this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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Math Humor

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[–] [email protected] 137 points 2 years ago (3 children)

A small part of my soul dies everytime I see "I'm" used that way

[–] [email protected] 95 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Most folk'll never eat a skunk, but then again some folk'll

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

You probably think you'll never feel bad for saying that, but one of these nights, staying up late, thinking about the things you said and done, you'll.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Like Cletus, the slack jawed yokel.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Some folk'll never lose a toe, but then again some folk'll...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Whats goin' on over here on this side?

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Here's a Tom Scott video that explains why that doesn't work in English: https://youtu.be/CkZyZFa5qO0?si=TqDXKLcbMF_qfofG

[–] thomas 40 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

As he said, it doesn't work in English ... until enough people does it that it becomes acceptable.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

Any living language. Don't tell France though.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 53 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Because it’s not .333, it’s .333… or 1/3 and it’s not .999, it’s .999…, which is the same as 1 🫠. Primes and fractions are weird.

[–] [email protected] 81 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The fun thing is this is just a consequence of how we write numbers. If you used base 12 1/3 would be 0.4. Obviously 0.4 + 0.4 + 0.4 in base 12 is 1.0, so 3 x 0.4 = 1

What's even more fun is that things like 1/5 or 1/10 are recurring decimals in base 12.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 2 years ago

You know, this explanation makes it make sense to me a lot more than most of the others I've ever gotten.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I don’t get it. Are you saying the knife is clean?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

Yes. The knife is clean if we are cutting exact thirds. As one other user mentioned, base-10 doesn’t allow prime fractions to be conveyed cleanly, so we use repeating decimals to imply that it is a fraction.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Either we live in a world where .333 is correct or we live in a world where knives come out clean when cutting a cake. We can't have both

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

I will take the world with clean knives any day.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

So that's a no on the infinite cake universe?

Lame.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It's a flaw in how we decribe our numbers

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

It's not even really a flaw. Just a property. In some sense we've lost the property of uniqueness of decimal representations of numbers that we had with other sets of numbers like integers. In another sense we gain alternate representations for our numbers that may be preferrable (for example 1=1.000... but also 1=0.999...).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Flaw is a bit harsh. Periodic, infinite decimals happen because the denominator is not a multiple of the prime factors of the base and thus will exist in any base.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Infinity is not a number and even if you would use it as a base, you couldn't represent anything other than infinity in a meaningful way.

Infinity^0 is indeterminate and infinity^x with x>0 is exactly infinity.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 years ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What a strange language we've.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Did you watch tom scott's video on this?Its's really good.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

OK, I've to go now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago

This is actually a beautiful and concrete proof that 0.9... is equal to 1. Beautiful fuckery.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

I hate this

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

That might be a good description of xeno's paradox

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

This goes along well with the fact that everything is cake.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The main piece is what I'm calling all cakes that are not whole from now on

Edit - this got me thinking, once you've cut the first 0.333 piece and then you split the rest of the main piece in 2, who is the next side piece and who continues to hold the title of the main piece?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Main piece is the one that stays on the tray.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Which one is the power bottom?

[–] corsicanguppy 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Spelling, though? Not so much.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

No dude, it's a math joke. MATH.