Active Now

Randy D
Discussion » Questions » Math » What would math be like with no numbers? Wouldn't it make for a confusing world?
[W]e[y]lon Musk

What would math be like with no numbers? Wouldn't it make for a confusing world?

Posted - January 12, 2018
Tags : None

Responses


  • 1812
    But what if there were no Romans Either?
      December 16, 2018 11:12 PM MST
    1

  • 5354
    We do tha alredy, when writing hexadecimal numbers: #a4 == 164
      December 20, 2018 8:18 AM MST
    0

  • 6023
    you still got a 4 in there.   LOL
      December 20, 2018 8:28 AM MST
    0

  • 14795
    In times it would subtract from the right answer and people are devided as to how it could work .....but on the plus side ,things just wouldn't add up I think .....but there again ,people know I can't.....:(D 
      December 3, 2018 4:44 PM MST
    5

  • 5354
    it is OK as long as you dont add down.
      December 20, 2018 8:21 AM MST
    1

  • 14795
    Strangely ....numbers get me Down, which is bad news for the Eider ducks and Gooses.  :(  
      December 20, 2018 11:43 AM MST
    1

  • 2219
    Maths is better without numbers which detract from the theoretical aspects. 
      December 20, 2018 1:03 PM MST
    1

  • 46117
    NICE~!
      December 20, 2018 1:20 PM MST
    0

  • 3719


    Well, if we had no numbers, how could we solve equations like this? (Some spaces added, and the two differential operators in [], to clarify the text.)

    I hope having written it in Word without being able to make the Word Equation Editor work, then copying it to here, that this text-message system won't mangle it when I post it!

     ʃdxdydz UδV + ʃdσ U [dV/dώ] - 4πU’’’ = ʃdxdydz VδU + ʃdσ V [dV/dώ] - 4πV’ .... (3')


    I have no idea what this equation tells us, and could never have learnt mathematics to the level needed to solve it! It is rather elegant aesthetically, though a mathematician would say it is "elegant" technically.

    - It is attributed to (discovered by)? the British mathematician George Green (1793 - 1841). I found it quoted as decoration on a mug I saved from clearing out my section's "tea-boat" room at work; the mug also carying a drawing of the wind-mill that refers to Green being from a family of millers in the Nottinghamshire village of Snienton.

    Hazarding a guess at what it is about.... 

    It is Calculus. That's a start. It refers the leading Integrals to (x, y, z) Differences, suggesting three dimensions. I don't know the significance of U but V is often short for Volume. The 4pi terms make me think of Solids of Revolution. The apostrophes and the suffix (3') shows it is only one of a set of equations or identities within the particular study...

    So I hazard a guess that it is on the relationships between mathematically-regular, compound-curved, surfaces and the volumes they enclose.


    It only really comes alive when you plug actual values into it, when presumably if the LHS ends up =, say, 42 then the RHS will also = 42! 

    So there you are, if we had no numbers. Geo. Green's equation could not exist, let alone do anything! Though we'd not be able to talk about it like this, either.....

     

                           

    This post was edited by Durdle at December 26, 2018 5:21 PM MST
      December 26, 2018 5:20 PM MST
    0