proofs in 4 unit... (1 Viewer)

Affinity

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You will be proving stuff more for more than 60% of the marks
 

xiao1985

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well, some theorem can be assumed, as long as they are not asking you to prove it... eg dmt
 

Euler

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From what I can remember, you don't actually prove anything as such.

Probably the biggest thing you 'prove' is DeMoivre's theorem. It is easy to prove when n is an integer (induction), but much harder if n is not an integer....first prove it when n is rational, then when n is irrational....then you might run into problems like what irrational means and how to properly define irrational in a useful way (not really useful to say that irrational is not rational, or non-repeating decimal)....I don't think they get you to do this. They just tell you it (DeMoivre's theorem) is true (for any real n).

Some other things to think about:

1. fundamental theorem of calculus (integration is the 'opposite' operation to differentiation)

2. the 'formula' for integration by parts (easy)

3. the derivative of trigonometric functions (go back to first principles here)

4. prove the quadratic formula (easy)

5. show that there are infinitely many primes

6. show that an integer, whose remainder after dividing by 4 is 3, can never be written as a sum of two squares.

7. show that sqrt(2) is irrational (easy)

8. what can you say about a^b where both a and b are both irrational?

9. Formulate a 6-day week with 168 hours and live it out (you get to sleep longer and wake up at weird hours of the day...).

10. When putting on pants/jeans, stop and put the other leg in first.

OK it's starting to get ridiculous.
1 through to 8 are legit questions, though their relevance to your ability to do 4 unit math questions is questionable.

But most things in the 4 unit course, you just accept and plod along doing questions...there are those big questions that tell you to prove the irrationality of e and pi (these are big theorems!), but set it such a way that you are guided through them, making them do-able.....

/end rant.
 

Xayma

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Originally posted by Euler
6. show that an integer, whose remainder after dividing by 4 is 3, can never be written as a sum of two squares.
What about 15? Or am I missing something here.
 

Calculon

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Originally posted by Xayma
What about 15? Or am I missing something here.
15 can't be expressed as the sum of 2 squares
 

Euler

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i hope i'm not missing something....but i don't see how 15 can be written as a sum of two squares....
1+1=2
1+4=5
1+9=10
4+4=8
4+9=13
9+9=18

hatty, i am not a legend....

I just have no life...
 

Xayma

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Sorry.
I was thinking of two primes, stupid lack of concentration. Hmm speaking of that is there a proof of everynumber being the sum of two primes (above 3).
 

Euler

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most primes are odd, 2 being the only even prime. Note that 1 is not considered a prime.

If an odd number were a sum of two primes, one would have to be 2, making the other number 2 less. The 2-less number is not always prime (eg. 11=2+9). This should make you change your conjecture.

On the other hand, looking at even numbers, it could possibly be that every even number bigger than 4 is the sum of two primes. Here is the start of the list:

4=2+2
6=3+3
8=5+3
10=5+5
12=7+5
14=7+7
16=11+5=13+3
18=13+5=7+11
20=3+17=7+13
22=3+19=11+11

The list can, and does, go on. But it doesn't prove anything.

For more information, though, punch into google "Goldbach's Conjecture". It is the name of this open problem.

As far as I know, a counter-example has not been found yet...
 

Xayma

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I knew it was something like that, been a while since I read the book. But on this topic, whats so special about 1729?
 

Euler

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there are two answers:

one answer is that it is the cab number which Hardy took for his visit to Ramanujan....

I'll leave the other (mathematical) one for the quizzer...

Ramanujan was quite a mystery...
 

Xayma

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Ramanujan is quite interesting himself... a bit weird though
 

Euler

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Xayma, was the 1729 a legit question? or were you just quizzing?

Ramanujan became a famous mathematician. This is amazing for someone who had no concept of proof in mathematics, yet conjectured many deep (now) theorems...
 

Xayma

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I was asking it, I knew it had something to do with him but I just found the book again and read it.
 

Euler

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Which book may this be? Is it Hardy's "A Mathematician's Apology"?

for interested parties, 1729 is the smallest positive integer that can be written as a sum of two cubes two different ways, namely
1729 = 1 + 1728 = 1000 + 729.
 

Grey Council

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lol, what a useless piece of trivia. :)

and what did rumanujan actually do? why is he famous?
 

maniacguy

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Many exploits into number theory in particular. Formed huge numbers of conjectures that are still being proved (he was usually right).

There's going to be a talk about that this week at UNSW. See the 'News Items' section on maths.unsw.edu.au
 

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