mersenneforum.org x^2 = 2 , is it true?
 Register FAQ Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

2016-01-03, 05:03   #12
VBCurtis

"Curtis"
Feb 2005
Riverside, CA

2·5·449 Posts

Quote:
 Originally Posted by NBtarheel_33 Come on now, everybody knows that $X^2 = C$. Don't you know anything about Roman numerals?

 2016-01-03, 06:48 #13 ewmayer ∂2ω=0     Sep 2002 República de California 266D16 Posts So E = MC^2 implies that E = 10^7, obviously. Supposedly on discovering this relation Herr Einstein leapt up from his chair and shouted (in his best Life of Brian-esque fashion) "I'm not a Jew, I'm a Roman!" ("...mein Vater was in the Jerusalem garrison, his name was Naughtius Maximus Monolithicus, the last name got Germanized to One-stone when the ancestors emigrated from the holy land.")
2016-01-03, 13:55   #14
NBtarheel_33

"Nathan"
Jul 2008
Maryland, USA

3·7·53 Posts

Quote:
 Originally Posted by ewmayer So E = MC^2 implies that E = 10^7, obviously. Supposedly on discovering this relation Herr Einstein leapt up from his chair and shouted (in his best Life of Brian-esque fashion) "I'm not a Jew, I'm a Roman!" ("...mein Vater was in the Jerusalem garrison, his name was Naughtius Maximus Monolithicus, the last name got Germanized to One-stone when the ancestors emigrated from the holy land.")
Between undergrad and grad school, I worked for a year as a full-time math tutor at the local community college. Needless to say, I met an interesting spectrum of students: some that actually taught me a thing or two about math and physics, some that were taking remedial-level classes in basic arithmetic (including one poor soul that wanted a proof of why 5+5=10), and some that were just out there, e.g. the Burmese/Myanmarian student whose grip on English grammar slipped just enough to produce the gem "I will not be able to meet for tutoring next week because I will be sick."

Anyway, perhaps one of the most crazy moments was when one student was completely baffled by his algebra homework. While he was quite adept at solving the problems, he was quite dismayed by the fact that the value of $x$ was changing from problem to problem! Despite my explanation to him that every problem was like a new universe in that the variable names could be the same, but their values could and probably would be different, this student became more and more distraught, claiming that I was an idiot, the book was the work of an idiot, and that even in elementary school, he had been taught that $x$ had a universal fixed value. You guessed it: 10. Not quite sure what might have happened to him had he taken physics: relativistic velocities would have thrown him for a loop...$v=0.99c$, indeed!

 Similar Threads Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post cheesehead Lounge 15 2017-04-04 01:26 Mr. P-1 Puzzles 25 2013-02-19 20:44 science_man_88 Science & Technology 20 2011-05-11 20:48 xilman Forum Feedback 1 2006-04-23 18:14 ixfd64 mersennewiki 5 2006-01-02 08:21

All times are UTC. The time now is 07:45.

Mon Nov 30 07:45:15 UTC 2020 up 81 days, 4:56, 3 users, load averages: 1.54, 1.30, 1.30