The Problem

11 Responses to “The Problem”

1. Mary Pat on March 26th, 2007 8:13 am

   I was going to asked why 21n^2n wasn’t simplified to 21n^3, but I now realize that 1 was an l. (and then I flashed back to the freshman calculus class I taught where someone simplified (sin x)/x = sin.)

   It’s stuff like that that made me always do a cursive l when I did math. And put a line through my zs.

2. The Freelance Cynic on March 26th, 2007 9:13 am

   Wow. wouldn’t conversation be amazing if it was like that.

   ‘I say Roger, the Sum total of 1 over 1 to the minus n multiplied by 1 to the minus n’ is equal to just 1 don’t you know?’

   ‘Why no! How very intersting. How very interesting squared infact…’

3. Anonymous on March 26th, 2007 11:52 am

   Mary Pat - that was way to much information! But can you tell me the square root of a right triangle times the widith of a 3 year old Oak Tree in a Moutain Range 3 Million Years old, time the radius of a quadrilateral’s 5th dimention, plus all of space and time divided by X?

4. chikzrkul on March 26th, 2007 12:38 pm

   If math is a foreign language, then I’m using the tourist dictionary. I do good just to use the basic functions of the whole mess. I’m still trying to figure out how I passed high school algebra with a B…I don’t remember getting grades that high!

5. Anonymous on March 26th, 2007 4:23 pm

   The answer is 42.

6. Robert Johnson on March 26th, 2007 4:58 pm

   What Mary said. I used to write the “ln” in cursive to indicate natural log to keep things clear. Anyway, I don’t remember that equation at MIT. We didn’t advance into chicken math.

7. Anonymous on March 26th, 2007 5:19 pm

   Something’s wrong with the look on that chicken’s face…

   She’s hallucinating!

8. Anonymous on March 26th, 2007 6:47 pm

   Shouldn’t there be an m on the right hand of the equation or did I miss it in the chicken scratch writing of the equation?

9. Ada on March 26th, 2007 9:34 pm

   Anon 11:47 - no there shouldn’t. This is a series, meaning you substitute a number where you see an m on the lefthand side of the equation, starting at m=3 and going to m=(n/2). You add up each substitution. Thus, on the righthand side (the sum of the series) there shouldn’t be any m’s, just n’s.

   Thanks for a nerdy comic Doug!

10. Ben Therdunthat on March 27th, 2007 2:22 am

    regarding the similarity of conversation and unsolvable equations:

    guy: “I’m fine”
    translation: “I’m fine”

    girl: “I’m fine”
    translation: “I’ll get you for this you bastard…”

11. Anonymous on April 12th, 2007 6:56 pm

    ugh! we’re doing that right now in calculus! curse you calculus! you follow me everywhere!!!

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