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MidnightRealism
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Postby MidnightRealism » Wed Oct 22, 2003 5:33 pm

<!--QuoteBegin-LotharBot+Oct 22 2003, 01:40 AM--> <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'><b>Quote:</b> (LotharBot @ Oct 22 2003, 01:40 AM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> It's much better for the students when the graders have food (read: are happy) than when they're hungry (read: not happy, and likely to take it out on whoever messed up their delta-epsilon argument.)<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table> <!--QuoteEEnd--><br>Wow. I never really thought to offer sacrifices in order to appease the gods. I'll have to take that up at some point.<br><br>Also, that delta-epsilon thingy is a MESS, yes. I loved how my professor put it: "Yeah, there's really no practical application for this. Just try to use it to pass the test." That sort of sentiment is always reassuring <!--emo&<_<--><img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... ns/dry.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='dry.gif' /><!--endemo--> ...at least now I won't have to deal with it again until finals <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... /blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> ...

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norsenerd
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Postby norsenerd » Wed Oct 22, 2003 5:47 pm

<!--QuoteBegin--> <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'><b>Quote:</b> </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> I loved how my professor put it: "Yeah, there's really no practical application for this. Just try to use it to pass the test."<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table> <!--QuoteEEnd--><br><br>WHAT THE FUNGUS????<br><br>How the horn are you supposed to define AND use limits then??? "There's really no practical application for this" Bug sauce!!!!<br><br>Definitions that use small epsilons and deltas and/or large M's and N's are everywhere in mathematics. It's a rigorous way of saying arbitrary small or arbitrary large. Without this then just about all of math done in the past 300 years has no meaning. Math certainly has practical applications. If you disagree you need to be smacked in the head with a newspaper.<br><br>Limits are the basic concepts in Analysis (calculus) which is one of the three large areas of mathematics. Rigor being important (so you know you actually are right) justifies the epsilon delta definition.
Llewellyn for President 2008 <br><br><img><br><img>

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Postby LotharBot » Thu Oct 23, 2003 4:34 am

Is your professor an engineer, or are you in and engineering program? That would certainly explain it.<br><br>Deltas and Epsilons don't have any direct practical application to most engineering problems (though they do apply to some -- you should see the sorts of things you can do with network theory!) Their application is mostly in the fact that they actually like, prove the math you're doing is actually sensible and not complete and utter poo.<br><br>They also come in to play, as norsenerd mentioned, in analysis -- which is one of the major sections of math, and which is useful for all sorts of things.


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