Math problem (wow i should of paid more attention in school)

[Paul1965]

Hi Jason,long time no see. Snakes don't faze me, nor sharks or anything else really, just spiders. Had a bad experience with one in Oz when I was a kid, scarred for life, really.
Part of my work on tuna and cray boats was to take a dip if needed for hull inspection fouled prop etc. with sharks including whites and tigers hanging around after the blood draining off deck. Have kept pet snakes in oz. Have a lot of snakes here in the wilds of Thailand too, including Cobras, pit vipers and kraits. Don't usually worry about them, push em out of the way with a broom and try not to kill them.(never seen a king cobra though..that might be a bit different.
But our local tarantulas? nope super powered laxative and performance enhancing drug as far as I'm concerned. Pants likely to change colour and I can cover 100 meters in under 10 sec..

 

[jasoncran]

tarantulas.lol. those roll quite well after their pray. I have seen them in texas. that thar el paso

 

[TOG]

Why do English speakers replace HAVE with OF anyway? Or THERE/THEY'RE with THEIR? Because it's shorter? But then some also replace OUR with ARE, and that's not shorter, it doesn't even sound alike. Kind of makes things harder for foreigners, too.

It's because they sound the same, at least in some dialects. Many people don't pronounce "should have" as two separate words, but as one, which sounds like "shouldof". "Our" and "are" sound pretty much the same when spoken with some accents and "there", "they're" and "their" sound pretty much the same no matter what accent you have. It's also common to see people mix up "to", "too" and "two", which all sound the same (the first two being the most commonly confused). Another one is "affect" and "effect", both of which are often pronounced alike. I could probably show similar cases in German, if I actually knew any more of the language than "Ich kann nicht Deutsch sprechen".

The TOG​

 

[Claudya]

My weapon of choice would have to be a barrett m107 or similar long distance arm, because there's no way on God's green (and blue) earth i'd be getting that close to said eight legged hairy thing.

No need to get close to them. The eight legged hairy "things" will get close to you.

BTW Claudya when I returned, i was dismayed to see you still have the spider in your signature...darn thing gives me the heebs every time I see it.

Yeah I was thinking about a new signature a few times, but then I decided to leave the spider where it is, hoping you would return some day.

 

[Claudya]

It's because they sound the same, at least in some dialects. Many people don't pronounce "should have" as two separate words, but as one, which sounds like "shouldof". "Our" and "are" sound pretty much the same when spoken with some accents and "there", "they're" and "their" sound pretty much the same no matter what accent you have. It's also common to see people mix up "to", "too" and "two", which all sound the same (the first two being the most commonly confused). Another one is "affect" and "effect", both of which are often pronounced alike. I could probably show similar cases in German, if I actually knew any more of the language than "Ich kann nicht Deutsch sprechen".

The TOG​

I guess the most common mix-up in German are "das" and "dass". Although oftentime it's not mixed up for dialect reasons, but because people really can't tell the difference (they, too, didn't pay attention in school).
But it's really easy: das is an article or demonstrative/ relative pronoun, while dass is a subordinate clause conjunction. Their meaning and function in a sentence are completely different. But although I can always tell what kind of das/s has to be used sometimes when typing or writing fast I don't pay attention to particle words and end up using the wrong one.
Many spelling or grammar mistakes I make are actually typos or mistakes due to trying to be fast.

Btw, your one German sentence got my mind caught up wondering whether "Deutsch" has to be capitalised in that sentence. Unlike English the German language doesn't automatically capitalise language/nationality words. Usually they are treated as adjectives and thus spelled in lower case. Only when they are nouns (like "Deutsch" as a word for the entire language system = noun) there would be a capital letter.
Can't decide whether it's a noun or an adjective or adverb (in the latter case it wouldn't be capitalised). Ugh... why do I not know that?

 

[farouk]

Hi Jason,long time no see. Snakes don't faze me, nor sharks or anything else really, just spiders. Had a bad experience with one in Oz when I was a kid, scarred for life, really.
Part of my work on tuna and cray boats was to take a dip if needed for hull inspection fouled prop etc. with sharks including whites and tigers hanging around after the blood draining off deck. Have kept pet snakes in oz. Have a lot of snakes here in the wilds of Thailand too, including Cobras, pit vipers and kraits. Don't usually worry about them, push em out of the way with a broom and try not to kill them.(never seen a king cobra though..that might be a bit different.
But our local tarantulas? nope super powered laxative and performance enhancing drug as far as I'm concerned. Pants likely to change colour and I can cover 100 meters in under 10 sec..

Paul1965:

Maybe in some ways there are similarities between the fauna of the Outback and Thailand?

Blessings.

 

[jasoncran]

No need to get close to them. The eight legged hairy "things" will get close to you.

brake kleen does wonders.

Yeah I was thinking about a new signature a few times, but then I decided to leave the spider where it is, hoping you would return some day.

 

[TOG]

To get back on topic, I would use math to kill the spider. How, you ask? Simple... I present the following problem to the spider:

There is a group of spiders, ants, dogs and humans. Three of those groups have 1 individual each that is missing one leg. The total number of legs is 3201 and the total of individuals spiders, ants, dogs and humans is 548. How many are there of each?

Considering that it has a brain the size of a pin prick, the spider would quickly go insane trying to figure this out and kill itself, saving me the trouble.

The TOG​

 

[agua.]

To get back on topic, I would use math to kill the spider. How, you ask? Simple... I present the following problem to the spider:

There is a group of spiders, ants, dogs and humans. Three of those groups have 1 individual each that is missing one leg. The total number of legs is 3201 and the total of individuals spiders, ants, dogs and humans is 548. How many are there of each?

Considering that it has a brain the size of a pin prick, the spider would quickly go insane trying to figure this out and kill itself, saving me the trouble.

The TOG​

Oi TOG have you got the worked solution for this I spent a couple of hours trying to solve simultaneous equations but got nowhere.

 

[TOG]

Oi TOG have you got the worked solution for this I spent a couple of hours trying to solve simultaneous equations but got nowhere.

To tell the truth, I'm not sure there's enough information to calculate it. I just selected a number of each type and calculated the number of legs. Let me think about it a while and I'll let you know what I figure out.

The TOG​

 

[agua.]

To tell the truth, I'm not sure there's enough information to calculate it. I just selected a number of each type and calculated the number of legs. Let me think about it a while and I'll let you know what I figure out.

The TOG​

I hope there is enough information else you owe me 2 hours !

 

[Claudya]

To get back on topic, I would use math to kill the spider. How, you ask? Simple... I present the following problem to the spider:

There is a group of spiders, ants, dogs and humans. Three of those groups have 1 individual each that is missing one leg. The total number of legs is 3201 and the total of individuals spiders, ants, dogs and humans is 548. How many are there of each?

Considering that it has a brain the size of a pin prick, the spider would quickly go insane trying to figure this out and kill itself, saving me the trouble.

The TOG​

My signature spider is smart enough to immediately see that your equation system is underdetermined.

 

[agua.]

My signature spider is smart enough to immediately see that your equation system is underdetermined.

Nerts a signature spider is smarter than me

 

[Deborah13]

Math is fun. I once saw the picture on the right below hanging on the wall in a school where I used to work. The text said that it was proof of the Pythagorean theorem, but it didn't explain how the picture proved the theorem.

Not content with just knowing that this picture proved the Pythagorean theorem, I went home that evening, got a pencil and paper, drew the picture and spent all evening figuring out why it proves it.

The TOG​

Thanks TOG, my grandson got to pick a prize at school day for passing a certain number of minute quizzes. Just as he was telling me about it I pulled up this post of yours. We had a wonderful time. His first introduction to this theorem or any theorem, he's in third grade. He learned about squaring, cubing, right triangles, etc. We took a piece of paper and drew a square on it and folded in the triangles, etc.
He had fun and learned.

 

[tim-from-pa]

Yeah... But... That's not math... There are no numbers in it. It's no fun if there are no numbers in it (or letters, in this case). Of course, your explanation has a bunch of letters in it, but they're not variables. Here's how I did it.

Each side of the big square is divided into one small section and one large section. Label all the short sections A and all the long sections B and all the diagonal lines (the sides of the smaller square) C. The area of the big square is then (A + B) * (A + B), or A² + B² + 2AB. The area of the smaller square is C². The area of each triangle is AB/2. Using some convoluted math that I can't possibly remember this late in the evening, I managed to put those formulas together and get A² + B² = C².

The TOG​

I'm not sure what you mean by convoluted math. The way you did it is exactly how the theorem is proven. The area of the large square is (A+B)² The smaller is C². So the area of the big square minus the triangles one is left with C². The area of the big square minus the triangles is also equal to A² + B², thus proving the theorem.

 

[TOG]

I'm not sure what you mean by convoluted math. The way you did it is exactly how the theorem is proven. The area of the large square is (A+B)² The smaller is C². So the area of the big square minus the triangles one is left with C². The area of the big square minus the triangles is also equal to A² + B², thus proving the theorem.

"Convoluted math" in this case means a bunch of formulas that took up the better part of two whole sheets of paper and which would have been totally incomprehensible to anybody who saw it.

The TOG​

 

[tim-from-pa]

"Convoluted math" in this case means a bunch of formulas that took up the better part of two whole sheets of paper and which would have been totally incomprehensible to anybody who saw it.

The TOG​

Here's the mathematical expression signifying the large square minus the 4 triangles (in the right figure with the tilted square) equalling the smaller square:

• (A+B)²-4(½AB)=C² (big square minus the 4 triangles; each triangle area of ½AB)
  
• (A+B)²-2AB=C² (simplify the triangle term, then expand what in the parenthesis to)
• A²+2AB+B²-2AB=C² (then cancel the 2AB's)
  
• A²+B²=C²

Not really two sheets of paper. More likely it took you two sheets to see what I explained in 3 lines and probably more like going into circles to get back again.

 

[TOG]

No, it doesn't take two sheets of paper when you know what you're doing, but I had no idea where to start. I ran into a few dead ends and had to start over a few times, because I did something wrong.

The TOG​

 

[tim-from-pa]

Let me also add another thought. I was working with the right figure with the tilted triangle. If the short segments on the sides of the big square are labeled A and the larger ones B and the diagonals (that make the sides of the smaller square C, it can be shown by geometry that dividing each side of a large square that way will result in an inscribed square when the points are connected.

The figure to the left is a geometric interpretation of the mathematical formula I simplified. It can be deduced that if we rearrange the triangles to fit like the figure in the left, like a puzzle, that the two square areas inside equal the tilted square (C²) to the right since the leftover of the two is the same as the large square minus the 4 triangles. Hence, the left figure gives us an intuitive and geometric proof that A²+B²=C², where A²+B² are the areas of those two squares.

 

[agua.]

To tell the truth, I'm not sure there's enough information to calculate it. I just selected a number of each type and calculated the number of legs. Let me think about it a while and I'll let you know what I figure out.

The TOG​

Sparrow came up with a solution and suggested there will be many.