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The idea of a discriminant is that it encodes information about the roots of a polynomial and allows us to get at it without actually finding those roots which can be very difficult in the general case. |
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Previously PhilosopherStoned
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The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended. - Frédéric Bastiat
I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves. - Christopher Hitchens
Formerly known as BLUELINE976
I guess it's not for you Give it a shot though if you like math. There's nothing that's really that hard. |
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Previously PhilosopherStoned
I only skimmed the post. Math makes me cringe. That's why I wanna go into Biology instead of Physics |
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The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended. - Frédéric Bastiat
I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves. - Christopher Hitchens
Formerly known as BLUELINE976
I'm gonna reread this tomorrow, I need to sleep. |
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157 is a prime number. The next prime is 163 and the previous prime is 151, which with 157 form a sexy prime triplet. Taking the arithmetic mean of those primes yields 157, thus it is a balanced prime.
Women and rhythm section first - Jaco Pastorious
Funny story. |
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Previously PhilosopherStoned
I think math is really cool too but regarding the original post I dont even know where to start. Math is somewhat easy for me if I know what formulas to utilize but "x2 + (b/a)x + c/a = 0" is totally incomprehensible to me. Would you recommend starting out with an Abstract algebra book like you did or should I just start with basic algebra? |
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Probably not start with abstract algebra. That was hard and I wouldn't recommend it. It was purely an accident and I probably set myself back by doing it that way. Here's what's going on with what you asked about: |
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Last edited by PhilosopherStoned; 03-10-2011 at 09:48 AM.
Previously PhilosopherStoned
That's some cool beans. Have you done any Galois theory? I'm looking forwards to that stuff, it sounds so elegant and powerful from what I've heard. |
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Only a very little. And a while ago. It's pretty but I never found it very useful for anything that I want to do. Honestly, it was over my head at the time. As part of my current project of redoing all my math education from the ground up, I'm going to look at it in depth. |
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Previously PhilosopherStoned
Discriminants are one of the things in mathematics I never quite understood, though probably just because I didn't follow class when we learned about it. |
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Lost count of how many lucid dreams I've had
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Conceptually, they're simple. Just multiply the squared differences of the roots. If there are any repeated roots, the whole thing is zero. Otherwise, It's non-zero. |
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Previously PhilosopherStoned
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