this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
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Science Memes

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[–] dynamoMaus@feddit.org 34 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You just spoke the "|" in "|X| = 3" silent.

[–] Ziglin@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That additionally would imply an uncountably infinite set of complex solutions.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 4 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Why assume the solution is in the complex numbers, and not in

  • the real numbers (2 solutions)
  • the algebraic numbers (countably many)
  • the natural numbers (1 solution)
  • the complex surreal numbers (proper-class many)

Gotta use some context to interpret these things :)

[–] Ziglin@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Well it's not physics. Show 'em what happens when you don't specify those kinds of things.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 1 points 17 hours ago

I don't think teachers need to specify that answers should be in the largest class of numbers students have been introduced to so far at school :)

If students are smart and motivated enough to learn about other stuff outside of school, they're smart enough to interpret the question.