• @JeeBaiChow
    link
    English
    71 day ago

    It’s fucking obvious!

    Seriously, I once had to prove that mulplying a value by a number between 0 and 1 decreased it’s original value, i.e. effectively defining the unary, which should be an axiom.

    • @[email protected]B
      link
      fedilink
      English
      2
      edit-2
      10 hours ago

      So you need to proof x•c < x for 0<=c<1?

      Isn’t that just:

      xc < x | ÷x

      c < x/x (for x=/=0)

      c < 1 q.e.d.

      What am I missing?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        410 hours ago

        My math teacher would be angry because you started from the conclusion and derived the premise, rather than the other way around. Note also that you assumed that division is defined. That may not have been the case in the original problem.

        • @[email protected]B
          link
          fedilink
          English
          1
          edit-2
          9 hours ago

          Your math teacher is weird. But you can just turn it around:

          c < 1

          c < x/x | •x

          xc < x q.e.d.

          This also shows, that c≥0 is not actually a requirement, but x>0 is

          I guess if your math teacher is completely insufferable, you need to add the definitions of the arithmetic operations but at that point you should also need to introduce Latin letters and Arabic numerals.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      519 hours ago

      Mathematicians like to have as little axioms as possible because any axiom is essentially an assumption that can be wrong.

      Also proving elementary results like your example with as little tools as possible is a great exercise to learn mathematical deduction and to understand the relation between certain elementary mathematical properties.

    • Superb
      link
      fedilink
      English
      322 hours ago

      It can’t be an axiom if it can be defined by other axioms. An axiom can not be formally proven