Math problems too big for our brains

Ottawa Citizen via The Windsor Star ^ | November 8 2005

[Cronos]

Calculus -- absolutely fascinating. Though one thing I found guaranteed to make you wonder how your left brain hemisphere is talking to your right brain hemisphere is datawarehousing design (in the midst of one right now -- trying to squeeze in another source with a radically different system logic)

[DustyMoment]

I dunno. I threw them in because they had to be noted for something!

[phantomworker]

Yup, but the problem is that nobody can remember exactly what the question was...

What question? :) LOL

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

I see math teacher's fingers stutter on the keys... :)

[phantomworker]

"Why" is like infinity: we may get close to it, but never reach its end.

That is so cool... It explains why 1 + 1 does not always equal 2. (Limit theorems)

[MarkL]

"Why" is like infinity: we may get close to it, but never reach its end.

That is so cool... It explains why 1 + 1 does not always equal 2. (Limit theorems)

And Zeno's paradox.

Mark

[phantomworker]

Infinity and Zeno's paradox is what hooked me on going to grad school in math. Stupid move, but it was fun.

[MarkL]

Infinity and Zeno's paradox is what hooked me on going to grad school in math. Stupid move, but it was fun.

I never went to grad school, but my brother was sure calculus was completely useless, until he needed to stain a large, irregular, curved deck... I think that he now (sort of) appreciates limits.

Mark

[phantomworker]

I've always heard that 'calculus' separates the men from the boys. LOL

[phantomworker]

"Why" is like infinity: we may get close to it, but never reach its end.

I like this so much. Would you mind if I used it in a tagline someday. Or did you borrow it from someone else? Thanks.

[chilepepper]

A few still do it the old-fashioned way, he says: "By individuals sitting in their rooms for long periods, thinking.

geez, i too sit in my room for long periods, thinking... _{about lunch}

[AmishDude]

Bull.

AmishDude, Ph. D. in mathematics.

The fact is, the old areas are drying up. (But they still have large amounts of tenured faculty.) I wouldn't be surprised if this guy was an algebraic topologist.

[phantomworker]

"Basically, mathematicians are not very good philosophers."

That's just not true. I agree. The author is full of it. He's probably from the school who still does long division.

What is your field of study, AmishDude? Just curious. Know anything about profile monitoring and generalized least squares?

[AmishDude]

I'm an extremal and probabilistic combinatorialist. I don't know what you refer to by "profile monitoring" and "generalized least squares" but I suspect I know what it is under a different name.

[phantomworker]

My masters is in Prob & Stat from the math dept at UCSB. I think I had one course in combinatorics. My PhD dissertation uses statistical profile monitoring, which is an extension of statistical process control (SPC). Least squares relates, of course, to linear regression. Generalized least squares is looking at nonlinear regression such as logistical regression. I am looking at a response variable and using GLS to estimate the deviation from the expected value. Usually the response is a process as in SPC. My contribution will be the human response, such as a soldier response. I am trying to formulate the question I want to answer this quarter.

Does this make any sense to you at all? Did you study any mathematical statistics?

[notfornothing]

You can't divide by 0.

Sure you can, and this is a meaningful result. 0/0 (ie "indeterminate") is logically different from, say [a positive real]/0 (eg 1/0 = "undefined".) 0/0 could be anything - 1, 3.5, pi, you name it. The point is that on a meaningfully infinite scale, 1 and 2 (or any two other positive reals) are exactly the same.