I've taken a liking to one of my professors lately, my Number Theory and Discrete Mathematics professor. I spend way too much time talking with him on math/teaching/social topics with him, but its interesting. We were discussing the pressure of public schools and education, and I made the comment that in one way, people possibly don't focus enough in public schools because its free to them, but its also not fair to ask everyone to pay to get an education. I mean, if you're just told to do something and there's no loss either way of leaving (please put the concept of say, construction work etc into consideration, as these are jobs that don't require high amounts of education, just manual labor), you will probably start questioning it without consider its actual worth. Then he brought up charter schools etc and I said I felt that going to those is probably better because there's a better sense of importance, especially for parents, since you're putting a worth to what you're learning. Also discussed just students in general, like some of the other students I run into who don't seem to care enough that bug me, as if Calculus II is for children or something because everyone acts like they're 18 (Seriously, when the professor was gone one asked if anyone else slept in class like they were trying to relate. Uh, no? Enjoy your bad grade). Also how I felt that even if I don't do as well as I would hope in Number Theory, its still a fairly good accomplishment in my opinion considering everyone else in the course seems to have had a year or so of proof courses to get ready. This is my first one.

Its nice though to sort of relate to a professor and know that he'll help me out with whatever math issues I have, its his job. Funny that nobody likes him, he has a pretty good method to his madness.

This post has been edited by Elnendil: Sep 29 2010, 11:31 PM

What madness?

There was a story I heard in which a student complained that another class of his has a "cheat sheet" or something and she wanted the class she was in to have one, and he denied at first, but granted it later. Then he made the test harder, because he generally asks for definitions and proofs etc, so if you just have a cheat sheet whats the point if the answers are right next to you? Doesn't really test knowledge.

Getting sick isn't fun.

It's even less fun when you get sick from a co-worker.

A co-worker that I told to go home to prevent what happened from happening.


EDIT: HOLY SHIT VICKYS OLD

This post has been edited by Lloyd Seegymont the Rasier: Oct 1 2010, 01:57 AM

Not exactly amazing to some of you, but I thought it was cool. In Calculus II we went over for about five minutes on how to divide polynomials because the professor was wanting to go through the proof to help people get used to higher mathematics etc. Well, about two sections back in Number Theory, finding the Greatest Common Divisor and Least Common Multiple for two or more numbers was brought up. And I thought that well, couldn't you figure out those two numbers for all numbers in a polynomial? Well i've only gotten to consecutive numbers, but it seems to hold true. An example should help though:

Consider two consecutive integers. Numbers are either even or odd, with each consecutive integer being the opposite of what it was (i'm trying to say that numbers go even, odd, even, odd, even, odd etc). So consider these two integers, 2k and 2k+1, which means two consecutive integers. So by using the Euclidean Algorithm, we find out that the greatest common divisor is one, which suggests that there isn't one (which is pretty easy to show as examples, as there's no way 1000 and 1001 can divide into each other evenly (don't say ten, as it would then be 100 and 100.1, and 100.1 isn't an integer). You can't get 1 and 2 out of this though, but honestly, thats a no brainer. Aside from that, from 2|3, 3|4 etc, it holds true. So then we use the formula to find the least common multiple, which is ab/(a,b), when (a,b) is the greatest common divisor. What results is 4k^2+2k. So lets test 6 and 7. So putting 3 into k (because 2(3)=6 and 2(3)+1=7) and we get 42. However, if we consider -3, then we get 36-6, which means that it holds for all positive consecutive numbers of 2k and 2k+1.

I guess throw some counter examples out there. I'm not far enough to have been taught this, I just applied it. I want to see if its possible to figure it out for two different polynomials and what that would imply..

This post has been edited by Elnendil: Oct 1 2010, 03:28 AM

TOMORROW(today) IM GOING TO VISIT A FRIEND AND ILL BE STAYING AT HIS PLACE UNTIL SUNDAY. SO IF MY MY TURN AT THE MUSIC THING HITS, WAIT FOR ME JUST A BIT. BY SUNDAY ILL BE BACK.

THATS ALL i guess

SASHA ARE WE GOING TO PLAY ToS THIS WEEKEND?

I'LL DECIDE WHEN I'VE EATEN SOMETHING

My right shoulder is causing me pain and I have no idea why. It's exhausting.

Have you tried stretching it out?

Yeah, that only helps for a short bit.

So I finally watched Paranormal Activity with some friends.
Two of them covered their faces during the night scenes. Come oooon.

Strongly disagree. You can't hide as much on the phone as you can by AIM, and you can't hide as much in person as you can on the phone. It's more real. And there's also the whole thing with the multitasking.


Because people don't complain. You'll have to have, like, a petition or something. Tell people to complain.


I'd rather have a test on understanding than knowledge. I can't memorize, because I can't study.

I can't just figure out the definitions of 50 technical terms without any context. Dang, yo.


The problem is that this is the theorem behind the Euclidean algorithm:
"Given nonnegative integers b and c, there exists unique nonnegative integers q and r, with r<c such that b = qc+r."

The proof for that requires the axiom of induction for the natural numbers, which puts a total order on integers. Polynomials have no such order.

There's something similar to that, though.
"Given integer-coef'd polynomials f and g, there exists integer-coef'd polynomials q and r, with deg®<deg(g), such that f = qg + r."

This isn't right at all (I would have to figure out what's right), but you get the idea.

Also of interest is the Sturm Theorem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturm%27s_theorem

And this would probably have the right theorem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_algorithm#Polynomials


1 can be a GCD.

Also, you can use the Euclidean Algorithm to prove that two consecutive integers have a common divisor of 1.

Also also, by the time I came back to this, I have no idea what you're claiming up there.


Yo
You don't need grad school for game design, no?

Yes.

That was pretty linear. Unless you consider the fact that you can kill someone with a steak in a fire.

(This is where you say, "Well done.")

Mmmm, steak.

On a side note, I'm getting over my cold.

I haven't touched BlazBlue in a few days but clearly I've been overdoing it on the videogames in general because I suddenly have this burning desire to write Ragna/Jin. WHY SELF WHYYYY

Clearly this is an indication that I should kick myself off the game console and dig out my apron. CAKE > UNSUBSTANTIATED SLASH PAIRINGS :V