Search results

It's one thing to say that something can't be integrated, it's another thing to say why it can't be integrated. You could be sitting there all day trying to find the primitive function of $e^{x^2}$ and you would get nothing for this question. Why? it's because someone has shown that such a...

pool is an art. I agree with that. It's more about feeling the shot (and english, etc) than the science of what angle it will rebound off the cushions. I can't vouch for the other sports/activities. but like Grey Council said, what ever your passion, you'll see it as an art. Math is an...

I found I was good at it, and enjoyed it. It's mechanical at first, but you start to think about other ways of looking at things. Then it becomes interesting. If you are looking for reasons why people do mathematics, try reading G.H. Hardy's book "a mathematician's apology". He tries to...

handwritten is the norm. though you can be crazy and type it up. The program to type up mathematics is Latex. I didn't know about this program until 3 years ago....I'm guessing this is what Dr. Buchanan uses to type up his things on his website. Only Latex is used for typing up respectable...

The colour of the manilla folder should not matter. If you choose a different colour than the norm, then you will be able to find your assignment faster, when it is time to collect them.

well, i would interpret 0.99999.... as a geometric series, first term 9/10, ratio 1/10. Then 0.999999.... is the sum of the geometric series, which is 1. In other words, 0.999999..... is an infinite sum that converges to 1.

There has been nothing about it in this forum, even though it is titled "Appreciating the Beauty and Elegance". So here goes. Mine is a toss up between proofs of irrationality of sqrt(2) and the infinite number of primes via Euclid.

when setting x=y, you get determinant zero. (x-y) is then a factor, but so is (y-x). Which one do you take? when n is even, it shouldn't matter, but if n is odd, then you still have a negative sign to deal with. I'm not sure what the matrix in the general case looks like. are the powers...

It's been a while since I looked at Turing machines, but what is a QS? by the way, is Humphrey taking is this year? he practically owns that course. and he is a very good lecturer as well.

I tricked myself into thinking they were Vandermonde matrices. Very sorry!

Just as I put pen to paper to do the 4 by 4 case, I remembered that matrices of the given form are called Vandermonde matrices, and their determinants are called Vandermonde determinants. what I wrote down for the 4 by 4 case is correct (note that with the order x,y,z,w in the matrix, the...

there doesn't seem to be a nice way to put matrices into txt format, so each line will have 3 entries, giving a 3 by 3 matrix. recall that operations like (row2)-k(row1) do not affect the determinant. Thus, the determinant of 1, 1, 1, x, y, z, x^2, y^2, z^2, is the same as 1, 1...

I think that they allow one lab to be missed. This is from what I remember from doing Chem ages back. I hated Chem. I still do. Check with the chem handbooks or the lab notes; there should be something in there saying how many you can miss, though it is ideal you go to all of them, however...

I'm a postgrad there. ex-sefton, class '98. :D Marking assignments really fries your brain. Getting things that are hard to read, hard to access and hard to put back (plastic sleeves) can get on your nerves. When marking assignments, it doesn't take much to get annoyed. The co-ordinator...

Manilla folders keep things together, and ensures that the assignment is kept separated from one another. If the staple were to come lose (which almost never happens), then at least the folder will keep it together. After putting your assignment in the boxes, they are then taken out again...

Don't tell anyone. The psychological barrier is often the most difficult one...

Keep in mind that you are to submit your own work. Don't just blatantly copy someone else's work and then hand it in. Markers don't like that, and will be reported if it is obvious that that has happened. Then both people will be penalised. Please also use pen, rather than pencil when...

pick a positive integer. 1. if it is even, divide by 2 2. if it is odd, multiply by 3 and add 1 3. repeat steps 1 and 2. eventually, you will reach the value 1, in which case you go into the loop 4, 2, 1. for example, starting at 3, you get 10, then 5, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1. starting at...

In Euclidean (regular) geometry, one way to prove that the sum of the angles is two right angles is to consider one of the exterior angles and add, from that vertex, a parallel line to the opposite side. Chase some angles around and you would have divided the 'straight line angle' into three...

prime numbers are fascinating. There are 25 from 0 to 100, 21 from 100 to 200, 16 from 200 to 300, 16 from 300 to 400, 17 from 400 to 500, ... There's no obvious pattern. prime numbers are the building blocks of all positive integers, one application mentioned was cryptography...