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Problem #4: Seems legit


Silly Druid

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@Thankful Brony 42 That's true, if you take one square root of -1 as +i and one as -i, then you get 1 in the end.

This can be interpreted in multiple ways though, even the first step is questionable: while we usually only take the positive value of a square root into account, technically both 1 and -1 squared give 1, so the square root of 1 should be ±1.

Dividing the square root of a product of two negative numbers into a product of their square roots can also cause this kind of problems.

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  • 2 months later...
On 2023-11-21 at 4:15 AM, Brony Number 42 said:

The error is in taking the positive square root. sqrt(-1) = +/- i

I'd rather say that the error is in the silly notation that confuses the operation with its operands. But even the great Leonhard Euler fell into this trap, which shows that even the greatest minds can err if the notation they use is deceiving. The actual error is right there in the middle, because this is an identity only for real numbers.

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It is like saying

sin(0) = 0 = sin(pi)

arcsin( sin(0) ) = 0 = arcsin( sin(pi) ) = pi

0 = pi

You have period functions. If f(x) maps to A, and f(y) maps to A, it does not mean that x = y. When you take roots of numbers you should write them in polar notation

R = r exp( t i)

then R^(n) = r^(n) exp( t i / n) and there are multiple roots. Basically you dive the unit circle into 1 / n pieces. It's really interesting.


This is my new signature.

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On 2023-11-21 at 11:45 AM, Silly Druid said:

@Thankful Brony 42 That's true, if you take one square root of -1 as +i and one as -i, then you get 1 in the end.

This can be interpreted in multiple ways though, even the first step is questionable: while we usually only take the positive value of a square root into account, technically both 1 and -1 squared give 1, so the square root of 1 should be ±1.

Dividing the square root of a product of two negative numbers into a product of their square roots can also cause this kind of problems.

Wow. I never even thought about whether i would be negative or positive because it's an imaginary number I assumed that it wasn't positive or negative :blink:

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