Portal:Mathematics
The Mathematics Portal
Mathematics is the study of representing and reasoning about abstract objects (such as numbers, points, spaces, sets, structures, and games). Mathematics is used throughout the world as an essential tool in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine, and the social sciences. Applied mathematics, the branch of mathematics concerned with application of mathematical knowledge to other fields, inspires and makes use of new mathematical discoveries and sometimes leads to the development of entirely new mathematical disciplines, such as statistics and game theory. Mathematicians also engage in pure mathematics, or mathematics for its own sake, without having any application in mind. There is no clear line separating pure and applied mathematics, and practical applications for what began as pure mathematics are often discovered. (Full article...)
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- ... that The Math Myth advocates for American high schools to stop requiring advanced algebra?
- ... that after Archimedes first defined convex curves, mathematicians lost interest in their analysis until the 19th century, more than two millennia later?
- ... that although the problem of squaring the circle with compass and straightedge goes back to Greek mathematics, it was not proven impossible until 1882?
- ... that subgroup distortion theory, introduced by Misha Gromov in 1993, can help encode text?
- ... that in 1940 Xu Ruiyun became the first Chinese woman to receive a PhD in mathematics?
- ... that despite a mathematical model deeming the ice cream bar flavour Goody Goody Gum Drops impossible, it was still created?
- ... that after Florida schools banned 54 mathematics books, Chaz Stevens petitioned that they also ban the Bible?
- ... that people in Madagascar perform algebra on tree seeds in order to tell the future?
More did you know –
- ...that the six permutations of the vector (1,2,3) form a regular hexagon in 3d space, the 24 permutations of (1,2,3,4) form a truncated octahedron in four dimensions, and both are examples of permutohedra?
- ...that Ostomachion is a mathematical treatise attributed to Archimedes on a 14-piece tiling puzzle similar to tangram?
- ...that some functions can be written as an infinite sum of trigonometric polynomials and that this sum is called the Fourier series of that function?
- ...that the identity elements for arithmetic operations make use of the only two whole numbers that are neither composites nor prime numbers, 0 and 1?
- ...that as of April 2010 only 35 even numbers have been found that are not the sum of two primes which are each in a Twin Primes pair? ref
- ...the Piphilology record (memorizing digits of Pi) is 70000 as of Mar 2015?
- ...that people are significantly slower to identify the parity of zero than other whole numbers, regardless of age, language spoken, or whether the symbol or word for zero is used?
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The graph of a real-valued quadratic function of a real variable x, is a parabola. Image credit: Enoch Lau |
A quadratic equation is a polynomial equation of degree two. The general form is
where a ≠ 0 (if a = 0, then the equation becomes a linear equation). The letters a, b, and c are called coefficients: the quadratic coefficient a is the coefficient of x2, the linear coefficient b is the coefficient of x, and c is the constant coefficient, also called the free term.
Quadratic equations are known by that name because quadratus is Latin for "square"; in the leading term the variable is squared.
A quadratic equation has two (not necessarily distinct) solutions, which may be real or complex, given by the quadratic formula:
If the discriminant , then the quadratic equation has two distinct real solutions; if , the equation has two real solutions which are equal; if , the equation has two complex solutions.
These solutions are roots of the corresponding quadratic function
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