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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • You’re literally arguing nothing right now. THEY took the position we should have brackets defining the order in every single equation or otherwise have them as undefined TODAY. It doesn’t matter when they were invented. Obviously it’s never been written like that. They are the one arguing it SHOULD BE. I said that would be stupid vs following the left to right convention already established. You’re getting caught up in the semantics of the wording.

    What you inferred: they’re saying brackets were always around and we chose left to right to avoid bracket mess.

    What I was actually saying: we chose and continue to choose to keep using the left to right convention over brackets everywhere because it would be unnecessary and make things more cluttered.

    And yes, that IS a position mathematicians COULD have chosen once brackets WERE invented. They could have decided we should use them in every equation for absolute clarity of order. Saying we should not do that based on tradition alone is a bad reason.

    The “always been the case” argument could justify any legacy system. We don’t still use Roman numerals for arithmetic just because they were traditional. Things DO change.

    Ancient Greeks and Romans strongly resisted zero as a concept, viewing it as philosophically problematic. Negative numbers were even more controversial with many mathematicians into the Renaissance calling them “fictitious” or “absurd numbers.” It took centuries for these to become accepted as legitimate mathematical objects.

    Before Robert Recorde introduced “=” in 1557, mathematicians wrote out “is equal to” in words. Even after its introduction, many resisted it for decades, preferring verbal descriptions or other symbols.

    I could go on but if you’re going to argue why something shouldn’t be the case, you should argue more than “it’s tradition” or “we’ve done fine without it so far”. Because they did fine with many things in mathematics until they decided they needed to change or expand it.




  • What an absolute joke.

    I can just imagine him writing it, hunched over, peck-hunting for the keys. He starts typing bombs. No, he thinks. Slowly backspaces. Starts giggling to himself as he presses the caps lock key. “This will show them how serious I am about my bombs!”

    peck peck peck “B-O-M-B-S”

    Probably sits back in his chair admiring it for a moment. “Perfect. Very strong. Very powerful bombs.”

    Then immediately starts typing about peace in the same shouty caps because why not? Everything deserves caps lock! BOMBS! PEACE! WHATEVER!

    Then ends it with “Thank you for your attention to this matter” like he just sent out a memo about updating the office dress code instead of announcing he bombed another country.

    It’s such a weirdly formal, corporate sign-off after the most unhinged announcement possible. As if bombing other countries is just another agenda item he’s keeping us informed about. Very considerate of him to loop us in on World War III via Twitter memo.

    Absolutely deranged.