I’ve never seen anyone use x and 𝑥 for different things
Yeah, me neither. I have had situations where I needed to distinguish between u, v, nu, and upsilon though. I had to be very careful with my handwriting that day…
They also wouldn’t want to be ambiguous. If I was trying to write this problem the a, b, c… would get replaced by something like a_1, a_2,…, a_26 to be clearer. This problem works as a fun gotcha but isn’t something that would come up in the real world.
So your argument is that in the list “a, b, c, …, z” the “…” Bit could be anything and we have no way of knowing what’s there and therefore the problem is unsolvable? Or what are you saying exactly?
Yes. The variables a, b, c, and z must have a stated correlation. Variable names do not implicitly have any relation between them. Ellipses work for numbers because a series of 1, 2, 3 … 100 can be inferred using the rules of mathematics. A series of a, b, c … z cannot; the series can only be inferred using the rules of the English language.
so is the word “simplify”. I guess we’ll never know what they mean by that because if you pretend you don’t speak English, then there’s no way of knowing!
Solution?
0
There’s an (x - x) in there
Technically there is a (x - 𝑥) in there.
U+1D465 != xso this post is a little mehMathematicians do weird stuff to get more letters, but I’ve never seen anyone use x and 𝑥 for different things
Yeah, me neither. I have had situations where I needed to distinguish between u, v, nu, and upsilon though. I had to be very careful with my handwriting that day…
They also wouldn’t want to be ambiguous. If I was trying to write this problem the a, b, c… would get replaced by something like a_1, a_2,…, a_26 to be clearer. This problem works as a fun gotcha but isn’t something that would come up in the real world.
the first variables aren’t roman. they’re italicized as well. idk where you’re getting the x vs x thing.
duh…
Assuming both x represent the same number. There’s no reason to assume the ellipses should include x-x. Why would alphabetic order be involved at all?
have you never taken math? I’m seriously asking because you’re incredibly wrong in both statements.
Because the
...notation effectively means: fill in the blanks. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis#In_mathematical_notation (or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iterated_binary_operation if you want more…)Yes for numbers, which these are not.
So your argument is that in the list “a, b, c, …, z” the “…” Bit could be anything and we have no way of knowing what’s there and therefore the problem is unsolvable? Or what are you saying exactly?
Yes. The variables a, b, c, and z must have a stated correlation. Variable names do not implicitly have any relation between them. Ellipses work for numbers because a series of 1, 2, 3 … 100 can be inferred using the rules of mathematics. A series of a, b, c … z cannot; the series can only be inferred using the rules of the English language.
so is the word “simplify”. I guess we’ll never know what they mean by that because if you pretend you don’t speak English, then there’s no way of knowing!
Right. Well, yeah, I guess your pedantic response is a lot more logical than the intended answer that other people have pointed out. Have a nice day!