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#1 2006-10-21 14:42:12
- John E. Franklin
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- Registered: 2005-08-29
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Who was the first mathematician to...
Who was the first mathematician to use powers that were positive fractions or positive decimals??
Such as 27^(1/3)
Anyone know who? I don't. A link?
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#2 2006-10-21 16:09:09
- Ricky
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Re: Who was the first mathematician to...
I'm not entirely sure you'll find an answer to this. Square roots were used by greeks and probably people before them. They are as fundamental as finding the distance between two points.
"In the real world, this would be a problem. But in mathematics, we can just define a place where this problem doesn't exist. So we'll go ahead and do that now..."
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#3 2006-10-21 18:34:01
- luca-deltodesco
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Re: Who was the first mathematician to...
I'm not entirely sure you'll find an answer to this. Square roots were used by greeks and probably people before them. They are as fundamental as finding the distance between two points.
but did they represent them as powers, or just using the square root sign?
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The End Of All Things To Come.
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#4 2006-10-22 04:38:34
- Ricky
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Re: Who was the first mathematician to...
What's the difference? Don't they all mean the same thing?
"In the real world, this would be a problem. But in mathematics, we can just define a place where this problem doesn't exist. So we'll go ahead and do that now..."
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#5 2006-10-22 11:00:42
- mathsyperson
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Re: Who was the first mathematician to...
But it's a different form of notation. Roman numerals mean the same thing as numbers, but they're clearly not the same.
Why did the vector cross the road?
It wanted to be normal.
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#6 2006-10-22 11:52:01
- Ricky
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Re: Who was the first mathematician to...
I don't know, I would say they are. It's like saying caliente is different than hot.
"In the real world, this would be a problem. But in mathematics, we can just define a place where this problem doesn't exist. So we'll go ahead and do that now..."
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#7 2006-10-22 13:12:48
- animemaths
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- Registered: 2006-10-22
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Re: Who was the first mathematician to...
I'm sure it would say on google.
~Maths is full of challenges & Anime is full of memories~
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#8 2006-10-22 19:59:18
- luca-deltodesco
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Re: Who was the first mathematician to...
ricky, yes they mean the same thing,
but im pretty sure that in the past, only natural powers were known of, then they discovered how negative integer powers would work. and well before any formal notation, they would already know of square roots cube roots, and then later on they discovered that fractional powers would be for roots etc. then they discovered how to find any power.
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