Manipulating powers

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by roger

Thought so, thanks :)

And @Silverman, you're not dissuading me with your arrogance BTW

However, you HAVE dissuaded me from trying to discuss mathematics with
you. I may be condenscending toward you, but I have not been arrogant.
It is not arrogance to tell someone that they lack basic understanding
of a subject.

Based on your level of understanding, I would have guessed that you
were a high school freshman at best. You wrote:

"Thanks for your replies and good advice. I was not trying to drastically change the power, only by about 5% or so, so I guess I thought I could compensate with the coefficient."

The fact that you had these thoughts show a FUNDAMENTAL lack of
understanding of basic level algebra; i.e. math you should have had
a long time before 11th grade.

[TimSorbet]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

I may be condenscending toward you, but I have not been arrogant.
It is not arrogance to tell someone that they lack basic understanding
of a subject.

condescend:

1. To descend to the level of one considered inferior; lower oneself. See synonyms at stoop.
2. To deal with people in a patronizingly superior manner.

arrogant:

1. Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.
2. Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others: an arrogant contempt for the weak. See synonyms at proud.

Sounds to me like you're definitely condescending, and sometimes arrogant.

[em99010pepe]

Condescending and arrogant...humm.. I wonder if R.D. Silverman behaves like that with his mother.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

condescend:

1. To descend to the level of one considered inferior; lower oneself. See synonyms at stoop.
2. To deal with people in a patronizingly superior manner.

arrogant:

1. Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.
2. Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others: an arrogant contempt for the weak. See synonyms at proud.

Sounds to me like you're definitely condescending, and sometimes arrogant.

What takes arrogance is for someone, completely clueless and ignorant
about very elementary mathematics to attempt to "dabble" in an area
of math that requires a fair bit of knowledge, mathematical maturity and
sophistication. It is not arrogant for an expert in a subject to tell a
newbie that his/her knowledge of a subject is inadequate.

[TimSorbet]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

What takes arrogance is for someone, completely clueless and ignorant
about very elementary mathematics to attempt to "dabble" in an area
of math that requires a fair bit of knowledge, mathematical maturity and
sophistication. It is not arrogant for an expert in a subject to tell a
newbie that his/her knowledge of a subject is inadequate.

By the definitions I posted, in my opinion, what he did isn't arrogance, it's ignorance ("The condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed."), and what you did and continue to do was/is condescending and bordering on arrogance.
Can we just all agree you're being a jerk ("A foolish, rude, or contemptible person.") about the whole thing, and leave it at that?

[em99010pepe]

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

Can we just all agree you're being a jerk ("A foolish, rude, or contemptible person.") about the whole thing, and leave it at that?

I think we should make a poll.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

What takes arrogance is for someone, completely clueless and ignorant about very elementary mathematics to attempt to "dabble" in an area of math that requires a fair bit of knowledge, mathematical maturity and sophistication. It is not arrogant for an expert in a subject to tell a newbie that his/her knowledge of a subject is inadequate.

I suppose that if your field were circa-1900 physics, and a young patent office clerk who had poor grades in school inquired about "riding on a beam of light", you'd have been quite right in berating him about his arrogant cluelessness, inadequate knowledge and ignorant dabbling, perhaps with a side comment about low standards for government employees, too. (No, I'm not implying that everyone is a potential patent office clerk.)

Come on, Dr. Silverman -- not everyone has good innate math ability. This is a public forum, with no "entrance" requirements.

Say -- why don't you start your own subforum: "R. D. Silverman's Math" or something like that? With your name on it, none of the rest of us could complain about how you responded to inquiries there, especially if you stated your requirements in the title, like:

"R. D. Silverman Answers Clearly-Phrased Questions Asked by Knowledgable Persons"

[ET_]

If we claim for freedom, we should let people free to behave as they like, especially on a free forum. Even if we don't agree with them. We may disagree, but again we cannot call people for having called people or we'd act as those who got our blame.

Everybody here know Mr.Silverman: he is not going to change because of posts. Let's accept him for how he is and what he gives to us.

That said, maybe someone could direct our new friend Roger to our "math for non mathematicians" forum, Miscellaneous math threads...

Luigi

P.S. I learnt a lot about how to formulate a math question from his answers.

[Aexoden]

Of course, if you're willing to tolerate some error, all is not lost. Especially if you're dealing with smaller changes in the exponent, you can adjust the coefficient to provide a similar curve for an area of interest (a particular range of x values). As the size of this area of interest increases, however, the second curve will diverge more and more from the first. Depending on your exact application, this may or may not be useful.

And as far as fitting to a particular set of data, there will generally be only one best set of coefficients and exponents for a given equation that will best fit the data. Once you have that, I'm not sure I see the value in trying a different exponent, though again, I know nothing about this particular application.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by Aexoden

Of course, if you're willing to tolerate some error,

......<snip>


. Once you have that, I'm not sure I see the value in trying a different exponent, though again, I know nothing about this particular application.

You admit you know nothing about the application, but offer "advice"???
You talk about "trying a different exponent" in complete ignorance????

This entire thread is STUPID. The OP was trying to curve fit a function
that counts twin primes... But if the OP had bothered to do any READING
he would have found out that there is a well established THEORY
that tells us what the curve should be. The number of twin primes
less than N is uniformly asymptotic to C N/(log^2 N) where C is the
twin prime constant. [given by an infinite product]. Trying to fit
ANY kind of "power law" curve to this data is MORONIC. It can not
possibly fit a curve of that type......

If you want to know more (i.e. the derivation of C) then ask.

But for someone at the level of the OP to even attempt work in this
area is crazy.

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

If you want to know more (i.e. the derivation of C) then ask.

You mean e.g. NOT i.e.