# What is the minimal level of the question on this site? [duplicate]

Are mathematics at the level of elementary school(i.e. mostly arithmetic) not welcome on this site? Previously I posted an addition problem and show my attempt/effort but the question got deleted in 10 minutes and I don't know why. Could someone please explain?

Thanks,
IthinkURright

## marked as duplicate by Najib Idrissi, Community♦May 20 '16 at 7:28

• The SE site has a minimum age requirement (14 IIRC?). I would think that has, as a corollary, some lower bound to the level of questions. – Jyrki Lahtonen May 20 '16 at 6:54
• @Jyrki, the terms of service say, "Subscriber certifies to Stack Exchange that Subscriber is an individual (i.e., not a corporate entity) at least 13 years of age." – Gerry Myerson May 20 '16 at 6:56
• I beleive the "addition problem" in question was math.stackexchange.com/questions/1792487/… (where OP says it took three hours to do four addition problems, each involving two- or three-digit numbers). – Gerry Myerson May 20 '16 at 7:01
• More especially the Question concerns how to multiply $37 \times 29$ by repeated addition. The "four addition problems" noted by @GerryMyerson got the OP as far as $37 \times 5$. To me it is reasonable to recast this Question as a problem about what more effective procedure will multiply integers of this "size". – hardmath May 20 '16 at 13:22
• Nothing less than IUTT is allowed on here. – user223391 May 20 '16 at 19:25
• @Zachary, Google says IUTT is an international futsal tournament for university students. iutt.nl – Gerry Myerson May 20 '16 at 22:34
• – user223391 May 20 '16 at 22:49

it is of no value to this site.

(This answer only provides a lower bound, not a greatest lower bound.)

• I am not sure I agree. This question (the one related to "Mental Arithmetic. In the Public School of S. Rachinsky." can be answered by calculator, but I think that it was very well received and it is useful for the site. – Martin Sleziak May 20 '16 at 9:22
• Similarly, I do not see any problem with question of the type: "How do I calculate $26\times135$ by hand. Although in this case, I definitely prefer this question understood in a general way. (I.e., asking what is the algorithms to do this type of computations as opposed to asking what is the result specifically for the given numbers. But answers to question about specific numbers can also illustrate the general algorithm.) – Martin Sleziak May 20 '16 at 9:23
• @MartinSleziak Wasn't the point of that question to solve it without using a calculator? This makes it quite different, I think. I mean, I can ask a calculator to compute $\int_{-\infty}^\infty e^{-x^2} dx$, and it will spit out 1.772... or even $\sqrt\pi$ if it's sophisticated enough. That's not interesting, and if all you want is the numerical value, then math.SE isn't the right place. But the interesting part of the question is precisely how to do it without the calculator. – Najib Idrissi May 20 '16 at 9:26
• @MartinSleziak When the precise questions asked (omitting only the claimed "personal effort" context) are "$37\times29=?$" and "$15+16=?$" (the latter being "two huge numbers"), I'm more inclined to start looking underneath bridges. Furthermore, these specific questions will not have any value for future readers because who the hell is going to come here looking for those precise calculations and hoping to find general algorithms? – user642796 May 20 '16 at 9:36
• @NajibIdrissi That's basically what I wrote in my previous comment. I think that even things which can be computed by calculator or CAS, can be suitable questions for MSE. arjafi: The questions posted by the OP on the main might in fact be trolling (it is not easy to say). But since this question on meta and your answer are about this type of questions in general, the comment I gave was also intended to be about such question in general. – Martin Sleziak May 20 '16 at 10:49
• @MartinSleziak And in general I'll stand by this: if a question as phrased can be exactly answered by a basic four-function calculator, it doesn't belong on the site. The last thing we need is a glut of questions like "What is 42 ÷ 3?", "What is 285 – 262?", "What is 255 ÷ 17?", "What is 12 x 40?", "What is 17 x 97?", "What is 792 – 339?", "What is 658 + 478?", "What is 408 ÷ 24?", "What is 540 ÷ 27?", "What is 252 + 62?", "What is 919 – 603?", "What is 416 ÷ 32?", "What is 10 x 79?", "What is 989 – 537?", etc. – user642796 May 20 '16 at 11:40
• Reading your last comment, it seems that we more-or-less agree. In any case, we can continue this discussion in chat, if needed. So that we do not add too many comments here. – Martin Sleziak May 20 '16 at 11:51
• On the other hand, @arjafi, "What is $342-173$" inspired this: youtube.com/watch?v=wIWaJ0sy03g – Gerry Myerson May 20 '16 at 22:31
• I think that it should be pointed out that the calculator in the picture can only do simple arithmetic. Evaluating an integral is certainly on-topic, and calculators that can input integrals, for example, can be used to answer those questions. – ahorn May 24 '16 at 14:15