Pure Mathematics
 

is anyone else interested in it? Hurwitz integers? Gaussian integers? Fermat? factorising prime numbers? 4 dimensional cubes? Pascal? phi?

im studying them in my 4th year of university and id really like to have a conversation with someone about these things, theyre awesome.

I think I heard of Pascal.

That was a programming language when I was in college. ;)

It was a while back ... slightly before the birth of C. (not + or ++, mind you)

I have a high degree of math anxiety, but there is probably someone sufficiently nerdy to participate in a conversation of such things.

I specialize in witty commentary.

And screwing with people's delicate psyches.

I do have some knowledge of impure mathematics, however.

I used to.. took a second major in math in college. I ignored all those nasty applications in favor of abstract algebra, real analysis, number theory, etc.

Now I'd be completely lost at anything more than simple algebra, though I like to think I could relearn it all if I applied myself. (I expect those who were athletes in their youth feel the same way about being out of shape.)

number theory and algebra are pretty much what im doing atm. although im also doing a subject that goes through all the cool little things that maths can be applied to with shapes, magic etc

I dated a math major once in college. Boy THAT was an experience. He kept trying to explain his topology class to me, thinking it was one of the more "accessible" topics. :rolleyes:

Later, he would throw that very textbook at me in anger, but that's a different story...

The farthest I ever got in my own studies were the theories of infinity, aleph-naught and such.

Calculus II and Differential Equations. I don't remember any of it.

I hate math...I'm pretty decent at everything I've taken but I don't willingly participate in extra-curricular mathiness.

Which Phi are we talking about? I assume we aren't talking about the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet.

I don't know why it stuck with me, but I still remember the concept of imaginary numbers.

Given that a square root of number is two equal numbers that when multiplied result in that number, and that a negative times a negative is a positive then -

-4 and +4 are both the square root of 16.

4i is the square root of -16. Since a negative number cannot really have a square root, but since it might occur in a formula, the square root of a negative number is an imaginary number (which is why it is marked 'i'). It can't exist but it has to be able to exist. It's sort of like mathematical antimatter.

If you consider that negative numbers themselves are a little fictitious (try fitting negative four apples into a bag), than imaginary numbers are just the result of extending the unrealistic into the absurd.

Imaginary numbers are routinely used in things I must understand. There exist so many other 'variations' of mathematics that involve symbols I am not confortable with and concepts that I have difficulty with (such as manifolds, fields, and topology). For me, it helps to have some real world examples since when reading pure math, I don't always read what they had intended. Without those examples, I cannot 'benchmark' myself against what I was suppose to learn. Without those examples, then these mathematical concepts assume I already understand the principles; therefore they lose me in the underlying concepts.

One form of mathematics I wish I better understood is Galois fields. But then that type of math was not even listed. Gauss accomplished so much that I am not sure which is and is not Gaussian mathematics.

real numbers could be seen as almost a subset of imaginary numbers. the "i" part can just be seen as a rotation of 90 degrees off the real axis. and then youve got 3D imaginary numbers with i,j, and k called Quaternions, but if you include real numbers in that then you have 4D. just try and picture in your head a 4D cube. its impossible to picture but the mathematics makes it possible. then go even higher

I enjoy pressing the buttons on calculators. If they have pretty lights, so much the better. Compasses are also sort of fun. When I was much younger, I enjoyed pretending that a slide rule was an expandable spacecraft.

That about covers my math abilities and affinities.

e^i pi + 1 = 0

imaginary numbers?

Like, um, Social Security? Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price? EPA gas mileage estimates? Eight hours of sleep? "Big Ten Inch" (Ok, Aerosmith gets a pass :wink: )

Yeah, I don't really understand them either.

That explains a lot.

That was a cheap shot, Wolf

-- but it didn't stop me from laughing.