/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.2120660]

What would /sic/ say is the most pointless math subject out there?

For me it's geometry with it's stupid proofs

[Anonymous No.2120665]

>>2120660
>/sic/

wuts that?

[Anonymous No.2120664]

>proofs
>stupid

Retarded physicist detected.

[Anonymous No.2120668]

>>2120664
>implying retarded physicists exist

[Anonymous No.2120670]

problem, 9th grader?

anyways its gotta be "infinity"

[Anonymous No.2120667]

Anything beyond algebra is pseudo intellectual wankery, but I'd say the worst one is topology.

[Anonymous No.2120677]

>>2120665
>what would /sic/ [sic] say

[Anonymous No.2120683]

>>2120660
I think the rote memorization of identities is faggotry of the highest caliber.

[Anonymous No.2120692]

>>2120660
The most pointless math subject? "Math is fun!"

Way to go to appease a bunch of ADHD-ridden teenage girls.

[Anonymous No.2120699]

>>2120683
The identities are easy as shit to memorize.

[Andersmith No.2120705]

I'd have to say seventh grade math.
All the dumb kids take that, whilst the smart ones go to pre-algebra.

[Anonymous No.2120947]

Geometry is the most boring math subject.

[Anonymous No.2120956]

>>2120660
coordinate geometry is pretty pointless

[Anonymous No.2120959]

>>2120660
If I were a student I would answer the same too.

The question didn't state "Calculate the value of x". It stated "Find x".

[Anonymous No.2121045]

>>2120660
Agreed. Algebraic geometry is the worst kind. Those fags think their varieties and schemes are actually useful / interesting.

[Anonymous No.2121072]

chemistry is math
thusly we should pick it

[Krakengineer !!5XY+x7grkpt No.2121086]

Fuzzy subalgebra

[Anonymous No.2121134]

>>2121045

Fuck off Physicist.

U mad you suck at geometry?

[Anonymous No.2121145]

>>2121086

That actually quite useful.

Anyway, I would say quaternions are pretty pointless.

[Anonymous No.2121175]

Topology, fucking boring piece of shit manifolds and intersections and stuff

[Anonymous No.2121183]

>>2121175
>implying that differential manifolds are not the most beautiful concept ever created by mankind's imagination

[Josef !!nUf2NflSAyw No.2121188]

>>2121145 I would say quaternions are pretty pointless.
Never used them, but I have a feeling that it's just an old formalism for something we can do more effectively these days. (Just like purely index-based tensor calculations will be in a few years, hopefully)

On "useless math" - 19th century, lol number theory
20th century - a wild computer appears
It's super effective

[Anonymous No.2121194]

>>2121175

Topology is actually really useful.

[Josef !!nUf2NflSAyw No.2121200]

>>2121183
THIS!
Pic related, got it yesterday
"Gauge field theory - an introduction to differential geometry on fiber bundles"
WOOO

[Anonymous No.2121206]

worthless math?
how about set theory? It's great by itself, but what other field uses it? what applications does it have? seriously.

[Anonymous No.2121216]

>>2121206
A survey is made to determine the number of households having electric appliances in a certain city. It is found that 75% have radios ( R ), 65% have electric irons ( I ), 55% have electric toaster ( T ), 50% have ( IR ), 40% have ( RT ), 30% have ( IT ), and 20% have all three. Find the following proportions:
(i) Of those households that have a toaster, find the proportion that also have a radio.
(ii) Of those households that have a toaster but no iron, find the proportion that have a radio.

Try that without having any knowledge on properties of sets, subsets, unions and intersects. I dare you.

[Anonymous No.2121242]

>>2121206

>worthless math?
>how about set theory? It's great by itself, but what other field uses it? what applications does it have? seriously.

What is "worth"? You have a weird notion of it. Also set theory is becoming increasingly important in all fields, as people try to understand what assumptions are required to make certain undecidable statements decidable.

[Anonymous No.2121243]

ITT

>entroled shiseido
>entroled

[Anonymous No.2121240]

>>2121216
I don't see how that requires set theory. Mind explaining?

[Anonymous No.2121249]

>>2121216
Alright, I'll give you rudementary set theory. (This is a set, boys and girls, It contains elements. These elements can be in more than one set. The union of two sets is a set containing all of the elements of both sets. The intersection of two sets is a set containing only things which are elements of both sets.)
BAM. DONE. Problem solved. Now tell me why I need to take a full class on set theory to solve your problem?

[Anonymous No.2121255]

>>2121200

U a physics fag? As don't know why you would be studying Gauge theory to get a understanding of diff geometry fibre bundles.

[Anonymous No.2121258]

>>2121242
Tell me more. I sincerely want to know. For me, worth is given by application, either in other fields of math or in the "real world." So tell me about this undecidability..... I know about Godel's undecidability theorem. Is there more to it?

[Anonymous No.2121259]

Category Theory

\thread

[Anonymous No.2121263]

>>2121249
> tell me why I need to take a full class on set theory to solve your problem?

You don't understand what set theory is. It encompasses all axiomatic foundations of mathematics.
Many fields of mathematics require alternate foundations. Depending on which set theory you pick, different statements will be true, different statements will be false, different statements will be undecidable.

Set theory is useful because it relativises "true". Things are "true in ZFC" or "false in New Foundations" or "undecidable in Peano Arithmetic" or whatever.

Without set theory, mathematics would be inherently vague.

[Anonymous No.2121265]

If you mean Euclidean geometry, I'll have to agree. It's absolutely pointless and only taught in HS for "propedeutic nature".

Propedeutic my ass, if they used that time to teach something useful like abstract algebra the world would be a better place.

[Anonymous No.2121271]

>>2121263
Hmmmm. What you're describing sounds like the base axioms, upon which all the rest of math is based. I know there are a few different sets, and I haven't studied them (yet). But how is this related to set theory? Is it the same thing? I was under the impression that set theory is dealing with sets, elements of sets, cardinality, countability and so on.

[Anonymous No.2121273]

>>2121265
> If you mean Euclidean geometry, I'll have to agree. It's absolutely pointless and only taught in HS for "propedeutic nature".
> it's absolutely pointless

Bullshit.

[Anonymous No.2121280]

>>2121273
Find me some actual field (other than writing math textbooks for HS, obviously) where you need some knowledge of Euclidean geometry.

[Anonymous No.2121277]

>>2121271
Most modern foundation of maths are "about" sets.
You're right that this is really about axiomatic systems in general, but it's often referred to as "Set Theory" for convenience.

[Anonymous No.2121285]

>>2121280
>some knowledge of Euclidean geometry.

Does all of continuous mathematics count as a field?

[Anonymous No.2121289]

>>2121277
Got it. So "Set Theory" isn't really about the properties of abstract sets, but rather the rules you can play with sets by. I.E. Natural numbers -> Integers -> Rational numbers -> Algebreic numbers -> Complex Numbers. With Reals thrown in somewhere, and then abstract metric spaces just for fun?
All that stuff is Set theory?
Yes, that's good, useful, worthful stuff.
What I was trying to say is worthless is complements and connectedness and compactness etc. All of that is very esoteric.

[Anonymous No.2121293]

>>2121285
Are you a fucking retard? Euclidean geometry has nothing to do with metric spaces. They are exactly what I said it should be replaced with.

Euclidean geometry is the kind of retarded axiomatic approach the Greeks used two thousand years ago to prove shit.

[Anonymous No.2121296]

>>2121289
>connectedness and compactness

Sorry, you seem like a nice guy, but you're extremely misguided.

First, connectedness and compactness are topological properties, they're not to do with set theory.

Secondly, topology is basically THE big unifying idea of all of mathematics at the moment.
It provides the general concept of "shape" or "transformation" that can be generalised from just about anything that is geometric in nature.

Thirdly, mathematics doesn't really divide into "worthwhile" and "worthless" categories. It's more like a giant web structure, with all of it being necessary in order to expand it at the edges.

Category theory, among other things, provides a way to transform concepts and problems from one part of the web to another, where they may be more easily solved.

[Anonymous No.2121304]

>>2121296
Wait, are you an actual mathematician?
What on earth are you doing here?

[Anonymous No.2121311]

>>2121296
Ok. I'll concede. I don't fully know what I'm talking about. I haven't done anything specific enough to differentiate the fields of math. I'm fairly sure I can differentiate number theory, but the rest is still just abstractly "Math."

OP was asking what field was worthless, and I gave an answer. I understand math is very interconnected. So yeah, it all matters. I was just stipulating that working with abstract sets seems fairly inconsequential to almost everything else.

[Anonymous No.2121320]

>>2121311
No no, it's all good. You don't really begin to see it all come together until later.

The thing about maths is that you have to let it grow naturally. Like pond-scum. Then when physics or whatever needs some maths, they can probably find it somewhere in the pond.

You can't really go looking for "useful" maths on purpose. It's hard to know what will turn out to be useful.

[Nomos !ZdR0n67JCE No.2121365]

OP confirmed for a raging faggot.

[Nomos !ZdR0n67JCE No.2121371]

>>2120683

This. From my recollection, precalculus is taught entirely wrong in high school. Identities shouldn't be memorized. Instead, the students should actively engage in deriving those identities and analyzing the geometry behind those identities.

Ask the average high school student what a trigonometric function actually means if you want to experience rage of the highest caliber.

[Josef !!nUf2NflSAyw No.2121378]

>>2121255 U a physics fag? As don't know why you would be studying Gauge theory to get a understanding of diff geometry fibre bundles.
Yes, but it's a math book (and by math I mean math). "Gauge field theory" appears twice in the book: on the cover and in the introduction. There, you're told that there won't be a third "gauge field theory" in the book, but connections in principal bundles.

[Anonymous No.2121411]

ITT: children

Also, circles.