Mathematics poll

[ciphergoth]

Inspired by a similar poll in palmer1984's journal.

About the "proof" question below: examples of the kind of proof I mean would be a proof that there are infinitely many primes, or that the square root of two is irrational, or of Pythagoras's Theorem. A proof in computer science counts too. By "know a proof off by heart" I mean that you'd be able to convince someone of it at a party, if they had the background to follow the proof.

If you know lots of proofs, feel free to choose one you particularly like in the last question...

[Poll #1351621]

Comments

plums and maths, a mini saga

[plumsbitch.livejournal.com]

artremis had to explain to me that 'a proof' was a specific mathematical usage, so er, no, I don't know any. ;-)

The 'have you ever' qu, I ticked other because:

-In primary school I loved what was taught as maths (coz as artremis usefully pointed out, what 'maths' is changes hugely depending on level/style of education) *and* was in a class of three people who had extra maths lessons because we whizzed through everything too quickly.

Somewhere by my teens however, I grew an utter fear of/boredom with 'maths' (whatever it had come to represent by then) and thought (erroneously - I wasn't brilliant, but certainly wasn't awful) that I was utterly and completely useless at it/it exemplified Me Being Stupid and/or Failing. (partly this might be to do with going to same school as sister who was mathsy and sporty(maths/further maths/maths degree), and being expected to be same)

Recently, a friend who is a maths academic has explained various mathsy things in ways which I have
a)understood to some degree, this as asssessed by him in our discussions and
b)found very interesting.

So maths and me have an interesting history.