Mathematical curiosity

Indy Parise

New member
qafir said:
But you need to seriously think about why the heck you and your cronies have it in for me. I didn't start the hatred outside this thread any more than I started it here. It's not my fault if you're caustic and sarcastic yet too big a baby to take ribbing or sarcasm in return.
Look, no one is after you here, we are simply correcting something you posted in which you said "Correct me if I'm wrong" inviting anyone to , guess what, correct you. It has nothing to do with any outside issues. You said something that is mathematically wrong and it was corrected. So that means that we all hate you:confused: ? Also, you argue that you must be right over some people here with an extensive math background while you yourself say you haven't picked up a calculus book in 15 years. Yeah, I can definately see how you MUST be right. Granted that "idiot" was a little bit harsh, but that's just Jay. Get to know him a little better and it won't even phase you;)
 

qafir

New member
Indy Parise said:
Look, no one is after you here, we are simply correcting something you posted in which you said "Correct me if I'm wrong" inviting anyone to , guess what, correct you. It has nothing to do with any outside issues. You said something that is mathematically wrong and it was corrected. So that means that we all hate you:confused: ? Also, you argue that you must be right over some people here with an extensive math background while you yourself say you haven't picked up a calculus book in 15 years. Yeah, I can definately see how you MUST be right. Granted that "idiot" was a little bit harsh, but that's just Jay. Get to know him a little better and it won't even phase you;)

Indy Parise,

Wasn't saying you hated me. Just that Jay uses hateful language (true), and that he's taking out grudges earned elsewhere (also true).

Now as far as arguing with you or anyone with a math background, I've looked into this. Do a google search, and you'll find thousands and thousands of posts on this very subject in quite a few varied forums. One prof I read stated that his students year after year argue him on the point and require constant proof that the infinite progression 0.999... equals 1. So perhaps my original response wasn't so very odd our outlandish.

In fact, I've shifted my "opinion" around based on some of the clear, lucid explanations I found elsewhere.

My point is that this thread started out as commentary on mathematics. I piped in, ignorantly or otherwise, and Jay set out to prove I'm an idiot. Right? He wasn't offering calm explanations of the point. He attacked me personally. Nobody else acted that way.

You're right. I did invite correction. I just expected it to come in a marginally respectful way. I've read a lot of Jay's other posts. He always adopts the same caustic, condescending attitude. Why should I accept that? Again, the tone and language are separate issues from the accuracy of the message.

Look at vaxer's and intergamer's responses to me. They were entirely appropriate. And when Gustav showed the same skepticism I showed, nobody called him an idiot or picked a verbal fight. So do you see how it sure seems that Jay singled me out for other reasons?
Q
 

vaxer

Moderator Emeritus
intergamer said:
I am a mathematician, and a good one.

I've done a lot of math in my engineering school (three first years mainly, when we stayed on a theorical level), but I'm certainly no mathematician. But now that we know you're an authority, can we test you !? :) :whip:

How about we start with a short and simple first year exercise of abstract algebra:
Can you demonstrate that a finit integral domain (a commutative ring wich possess' no zeros) is a field?
 

Jay R. Zay

New member
qafir said:
Now as far as arguing with you or anyone with a math background, I've looked into this. Do a google search, and you'll find thousands and thousands of posts on this very subject in quite a few varied forums. One prof I read stated that his students year after year argue him on the point and require constant proof that the infinite progression 0.999... equals 1. So perhaps my original response wasn't so very odd our outlandish.

so you searched the local sewer, did you? :) congratulations, you found thousands of thousands of people who are exactly on your mathematical level.

just by the way, were all of them as arrogant as you are...? :rolleyes: being stupid is okay for me. unfortunately, the problem about *your* stupidity is that you don't even know when to run a low profile.

if you search google for spelling mistakes, you certainly will get more results that for your 0.(9) problem. so maybe you shouldn't critizise somebody else's language...?

this lesson probably wasn't so pleasant to learn, was it?

qafir said:
In fact, I've shifted my "opinion" around based on some of the clear, lucid explanations I found elsewhere.

oh, bunny. we gave you the most simple explanations that are available for this problem. you didn't get it here, you get it nowhere. or did you find some website that explained it with toys and colorful cartoon characters?

man, and you were trying to make us believe that you knew more about maths than the spelling of the word... (y)

qafir said:
My point is that this thread started out as commentary on mathematics. I piped in, ignorantly or otherwise, and Jay set out to prove I'm an idiot. Right? He wasn't offering calm explanations of the point. He attacked me personally. Nobody else acted that way.

you look at it the wrong way. everybody else but me was trying to make you understand. they failed. i tried to prove you are an idiot. this makes me the one man who actually succeeded. :)

qafir said:
You're right. I did invite correction. I just expected it to come in a marginally respectful way.

how would this be, mr. respect? you don't respect others, others don't respect you. the way you were acting in this forum didn't show much respect to anyone. how come you are crying for respect now?

qafir said:
Look at vaxer's and intergamer's responses to me. They were entirely appropriate.

and correct, by the way. and what did they get for it? the explanations were there and still you had to ask external websites to make you understand the problem. just the way you don't feel like being nice to people, i don't, either. i didn't call you an idiot because i "hated" you. it was more a neutral assessment of your intelligence. which, obviously, turned out to be correct. if you were trying to be cooperative, you could have tried to answer my four questions. did you? ah. so don't pretend now that you were interested in just finding the right solution.

and yes, any student of maths, who had calculus books and the internet at hand and enough time to do research, would be an idiot as well, if he claimed that 0.(9) wasn't 1. you're not the only idiot out there. being stupid isn't unusual but that doesn't make it better. you get to know about progressions (and, for this reason, 0.(9)) in your first semester at the latest. so all the students who didn't know about this weren't geniuses - they just started studying maths. anybody can star studying maths. most people quit after the first semester.

qafir said:
And when Gustav showed the same skepticism I showed, nobody called him an idiot or picked a verbal fight.

this would lead most people to the conclusion that Gustav might have done something right that you've done wrong. why does it lead you to the conclusion that we hate you while gustav just got away luckily?

qafir said:
So do you see how it sure seems that Jay singled me out for other reasons?

because you're not german, it's as simple as that. everybody knows that outside germany, all people are idiots*. i did a great service to my vaterland and our führer by fighting you. there's nothing bad about displaying the german superiority. it's my duty, just as it is your duty as a foreigner to write stupid posts and get corrected by me. i've accepted my role, you should accept yours, as well.

______
* especially the french, that's why we can ignore intergamer's and vaxer's replies altogether. no matter how nice you thought they were.
 
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"You're a hater because you're hateful... "idiot" is harsh and was entirely unwarranted."

Fear and ignorance often brings out the worst in people.
 

Jay R. Zay

New member
ClintonHammond said:
"You're a hater because you're hateful... "idiot" is harsh and was entirely unwarranted."

Fear and ignorance often brings out the worst in people.

and surely grumpy clinty will tell us now who ignored what and who had to be afraid of what.

oh no, the shining, brilliant offence going to pieces! :eek: jay was right all the time!

crap. you need to find something else. maybe it's... because... ahm... because jay is childish. period.

:rolleyes:

clinton, i know, just like qafir, you will now find "thousands of thousands" of google results for people who just failed so miserably at offending somebody as you did. you don't have to try and then post your results. i'm already impressed. ;)

how about sending me another PM, this time not asking about the reasons why i quit but about the reasons why i somehow always appear to be a little smarter than you. perhaps this would be more helpful as, obviously, you don't really want to leave anyway. :)
 

vaxer

Moderator Emeritus
Ce soir, 20 heures, venez tous, entrez au lacrimal circus

Guys, this isn't leading you anywhere... so back on topic, now! Or I'll delete any future post that deals with "who is right about why who hates who and how, but is getting it all wrong"...
 

intergamer

New member
vaxer said:
I've done a lot of math in my engineering school (three first years mainly, when we stayed on a theorical level), but I'm certainly no mathematician. But now that we know you're an authority, can we test you !? :) :whip:

How about we start with a short and simple first year exercise of abstract algebra:
Can you demonstrate that a finit integral domain (a commutative ring wich possess' no zeros) is a field?

do you doubt me? I'm as good as they get :gun:

you ask a question that follows from the definition
a field is just an integral domain with multiplicative inverses (except zero)
given non-zero a in integral domain I, ab is unique up to b since a is not 0, thus ab=1 for exactly one b as I is finite --> a has this b as its inverse as necessary.

I took algebra in high school ;)
 

vaxer

Moderator Emeritus
intergamer said:
you ask a question that follows from the definition
a field is just an integral domain with multiplicative inverses (except zero)
given non-zero a in integral domain I, ab is unique up to b since a is not 0, thus ab=1 for exactly one b as I is finite --> a has this b as its inverse as necessary.

Given non-zero a in integral domain I, you have to prove that Qi: I -> I, x -> ax remains bijective with multiplicative inverses. You just proved the surjection based on the fact that I is finit.
 

Jay R. Zay

New member
vaxer said:
Given non-zero a in integral domain I, you have to prove that Qi: I -> I, x -> ax remains bijective with multiplicative inverses. You just proved the surjection based on the fact that I is finit.

so chapter 2; it's injective because if we suppose φ(x)=φ(y) and x,y are elements of I, this means that a*x=a*y. and this means that a(x-y)=0. and as "a" isn't zero, we can divide by "a" and get x=y. and this means that the projection is injective, as only one and the same input can cause the same result.
 

vaxer

Moderator Emeritus
Jay R. Zay said:
so chapter 2; it's injective because if we suppose φ(x)=φ(y) and x,y are elements of I, this means that a*x=a*y. and this means that a(x-y)=0. and as "a" isn't zero, we can divide by "a" and get x=y. and this means that the projection is injective, as only one and the same input can cause the same result.

we already know that a isn't zero, that's part of the definition of the integral domain, so you don't need to prove that. But you're correct.

φ(x)=φ(y) and x,y are elements of I,
a*x = a*y
a*a^(-1)*x = a*a^(-1)*y
x = y
 

intergamer

New member
integral domain has zeros, just no zero divisors.. it's more that fields don't need zeros to have multiplicative inverses obviously

and I'm pretty sure my proof is complete, I said a is unique with b, that's sufficient for a bijection because the integral domain is finite (since the ab are unique ab must take on every value of I)
 

Jay R. Zay

New member
vaxer said:
we already know that a isn't zero, that's part of the definition of the integral domain, so you don't need to prove that.

did i prove that? :confused: i think it's just something that should be mentioned when dividing by a. :)

@intergamer, well, you said so, but personally, i don't believe that just stating so is "proof".
 

vaxer

Moderator Emeritus
intergamer said:
and I'm pretty sure my proof is complete, I said a is unique with b, that's sufficient for a bijection because the integral domain is finite (since the ab are unique ab must take on every value of I)

I can see where you said that a is unique with b (and it's quite unclear what b is), can't really see where you proved injection in the case of multiplcal inversion. With a finit integral domain, φ(x) is always bijective anyway. You have to show that we're still going to have φ(x)=φ(y) <=> x=y when it becomes a field.
 

intergamer

New member
i dunno man, it's just kind of an intuitively obvious question. given a, b is any element of I, ab is different for each b because it's a integral domain (do you really need me to prove ab_1=ab_2 --> b_1=b_2? lol). therefore given a, ab over all b takes on each value of I once; one of these values is 1. Thus, a has exactly one inverse. what am i missing?

ps: i go to engineering school myself
 

vaxer

Moderator Emeritus
intergamer said:
i dunno man, it's just kind of an intuitively obvious question. given a, b is any element of I, ab is different for each b because it's a integral domain (do you really need me to prove ab_1=ab_2 --> b_1=b_2? lol)
I'm not asking you to prove that in an Integral domain φa is injective, it's part of the definition. you have to prove that φa is injective in a field.

ok, well here's the "official" solution to this exercice:

given a belonging to I, φa: I -> I: x -> ax
φa(x)=φa(y)
a*x = a*y
a*a^(-1)*x = a*a^(-1)*y
x = y, meaning φa stays injective of I into I.

also, since I is finit, φa is surjective: x exists so that φa(x)=1.
 

qafir

New member
Jay R. Zay said:
so you searched the local sewer, did you? :) congratulations, you found thousands of thousands of people who are exactly on your mathematical level.

just by the way, were all of them as arrogant as you are...? :rolleyes: being stupid is okay for me. unfortunately, the problem about *your* stupidity is that you don't even know when to run a low profile..

So true, little Jazee...I was wrong AND I was arrogant about it. My humblest apologies. But do try to give us idiots a little grace for not knowing everything...It's so hard for me. I know so very much that I forget sometimes I have limits. How I wish I were like you, gifted in only one arena and imbecilic in all others. It would make things so much easier. :D

Jay R. Zay said:
if you search google for spelling mistakes, you certainly will get more results that for your 0.(9) problem. so maybe you shouldn't critizise somebody else's language...?

this lesson probably wasn't so pleasant to learn, was it?

You're right Jello, it was PAINFUL to learn. And especially to be publicly shamed by you of all people. Talk about adding insult to injury...But then again, when I posted incorrectly, you were so kind and told me I was being an idiot and then went about proving it. That was in this mathematical thread. So in the other threads, where English is the language being used, maybe I should take a page out of your book and be equally kind. Of course, that would mean a lot of extra work for me since you're such a bad writer, but I'm happy to oblige you!



Jay R. Zay said:
oh, bunny. we gave you the most simple explanations that are available for this problem. you didn't get it here, you get it nowhere. or did you find some website that explained it with toys and colorful cartoon characters?

man, and you were trying to make us believe that you knew more about maths than the spelling of the word... (y)

I know...you did. I was being an idiot. I didn't understand that there was a fundamental flaw in the decimal notation. I didn't know that 0.(9) = 1. I do now, and I apologize to all for my earlier skepticism. I couldn't find a proof with toys, but I did find one old prof willing to talk slow and use crayons.




Jay R. Zay said:
you look at it the wrong way. everybody else but me was trying to make you understand. they failed. i tried to prove you are an idiot. this makes me the one man who actually succeeded. :)

Of course you did...



Jay R. Zay said:
how would this be, mr. respect? you don't respect others, others don't respect you. the way you were acting in this forum didn't show much respect to anyone. how come you are crying for respect now?

Jay, here's what I mean about you being gifted in one arena and dottering in others. My point to you is that you're a big big German baby. You believe your attack on me was motivated by love of math, but really, you just used that one chance to attack me because you don't have the wit or verbal skill to attack me elsewhere. You picked your one safe shot, and you took it. For the record, I showed lots of respect for people on the forum, just not for the people who's brainpower converges on zero like yours.:)

Jay R. Zay said:
and correct, by the way. and what did they get for it? the explanations were there and still you had to ask external websites to make you understand the problem. just the way you don't feel like being nice to people, i don't, either. i didn't call you an idiot because i "hated" you. it was more a neutral assessment of your intelligence. which, obviously, turned out to be correct. if you were trying to be cooperative, you could have tried to answer my four questions. did you? ah. so don't pretend now that you were interested in just finding the right solution.

and yes, any student of maths, who had calculus books and the internet at hand and enough time to do research, would be an idiot as well, if he claimed that 0.(9) wasn't 1. you're not the only idiot out there. being stupid isn't unusual but that doesn't make it better. you get to know about progressions (and, for this reason, 0.(9)) in your first semester at the latest. so all the students who didn't know about this weren't geniuses - they just started studying maths. anybody can star studying maths. most people quit after the first semester.?

Now here's one of those "painful lessons" moments. I looked at your questions, and it was obvious to even an idiot like me that I must be wrong. So I conceded. Oh, that's right, I forgot. You can't read English. Or at least you seem to choose not to. Did you miss the part where I conceded? Where I admitted you were right and I was wrong? Funny. I would have thought that would have made you wet your lederhosen.

"anybody can star studying maths." As in become the rock star of the calculator? What is this starring of which you speak?

Jay R. Zay said:
this would lead most people to the conclusion that Gustav might have done something right that you've done wrong. why does it lead you to the conclusion that we hate you while gustav just got away luckily?

Joe, sometimes you're so very slow-witted I think I should stop typing so fast. Maybe that would help your turtle's brain catch up with the rest of us. I never said "you" in the plural meaning others in this thread. I meant specifically that you were motivated by anger and chose this thread to vent it. "Your cronies" didn't mean the others in this thread.

Oh, by the way folks, if any of you thought that's what I meant, you have my sincere apology.

What I meant, Mr. Ewing, was that you have whiney crybaby friends elsewhere in the forum who were as severely beaten by my words as I was beaten by your superior math. You and those verbal drippy noses were angry with me because I was funny and sarcastic.

Jay R. Zay said:
because you're not german, it's as simple as that. everybody knows that outside germany, all people are idiots*. i did a great service to my vaterland and our führer by fighting you. there's nothing bad about displaying the german superiority. it's my duty, just as it is your duty as a foreigner to write stupid posts and get corrected by me. i've accepted my role, you should accept yours, as well.

______
* especially the french, that's why we can ignore intergamer's and vaxer's replies altogether. no matter how nice you thought they were.

Oh, bunny, I’m so sorry I irritated you. I can see why you NEED to defend your vaterland. You poor Germans are constantly under attack mathematically. For example, there are all those awful dwedful meen meen bad peopwel at all those mathematical foundations that discriminate against you.

With such an anti-German bias, I can’t believe the Fields Medal is still considered the award with the highest prestige given to mathematicians. How could that be, when Frenchmen have won it nine times since 1936? And what sort of bribes do the US, Russia, and Japan make to “buy” their repeated awards? It must only be German pride and integrity that keeps “your” mathematicians from corrupting the awards committee. Because you’ve only won the prize once. At least you’re keeping up with Finland and Australia, though…

Of course, Germans do much better in the Wolf prize, founded by a German. They’ve picked up two awards. Granted, nothing since 1988...but the French seem to do well, at least.

I hate that your mathematical patriotism is so assaulted all the time. Would it make you feel better to give me a math lesson, oh guru? If a German won the Schock prize once, and Americans won five times, and it’s only been awarded seven times, how much better does the US perform statistically?

And what happened to the Abel Prize, the Nemmers Prize, and the Nevanlinna Prize? Germans have NEVER won. I must speak to someone about this. Perhaps we could institute some form of affirmative action policy. You Germans are obviously disadvantaged by losing those two world wars. Isn't it a shame the French always beat you? Please don't drown yourself in beer or anything rash like that.

All my best,

Your humble student.
 
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