I Am Math’s Bitch

Comments

8 responses to “I Am Math’s Bitch”

1. 

   jonah

   October 26, 2002

   Since there’s two variables and one equation, the best you can come up with is a graph.

   Y=sqrt(X^2-45)

   Jm

   Reply
2. 

   jonah

   October 26, 2002

   Since there’s two variables and one equation, the best you can come up with is a graph.

   Y=sqrt(X^2-45)

   Jm

   Reply
3. 

   Will

   October 26, 2002

   Thanks jonah.

   Somebody asked me if there was a formula, and it took me forever to prove to myself that I couldn’t come up with one (ok – maybe it was closer to 1 or 2 hours than forever, but still way more time than the question deserved). And, it took a few other people some time to prove to me that there wasn’t one.

   Yours was the best response by far though, so a big gold star to you.

   We either don’t teach math very well, or it doesn’t take very well. I’m not sure which, but there were people who claimed to have minored in math going down the wrong path by converting x^2 to 2X — scary. And, when I think about all the people I asked, and the amount of time they spent working on it, this question probably ended up costing $200-500 in lost productivity. At least now I know though.

   Reply
4. 

   jonah

   October 27, 2002

   Your math friend was working derivatives for some reason, which will help you find local maximums and minimums for Y. It’s a pretty simple rule that if you have two unknown variables, you need two independent equations to solve for the values of the variables. For three variables, you need three equations, etc.

   Reply
5. 

   Audrey

   November 5, 2002

   You guys are very smart. You must have very big brains.

   Reply
6. 

   rj

   December 11, 2003

   you math bitches have very hard problems

   Reply
7. 

   rj

   December 11, 2003

   you math bitches have very hard problems

   Reply
8. 

   rj

   December 11, 2003

   you math bitches have very hard problems

   Reply