this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] pr06lefs@lemmy.ml 172 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (7 children)

What about plain old x = -10?

-10 ^ 2 = 100
-10 ^ 3 = -1000
-10 ^ 5 = -100000

[–] Redacted@lemmy.world 122 points 10 months ago

Isn't that the joke?

[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 68 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's what he wrote, I imagine.

[–] Siethron@lemmy.world 39 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It is, but with imaginary numbets

[–] gofsckyourself@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] Septimaeus 2 points 10 months ago
[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 45 points 10 months ago

i² = -1 so...

[–] dwindling7373@feddit.it 26 points 10 months ago

10 * i^2 is -10.

[–] thedudeabides@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] pr06lefs@lemmy.ml 35 points 10 months ago (1 children)

people being pedantic showoffs doesn't really register as humor for me, TBH

[–] thedudeabides@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 10 months ago

That's true, the OOP is being quite snarky with their comment on a post where someone's had a genuine basic doubt

[–] Deconceptualist@lemm.ee 9 points 10 months ago

That was my immediate thought too.

[–] Sphks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 10 months ago
[–] Deebster@programming.dev 101 points 10 months ago (2 children)

When all you have is an imaginary hammer, everything looks like a rotation around the imaginary unit circle.

Explanation of mathsx = -10, i = √-1 so i² = -1 and 10i²=-10

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Found the math but no explanation.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The squareroot of 100 is ±10.

[–] OozingPositron@feddit.cl -2 points 10 months ago (3 children)

The square root is always positive, but you can plug it into the quadratic formula to get the two possible values.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Okay, fine the square roots of 100 are ±10.

[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Seems very inaccurate the we can only determine the square root to +-10.

[–] ShrimpCurler@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 10 months ago

There's no reason to bring the quadratic formula into this. Square roots can be negative, but when talking about the square root it's normally assumed to be the principal square root, which is the positive one.

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Nope. To clarify, square roots are the opposite of squaring.

Now ask yourself:

What is 10² ?

What is (-10)² ?

If you get the same answer, then they are both the roots of the answer. +10 and -10 then gets together called ±10

[–] fx3@beehaw.org 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

IIRC, your spoilery “so” is the other way round. The right side is the definition, and the left-hand side a layman’s shorthand, as the root operator isn’t defined on negative numbers.

I might very well be wrong. My being a mathematician has been over for a while now, my being a pedantic PITA not though.

[–] Deebster@programming.dev 5 points 10 months ago

I don't know enough to know how correct your pedantry is (technically or not), but to explain the meme it made sense to go through the symbols in the order you see them. I never got any points from the proof questions in exams anyway.

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 37 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Wait, isn’t x just -10 if x^3 is not 1000?

[–] bi_tux@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago
[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago

that is a very long way to write -10

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 13 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 44 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's because the explanation was about 10 times as complicated as it needs to be

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 10 months ago

He is trolling with overcomplicating

[–] Yaysuz@lemm.ee 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

What an extremely unnecessary explanation. As a math teacher I would have deducted points for this answer.

[–] androogee@midwest.social 8 points 10 months ago

"show your work"

Malicious compliance intensifies

[–] Razzazzika@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

Unless I was in that clas where we had to write mathematical proofs. I HATED those. Sure, you solved the question but write out this complicated reason for why your answer is the correct answer.

[–] Ravi@feddit.org 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No definition what values are suitable for x.

[–] quicksand@lemm.ee 21 points 10 months ago (4 children)

x has to be -10, right? Or am I missing something?

[–] jacksilver@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, I think the point is that the person answering was wrong/over complicating. If x=10i, then x^2 would be -100 (or potentially -10 depending on what you think the ^2 is applied to).

[–] Khanzarate@lemmy.world 22 points 10 months ago

They said x=10i^2, not 10i. Difference is it equals -10, and they chose not to simplify.

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 10 months ago

They're correct, it's just overcomplicated as fuck in ways that are correct but completely irrelevant to the question.

[–] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago

The answer in the meme (10i^2) is -10

[–] Ravi@feddit.org 4 points 10 months ago

Depends on what are the allowed values for x are. Real numbers, complexe numbers, binary or I made up my own numbers ;)

[–] Malgas@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Probably what they were going for, but there are literally an infinite number of exotic arithmetic spaces you could ask this question in. For example, x=10 works in any ring with a modulus greater than 100 and less than 1000.

[–] Umbrias@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago

fortunately math problems are administered in the context of the class, so it will be pretty obvious that it's in the complex plane.