Forums : A question for Felicia

So, Felicia, as you’ve managed to ruin my whites… wait… sorry…

*cough*

Anyway, out of curiosity, what was your prefered area of mathematics in college? I got my BS in math and I was forced to write my senior paper on a really lame topic in number theory. (It was something dealing with how to express integers larger than 4 as the sums of the squares of other integers. Lame, lame, lame. Nothing hot like trying to figure out if there are an infinite number of primes in the Fibonacci sequence or anything like that.) What I wanted to do was a paper on some really cool, counter-intuitive topic from real analysis but I had a wet-blanket for a professor that term.

So, yeah…. Tell us about your mathematical interests. UT-Austin had to have some really cool ideas floating about it as you got ready to graduate.

Real Analysis, huh? That sounds disturbingly like the "Functions of a Real Variable" class I took; and if it is, I feel for you.

AlphaBobRI said:

Malazoth said:

…how to express integers larger than 4 as the sums of the squares of other integers…

---

You mean like

5 = 2^2+1^2

6 = 2^2+1^2+1^2

7 = 2^2 + 1^2 + 1^2 + 1^2

8 = 2^2 + 2^2

9 = 3^2

10 = 3^2 + 1^2

etc. ?

I take it the "trick" was to write a general purpose equation that would solve for any possible integer > 4? (And "intuitively obvious" isn’t good enough, right?)

Right. The questions relevant to this field of mathematical study are things like, "Is there a smallest number of terms in the sum possible?" (Turns out there is, it’s four.) "Is there a pattern to the terms in the sums?" (As I recall, there isn’t.)

The problem is actually a classic of mathematics and is known as "Lagrange’s four-square theorem." Part of the paper had to focus on classical proofs and then I had to look at modern techniques of proof, implications of the theorem, and a bunch of other stuff that made me kinda sick at the time because it was completely boring.

I really need to point someone in my guild to this particular thread…she is finishing her masters in astro physics..lol…if she knew i was writing about her should kill me ( btw she really hates math…right amp? )

Btw ..the answer above really is 42; 42 is always the answer to everything….life… the universe…everything.

Mo

WTF? MATH?

i hate math >.<

I wonder if Felicia actually takes the whole "You’re uber hot" comments as a compliment or maybe she gets offended. Just saying..

Malazoth said:

So, Felicia, as you’ve managed to ruin my whites… wait… sorry…

I kinda meant that, but I also meant in general.

The only math I like is the one that I can apply to Archimede’s Principle.

Arrr!

I’m doing math right now.