I went to pick up my computer from the shop.

As I was discussing things with the technician, a middle-aged woman walks in with a flatscreen monitor, talking on her cell phone about how she's "fi'n'a find out why this monitor don't work."

The tech asks her what the problem is. She replies, "It won't turn on."

"Where's the power cord?" he asks. "Did you bring that with you?"

"The power cord?"

"Yes, I can't turn it on if there's no power cord."

"What's that?"

The tech stops, staring at her.

"Can you show me?" she asks.

He points to the monitor, indicating the port for the power cord.

"What do you need that for?"

"You can't turn it on if there's no power."

"So I need a power cord or it won't work?"

"Yes."

"Is that why it won't turn on? I need a power cord?"

"Yes."

She proceeded to ask if he had any available in the shop for her to buy, and as he walked by me to get to the register desk, I heard him mutter under his breath, "God help me."

I do not envy people in the computer industry.

Complaining About Textbooks = Best Use Of My Time

I know I said the next post would be about fractions, but fuck fractions. Today I'm going to talk about textbooks and fractions can suck it.

You heard me, fractions!

As a math major, I am of course currently enrolled in math courses. Two of them, in fact, and for the first time since sophomore year of high school, my math classes are actually collecting homework. This is a totally foreign idea to me, you have to understand, but it has the effect of me actually doing my HW in a timely fashion. (I am the best math student.)

While doing my homework for differential equations, I came across something in the textbook that was, at first, nothing more than a minor annoyance, but the more I think about it, the more it makes me ANGRY WITH RAGE.

There's this thing that textbooks do sometimes where they will introduce a new concept during the exercises. In my calculus book, it's some minor idea that never really comes up again beyond this section of the text. It's a novelty that you're not expected to remember for future problem-solving.

In my differential equations book, it was a core method for solving differential equations. HALF THE CHAPTER was problems based on this idea, which was introduced and explained IN PROBLEM 30.

WHY COULDN'T THIS HAVE BEEN PUT IN THE CHAPTER TEXT? Why would you take a VITAL IDEA and secret it away inside the practice problems instead of introducing and explaining it in the chapter text????? This is like if my calc book had introduced the idea of epsilon-delta proofs in the middle of a problem set. GUYS THAT COMES UP AGAIN LATER WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO MAKE IT EASY TO MISS


(Yes I am using a printed copy of my textbook I AM THE BEST MATH STUDENT.)

I do not think I am correctly portraying just how angry I am about this poor organizational decision. I am so angry about this, you guys. So angry. I am so angry that I am about ready to punch a kitten.

In fact, I think I will.



DO YOU SEE THAT BOYCE AND DIPRIMA? DO YOU SEE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR DECISIONS? THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE WROUGHT.

MAYBE NEXT TIME YOU WRITE A MATH TEXTBOOK YOU WILL MAKE BETTER DECISIONS HMMM?

A Math Blog?!

Ugh, Guindo, you say - or maybe you don't say, but pretend somebody did - why would you even want to write about math! It is so tedious and boring and you never use that stuff in real life, really. Why should I care if you are writing a blog about math?

Well, imaginary naysayer, maybe if you would kindly STUFF IT for a minute, I will tell you why you should care.

Here is a list of things you can explain or represent with math:

• FUCKING EVERYTHING

Here is a list of things that are possible because mathematicians sat down and figured some shit out:

• FUCKING EVERYTHING

Without math you couldn't even be sitting there reading this post about it. Guess what computers and the internet are both made of? MATH, ASSHOLE. Yeah that's right. Forget the wires and metal and plastic and shit, IT'S PURE CONCENTRATED MATH.

"But Guindo I hate math :(!" WELL TOO FUCKING BAD BECAUSE EVERYTHING AROUND YOU IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT IT. Now go re-evaluate your life or something while I explain why people hate math.

The only subject with a worse rap than math is probably history. Or maybe chemistry. Fuck history, even if everything around you is made of that, too. And also fuck chemistry even if it is math because seriously fuck chemistry.

Anyway. Math is a subject that you cannot understand unless you understand all of the stuff that came before. Don't know how to divide? Good luck struggling through the rest of your arithmetic lessons without that. Didn't quite grasp the definition of a derivative in Calc I? Whoops you go back to that in Calc III for stuff you can't do with derivation shortcuts, GUESS YOU'RE FUCKED.

It doesn't help that most math teachers are really terrible at explaining math to people who don't already know what they're talking about. It really doesn't help that a lot of elementary school teachers - you know, the ones teaching kids the fundamentals that are vital for everyday life? - also grew up hating math, so they did the bare minimum in college and then have to turn around and TEACH IT.

So the cycle looks something like this:

• Bad math teachers make kids hate math
• Kids grow up hating math
• Young adults go to college and become teachers who hate math
• Teachers who hate math are bad math teachers
• Bad math teachers make kids hate math
• ad nauseum

Well, math is fucking awesome, and it doesn't deserve that treatment. It deserves a fair chance, and I am here to pick up the slack for your inadequate math teachers. BECAUSE I AM SO GENEROUS.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM THIS BLOG:

• Math.
• NOT sounding like a fucking textbook - seriously nobody actually does math like that; textbook writers have sold their souls to demons for the complete inability to do anything like a normal person
• Explanations of why, instead of expecting rote memorization of technique
• Low level math stuff like arithmetic as well as higher level stuff - don't worry, I'll mark it, so you won't be sitting there flinching at every use of an integral sign and wondering why nothing about your life makes sense anymore
• Belligerence and probably a lot of swearing, uhhh, if you didn't notice already

Some ground rules:

• Don't be a dick
• I get to be a dick, though. DEAL WITH IT.
• If you're not clear on an explanation, ask. I'm belligerant but informative, and I'll edit posts for clarity and to answer questions.
• Feel free to suggest topics for future posts in the comments. No guarantee I'll write them but ideas are welcome.
• I probably won't respond to comments except to answer math questions so don't expect it.
• This will be on the test.

P.S. if you're British you can just pretend I said "maths" all over this post. It's okay, I'm sure you're imaginative enough to handle that.