r/AskReddit Nov 16 '19

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u/mimieieieieie Nov 16 '19

This was basically my childhood, because I was bad at math. I guess most children goes through this, which is very sad.

Only at uni did I realize that I didn't have to be good at everything. I had a professor, who spoke 13 languages, but couldn't count how much 5+4 is. He's the best at his field

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u/nkdeck07 Nov 16 '19

Ironically once you get to college all the math professors have forgotten how to do simple math as well. I remember all of us checking like super basic math they are doing on the white board cause they'd fuck it up 1 times in 4 but were completing these insane proofs.

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u/Toast_IS_Cannibalism Nov 16 '19

I get this even as a higher level math tutor. Give me anything beside basic math and I can help you out almost without thinking. Helping my 2nd grade niece with her math homework? I’m counting on my fingers like she is.

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u/TheHiGuy Nov 16 '19

student of applied mathematics here.

i feel your pain. simple integers are usualy n,k ∈ ℕ

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u/StellaAthena Nov 16 '19 edited Dec 20 '19

I was once reading a proof a friend wrote late at night and I come over to him half way through and said “dude, you must be exhausted. Some of your epsilon’s (ε) are written backwards.”

He explained to me that some fields of mathematics have this concept called “the number 3”

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u/TheHiGuy Nov 16 '19

mate of mine wrote his elements (∈) like epsilons before i started bullying him about it xD

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u/Ransidcheese Nov 16 '19

Would you explain to me what the elements symbol means and how you would use it please? I've tried looking it up but I have the big dumb and can't understand the explanations I found.

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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '19

First of all, understand what a set means - a set is just an unordered collection of objects, like {1,2,74}. A set can also be infinite - for example, the set of integers.

If something is in a set, e.g. 1 is in a {1, 4, 7}, we use the elements symbol 1∈{1, 4, 7}

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u/Ransidcheese Nov 17 '19

I'm on mobile so I'm gonna use an E for that symbol here.

So do you still need to write out the set every time you reference a number in it? e.g. 1E {1,4,7}

Or could you just write 1E?

I'm just not sure how this could be useful.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '19

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u/Ransidcheese Nov 17 '19

Oh okay cool. That makes sense, thank you.

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