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For the mathematicians among you...
Nov. 3rd, 2005 04:42 pmI need help. Not psychiatric help, though that might also be of use at this moment. No, I need help with maths, and I know I have some very clever mathmos hanging round these parts, so here goes:
First of all, either the rules of mathematics have changed since this morning or I'm missing something really obvious, but my calculator persists on telling me that -32 is -9. Surely this cannot be right? Or am I making some elementary mistake?
Possibly related to the above, I'm having issues with the next bit, which asks me to graph this horror of an equation:
y=(1/4)x2+(1/2)x-1 for integer values of x from -5 to 5. Edit: Have tried to tidy equation and put brackets in right places.
So, as I learned at GCSE many many years ago, I have made myself a table of values. And given the above integer values of x, I have got a sequence of values for y as follows: 2.75, 1, -0.25, -1, -0.25, -1, -0.25, 1, 5, 7.75. Is there some peculiar feature of quadratics I've missed, because I really don't think that's right. I do so hate being mathematically illiterate, but there you go.
And mathematically illiterate I shall have to remain, because I have four books on Mill to read tomorrow, four thick Politics books to read for Monday, notes to be made on all of them, plus a 2500 word essay on decision-making in the British executive. Therefore I'm missing poker night tonight. And no, I haven't procrastinated at all. I haven't dared.
Actually, this is mostly the fault of whoever it is who can't remember my email address, because I got Politics two days late and my maths not at all, as my maths tutor appears to have no idea who I am and no-one thought me important enough to go to the effort of forwarding me the information. So this is why I'm doing maths now, and Mill later, and politics all day tomorrow and most of the weekend.
(Also: I owe one ficathon story. It's really late, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to let it be even later, because I can't, I really can't do it right now. I hope you understand.)
This was meant to be request for help, not a rant. All I do lately is rant, cry and sleep. I've apparently eaten nothing but apples and cashew nuts for the last two days, and not even noticed.
Yes, I'll go away, I'm sure I'm not making anyone's life any brighter.
Edited again: Yes, I'm still miserable. But I have nailed the equation: x=3.2 or x=1.2. Not exactly - it's only roughly where the bizarre wobbly curve crosses the x-axis, but fed into the original equation, -3.2 yields 0.04 and 1.2 yields -0.04. Good enough.
First of all, either the rules of mathematics have changed since this morning or I'm missing something really obvious, but my calculator persists on telling me that -32 is -9. Surely this cannot be right? Or am I making some elementary mistake?
Possibly related to the above, I'm having issues with the next bit, which asks me to graph this horror of an equation:
y=(1/4)x2+(1/2)x-1 for integer values of x from -5 to 5. Edit: Have tried to tidy equation and put brackets in right places.
So, as I learned at GCSE many many years ago, I have made myself a table of values. And given the above integer values of x, I have got a sequence of values for y as follows: 2.75, 1, -0.25, -1, -0.25, -1, -0.25, 1, 5, 7.75. Is there some peculiar feature of quadratics I've missed, because I really don't think that's right. I do so hate being mathematically illiterate, but there you go.
And mathematically illiterate I shall have to remain, because I have four books on Mill to read tomorrow, four thick Politics books to read for Monday, notes to be made on all of them, plus a 2500 word essay on decision-making in the British executive. Therefore I'm missing poker night tonight. And no, I haven't procrastinated at all. I haven't dared.
Actually, this is mostly the fault of whoever it is who can't remember my email address, because I got Politics two days late and my maths not at all, as my maths tutor appears to have no idea who I am and no-one thought me important enough to go to the effort of forwarding me the information. So this is why I'm doing maths now, and Mill later, and politics all day tomorrow and most of the weekend.
(Also: I owe one ficathon story. It's really late, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to let it be even later, because I can't, I really can't do it right now. I hope you understand.)
This was meant to be request for help, not a rant. All I do lately is rant, cry and sleep. I've apparently eaten nothing but apples and cashew nuts for the last two days, and not even noticed.
Yes, I'll go away, I'm sure I'm not making anyone's life any brighter.
Edited again: Yes, I'm still miserable. But I have nailed the equation: x=3.2 or x=1.2. Not exactly - it's only roughly where the bizarre wobbly curve crosses the x-axis, but fed into the original equation, -3.2 yields 0.04 and 1.2 yields -0.04. Good enough.
