Last night, one of my student workers and I were talking. He is a psychology major interested in clinical practice. I graduated in English and religion. So, of course, we were talking about mathematics. Rob says to me, "Sometimes I try and figure out formulas in my head. Most of the time with squares."
Now, I suck at mental math. But I wrote down what he said and worked it into a formulaic expression. So, let me know if Rob is a genius or if he just stumbled on an obvious pattern that should have been obvious if math were our field.
x2 = ( x + y ) + y2, where y = x - 1
We did some random trials of 1 through 20. It seemed to hold true.
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This is the essence of academia. Exploration beyond your specialty. Lots of professors forget that. Like PBS says, you never stop learning.
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5 comments:
simplifying the expression:
x^2-x=y^2+y
x(x-1)=y(y+1)
substituting in your solution
x(x-1)?=? (x-1)(x-1+1)
simplifying
x(x-1)?=?(x-1)(x)
by the commutative property, this is true for all x.
luv ya!
Wow sister, at first it looked like your computer just threw up exes on the internet and you used the word 'simplify' out of high irony. Then I remembered my 9th grade algebra skeelz.
It's good to have a doctor in the house.
Er...this is why I was a theater major. I don't understand any of what you just wrote.
But I can cry on cue! Um...yes.
Lucky! I just look dopey-eyed and slightly constipated.
LOL that's exactly how I look when I try to do simple math!
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