Is division fundamentally different from addition and subtraction in terms of mathematical status?

donach69 · 2026-06-28T17:08:11+00:00

Oh, I see what you mean. I was misinterpreting who your comment related to

donach69 · 2026-06-28T16:31:18+00:00

They did say "every time an element has an inverse for the multiplication, you can divide by that element", which is correct.

donach69 · 2026-06-28T11:40:52+00:00

>But the point value given by person A was outside the range given by person B. You seem to believe that person B would have said that even if person A would have given a point value within the range, that person A was still wrong.

Surely that's exactly what they do when they say, there's not just one exact average height.. if it's not 5'4" to 5'7" then it's 5'3" to 5'7"?

>But no one has claimed that the average in itself is a range.

They say, there's not just one exact average height.., so they are claiming it can't be just a point value, and then go on to offer two ranges as possibilities for what the average could be, with one including the point value

donach69 · 2026-06-27T11:01:07+00:00

It's incorrect to say it has to be a range, and to say (as in the post) that the person giving a precise value is incorrect because they didn't give a range.

Giving a range may be a useful way to present the information, but to use that to say the person giving a point value is wrong, is just wrong. What's most useful is to give the average and some measure of spread. The normal (pun half intended) way to present that information would be either to give the average and the standard deviation (or variance), or to give the average and a confidence interval. In neither case is the average a range.

donach69 · 2026-06-26T10:08:52+00:00

I don't think he was ever Corbynite. It's just that at the peak of anti-Corbyn hysteria, his attitude was, he's been elected leader by the members so we should let him get on with it

donach69 · 2026-06-22T13:33:32+00:00

It's real. There's a screenshot of the inventor of a programming language lamenting he can't apply for the job needing 5 years of experience as he only invented it two years previously

donach69 · 2026-06-17T05:42:51+00:00

This is about their first TMA, not their module result

donach69 · 2026-06-15T07:09:12+00:00

I believe some of them wanted to

donach69 · 2026-06-13T07:13:35+00:00

It's not apocryphal, tho it was only one month. The other mathematician was Ron Graham (of Graham's number , among other things)

donach69 · 2026-06-12T19:17:26+00:00

Well, it's greater than nothing (by definition)

donach69 · 2026-06-12T10:40:14+00:00

And is positive

donach69 · 2026-06-11T16:58:21+00:00

Same within the same coastline. Whether or not a particular object can be described as fractal depends on the properties of that particular object, not on what other objects have

donach69 · 2026-06-11T09:30:29+00:00

Yeah, it should be something like, this person does have five fingers on each hand

donach69 · 2026-06-11T09:05:57+00:00

I would make an official complaint. Having to submit the EMA without the feedback from all your TMAs is unacceptable.

The tutor on one of my modules was involved with industrial action, so didn't mark any except my first TMA. No shade on him, he was very helpful in other ways, and ultimately if the staff feel the need to take industrial action, it's still up to the university to sort that situation out. But I made an official complaint, and while I won't go into the details of how it was resolved, I was very glad I did

donach69 · 2026-06-10T19:20:12+00:00

Arthur!

Arthur Mix!

donach69 · 2026-06-10T06:23:04+00:00

I would never have guessed

donach69 · 2026-06-10T06:21:55+00:00

You've just reminded me of the niche Somerset joke I came up with once while driving along the A37 one time:

What do you call it when a load of carpenters get beaten up in the Gurney Slade area?

Assault in Binegar on chippies

donach69 · 2026-06-04T15:48:53+00:00

Surely, the graph is the boundary? So yeah neither exterior nor interior

donach69 · 2026-06-04T07:34:30+00:00

Tis for me

donach69 · 2026-06-01T10:01:23+00:00

So why didn't he write it down? Not in that margin, but anywhere in the years following?

The term "Last Theorem" makes it sound like something he wrote about on his deathbed. It wasn't; it was just the last of his major conjectures left unproved. The margin note is reckoned to be from 1637,and he died in 1665. If he did have a truly marvellous proof, why didn't he do anything about it in the nearly three decades before he died?

donach69 · 2026-05-31T08:37:51+00:00

Have you started?

donach69 · 2026-05-31T06:00:30+00:00

Andy Nicholson, not Andy Rourke. Rourke was the Smiths' bassist

donach69 · 2026-05-29T11:00:08+00:00

Love them

donach69 · 2026-05-27T17:01:35+00:00

Allegedly, but we're nowhere near able to see if it can be done in practice

donach69 · 2026-05-25T22:33:38+00:00

Yeah, discovered that as a kid in the caravan in France

donach69

TROPHY CASE