Use it or Lose it

[Jaepheth]

I've forgotten more math than I ever thought I'd know.

Anyone else feel the same?

To illustrate this point, imagine the following.

Someone has a gun to your head and places before you a 3x3 matrix of integer values.

They say, "Find the eigenvalue in the next 10 hours or die."

How do you fare?

 

[ElFenix]

Find the eigenvalue

do what

 

[Phanuel]

If they have the gun to your head, they don't know how to hold someone hostage. Their reflexes will be too slow to pull the trigger before you can move the gun.

 

[Aharami]

yep...i'd be dead

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'm actually taking remedial math classes this summer so I can get a second bachelor's degree. So... yeah. Ouch.

 

[alzan]

If a gunman picked me to answer that question he's dumber than I am.

 

[Jeff7]

I have heard of eigenvalues.


I think I used them in my Partial and Ordinary Differential Equations course.

5 years ago.

My survival depends on the resources I may have at my disposal. There's a university in town, so if I could use that, I might be ok. Or the professors there might just assign me 30 hours of homework so I could solve it myself from beyond the grave.



I'm working on a chain drive setup right now.
I remember working on those things in college as well. 7 years ago.
As for the specifics.....nope.
There was torque, speed, chain length, and other important things that make it go. But I do at least remember which book was used during the class. (Yes, I kept most of my textbooks.)

If they invent a way of adding a significant amount of auxiliary long-term losslessly-compressed storage to our brains, I will be close to the front of the line. Cyborg me up already.

 

[Rakehellion]

I'd grab the gun from his hand and then snap his wrist in five places and say "I just divided YOU!" and then slowly walk out of the room.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'd grab the gun from his hand and then snap his wrist in five places and say "I just divided YOU!" and then slowly walk out of the room.

You only walk slowly away from explosion. Otherwise you have to be running. Or driving a motorcycle.

 

[DrPizza]

I've forgotten more math than I ever thought I'd know.

Anyone else feel the same?

To illustrate this point, imagine the following.

Someone has a gun to your head and places before you a 3x3 matrix of integer values.

They say, "Find the eigenvalue in the next 10 hours or die."

How do you fare?

Only one eigenvalue?

 

[pontifex]

do what

this

 

[Jaepheth]

Only one eigenvalue?

Thank you for underlining my point.

I had it in my head that they were unique.

 

[PingviN]

I don't think gun-to-random-persons-head is the best way to get an answer to an advanced mathematical question.

 

[Ruptga]

Do I get to use the internet during the ten hours? If so I'd probably be fine, otherwise no chance since I was never taught anything about eigenvalues. I think I ran across the term a few times while browsing wikipedia, though.

 

[Spungo]

Bah, math is for silly people and professional computer programmers. Amateurs like me can brute force our way through everything with Perl.

 

[SKORPI0]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenvalues_and_eigenvectors

http://www.wolframalpha.com/widgets/view.jsp?id=9aa01caf50c9307e9dabe159c9068c41

I'd be dead for sure.... ^_^

 

[JEDIYoda]

What tribe of Eigen? Navaho.....Cherokee.....

 

[Udgnim]

I've forgotten more math than I ever thought I'd know.

Anyone else feel the same?

To illustrate this point, imagine the following.

Someone has a gun to your head and places before you a 3x3 matrix of integer values.

They say, "Find the eigenvalue in the next 10 hours or die."

How do you fare?

do I get Internet access?

 

[twinrider1]

B.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Unless I can use Google, I'd be dead. I don't even know what that question wants from me. (like a lot of math questions )

I do recall something called Matrices (it was spelled that way, but basically a matrix of numbers). It has zero real world purpose though and was completely pointless, but I was somewhat ok at it. Is it that? I'd still have to google on how to do it though, that test was a long time ago, I had zero reason to retain that knowledge past the test.

 

[Midwayman]

Considering this is math I never covered.... dead.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

To be fair, I haven't learned this yet. I doubt this is 10th grade level.

 

[lxskllr]

I didn't take any math in school aside from basics. Most of the professional math I use has been done with software for so long, I'd need to read a book to remember how to do it by hand.

 

[Kaido]

Depends. My job as an IT flunkie pretty much involves rebooting computers & googling for answers. There's just no way you can store all of the data you need since you have to deal with a different virus every day, so it's more about learning how to learn, being confident in your ability to find a solution even if it takes awhile, etc.

 

[_Rick_]

Don't you basically just have to calculate the determinant?

I'd have to briefly look up how the signs are ordered for a 3x3 determinant, and then check that that's what I actually need. But assuming I have my linear algebra books or some other reference handy, I should be done in around 5-10 minutes, unless the integer values exceed what my calculator can deal with.