this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 72 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are led into a long room. At the other end stands a beautiful naked woman. "When I ring this bell," she says" you may cross half the space between us. When I ring the bell again, you may again cross half the space between us." Both the mathematician and physicist groan and wander off. "Ah, it's Zeno's paradox, we can never actually reach her." The engineer, waiting for the bell, says "I think I can get close enough."

[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 1 year ago (13 children)

why is there a naked woman?

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 37 points 1 year ago (35 children)
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[–] NegativeInf@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Because humanity has no other desires between math and tits apparently.

Can confirm.

(I'm both a mathematician and a pervert)

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[–] rockerface@lemm.ee 67 points 1 year ago

Also mathematicians: here's this cool new thing, I called it "infinitesimal"

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 46 points 1 year ago (3 children)

In computer engineering we have positive and negative zero.

[–] Gladaed@feddit.de 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] marcos@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Unknowingly from the GP, that's exactly where CE got it from.

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[–] Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

What algebra uses negative 0?

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When taking about limits, you can approach 0 from the positive or negative direction, which can give very different results. For example, lim cotx, x->0+ = ∞ while lim cotx, x->0- = -∞

[–] Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Speaking as a mathematician, it's not really accurate to call that -0.

Yes, but it is infinitesimally close.

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[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

IEEE 754

I mean it's an algebra, isn't it? And it definitely was mathematicians who came up with the thing. In the same way that artists didn't come up with the CGI colour palette.

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[–] PlexSheep@infosec.pub 13 points 1 year ago (8 children)

What do you mean? In two's complement, there is only one zero.

[–] yetAnotherUser@feddit.de 39 points 1 year ago

IEEE 754 floating point numbers have a signed bit at the front, causing +0 and -0 to exist.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 18 points 1 year ago

Specifically I was referring to standard float representation which permits signed zeros. However, other comments provide some interesting examples also.

[–] sus@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago
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[–] HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

And, as a mathematician who has been coding a library to create scaled geometric graphics for his paper, I hate -0.0.

Seriously, I run every number where sign determines action through a function I call "fix_zero" just because tiny tiny rounding errors pile up in floats, even is numpy.

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Limit x->0 { x } = 0 ? Noway

[–] pumpkinseedoil@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Wait do you actually say "limit" instead of "limes" in English?

Yes, as in "Why can't I hold all these limits?"

I usually uses lim

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[–] ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I was gonna say... Calculus is all about saying it's infinitely approaching zero so let's assume it is zero.

[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i mean, mathematically speaking, every number that isn't zero, is further away from zero, than the number before it.

So there is a point to the statement of "approaching zero" as well "near zero" and "about zero" since 100 probably isn't about zero.

Also CS nerds would like to fight you about floating point values.

[–] cucumber_sandwich@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Whoa slow down there buddy. Proposing numbers before numbers like they are a given.

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[–] ignotum@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] sus@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago

cosmologists: sin(x) ~= 10

[–] Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"small but non-zero" is one of my favorite phrases 😅

[–] 01101000_01101001@mander.xyz 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I like Paul Erdős's usage of "epsilon" to refer to children

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

lets ignore the higher order terms for now. five lines below look at this beautiful exact equality that we got

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

What about large values of zero?

[–] berryjam@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago
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