this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
421 points (95.5% liked)

Science Memes

19502 readers
981 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 40 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] etchinghillside@reddthat.com 42 points 1 month ago (4 children)

It’s been a while… but isn’t that negative?

Or is there some default given of which side it’s approaching from.

[–] LeFrog@discuss.tchncs.de 31 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

I think it is not defined. It has a limes from the left (- inf) and limes from the right (+ inf) but no two-sided limes.

Edit: wolframalpha agrees but I don't know for sure

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It has a limes from the left… and limes from the right…

Is that the Tootsie Roll Theorem?

[–] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You put the lime on the coconut and drink it all up.

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You put the lime in the coconut. You're such a silly woman.

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Yeah, it would have to be defined as a one-sided limit.

[–] SculptusPoe@lemmy.world 25 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

(Just including the graph for reference. I'm not sure it helps with proper description or the answer the teacher was asking for, but you can see that from one direction it goes negative as you approach 8 and from the other it goes to positive infinity.)

[–] JustAPenguin@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I have a BA in Mathematics. The limit is indeed determined by the direction you approach the limiting value.

When given without specification, the limit is implied to come from the left, meaning it increases towards the limiting value, which is why you see +inf.

[–] rooroo@feddit.org 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah but then it should be negative infinite, cause if x<8 the fraction is negative.

[–] JustAPenguin@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ah, I misread the - as a +. You're correct! Sorry, I just woke up and am in the middle of my morning doomscrolling sesh

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 month ago

Conveniently modeled with the same limit.

Though I'm not sure what negative doom is and what happens when it approaches infinity.

[–] carmo55@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

This is just not true. The normal limit we have here means a limit would have to exist from both directions and they should be equal. They're not, so the limit doesn't exist.

One-sided limits would be denoted by x -> 5– and x -> 5+ or similar.

PS: in complex analysis, there is no distinction between +infty and -infty, so there it would be correct to say the function has limit infty at 5.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

In my experience with maths, there's a whole bunch of different conventions all over the place, so it might've genuinely been how they were taught, even if you were taught differently...

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah, that's my experience too. When we did this in school we always defined from which side we were approaching the function.

[–] JustAPenguin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

You're right. But in this case, which is the case I was referring to, there is no two sided limit. It is discontinuous. It is in this case which I was referring to. Sorry for not being clear.

[–] Ooops@feddit.org 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It should be +/-∞

Minus or plus depending on the side from which you approach the limes.

[–] Test_Tickles@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Infinity limes? After all these years, this meme starts to make sense: Limes

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 30 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Just here to comment on the weird spreadsheet format (of that oooooold joke)

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I took a screenshot and put it in a word doc and embedded that in a excel sheet and sent it in an email...

"Endorsed for MS Office" on LinkedIn.

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 3 points 1 month ago

That just sounds like a .norm file

[–] protogen420@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

also weird looking text, overshapen

[–] blackbrook@mander.xyz -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Like an AI's idea of what a font looks like.

[–] bombadil@feddit.org 1 points 1 month ago

Don't think so. It looks weird, but very consistently. Look at the kerning, the spacing after each "e" is just a little too wide, and all the "e"s have the same little hump at the top.

I would guess this is a mild anti-dyslexia font or sth like that.

[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That is not infinity, its undefined.

This only works if you use a one sided limit.

[–] Leesi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 month ago

or the domain is the projectively extended real line! (obv not the case here ofc)

[–] mercano@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago (2 children)

That’s a ChatGPT kind of answer. A pattern is recognized, but the meaning isn’t understood.

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There's no way ChatGPT would be creative enough to put a number on its side

[–] AlecSadler@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] bunchberry@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

ChatGPT just gives the correct answer that the limit doesn't exist.

claude is gaud

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

Rote learning isn't new and is still quite popular.

[–] jjj@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 month ago

The first one is incorrect, the limit doesn't exist unless you specify whether you're coming from the left or right.

On another note, I think their student has invented a new symbol for "Does Not Exist".

[–] n0respect@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 month ago

Everybody Fhqwhgads

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 month ago

Story time, third grader me would have done this no questions about it.

Having to solve multiplication and recently had learned the table of 9 trick i was looking if there where other tricks I could find.

The first one was number x10 and what i observed is that if you do times ten. You take the number. And you put 1 “0” behind it.

Interesting…. I thought

But the next one multiplied with a single digit so how could i apply that theory.

Simple. 1+0 is 1, which is a single digit so if you multiply by 10, you actually multiply by 1+0 which means you put 1 zeros behind it

Multiple by 2 is short for multiply By 2+0, put 2 zeros behind it

Multiply by 9, put 9 zeros behind it.

I definitely knew this is not what we had learned, and knew there was a “chance” i was going to fail all of these, i also even knew some of the actual answers however i also believed there was a chance that i found an alternative equally good solution, and I consciously decided to take that risk because I wanted to know if i was right. Maybe I discovered something new

My teacher was not happy to say the least, and in that (actual) furry did treat me unfair and it still bothers me. Because i got a zero for the assignment.. while i was very certain that the 2 occurrences of x10 did have the appropriate solution.

[–] Dojan@pawb.social 2 points 1 month ago

lim means glue in Swedish.

That's all I know.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 points 1 month ago

This is why we need quantum computing. Traditional computing doesn't account for sideways numbers.

[–] RamenJunkie@midwest.social 1 points 1 month ago

This has me dead like that 8 and 5.

[–] TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

Specification gaming lol