Thread: Algebra question

  1. #16
    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by indigo0086 View Post
    I don't nearly encounter as many 11s in real life as I do horrendously long real numbers or strange greek symbols which may or may not have a meaning.
    Yes, the old 'does this greek letter have a special meaning or is it just a variable' conundrum. My favorite is when you mix two types of math that use the same greek letter to mean different things.

  2. #17
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    I love the "There may exist some <greek symbol>...or there may not, it depends"
    And I hate when they replace x with something and you wonder, "What's that squigly line". then the teacher responds, "That's basically like x"

  3. #18
    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
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    Or when they use Theta sub Lambda in the same equation as Lambda sub theta and the instructor gets confused and mixes them up but doesnt realize it until half an hour later.

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    The point is, I hate math.

  5. #20
    and the Hat of Clumsiness GanglyLamb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by abachler View Post
    Or when they use Theta sub Lambda in the same equation as Lambda sub theta and the instructor gets confused and mixes them up but doesnt realize it until half an hour later.
    It even gets better when you are using L in formulas where in one part L means the inductance and in the other the length of the transmission line... (I think this occurs somewhere in the telegraphist's equation).

    My motto about math and every other science is that nothing is rocket science, as long as you break the rocket science into small understandable parts... But I admit that breaking the rocket science into smaller parts can be rocket science itself at first.

  6. #21
    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by abachler View Post
    Yes, the old 'does this greek letter have a special meaning or is it just a variable' conundrum. My favorite is when you mix two types of math that use the same greek letter to mean different things.
    In my experience doing physics, Greek symbols usually stand for constants, or physical values, not variables (e.g. time, distance, velocity, etc)

    Although you sometimes encounter tau as a substitute variable for time in certain calculus forms...

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    I'm waiting for the half-life toilet-kill icon becomes a physics constant.

  8. #23
    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by brewbuck View Post
    In my experience doing physics, Greek symbols usually stand for constants, or physical values, not variables (e.g. time, distance, velocity, etc)
    When dealing with AI, it seems use of greek letterage is a free for all. All 3 forms of sigma are used, alpha means something different for each type of neural network, and various other symbols have pseudo-constant meanings. A lot of this becomes a prolem when interfacing complex netowrks with physics functions, since you are almost guaranteed to have a variable collision.

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