New answers tagged discussion
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Rather than answering my own question, I add an "update" to my question. That way, it still offers other people the possibility to contribute with a full answer, and my "updates" are usually of good quality, helping others solve my problem (usually in a more elegant way than I would do myself) and not be discouraged by the occasional apparent complexity of ...
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While I understand your frustrations toward difficult notations and more advanced explanations than those which you are used too, it's all part of learning math. Mathematicians develop definitions, notations, and ways of writing that may seem alien and unintuitive at first, but you'll see that once you get into it those notations and definitions make sense ...
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Quite often, the OP will have come up with a proof of a result and needs to be assured of its correctness. The corresponding question is “Is my proof correct?”. If it is so, then the logically appropriate answer is simply yes.
The reason that no further justification is needed in the answer is that the OP has already provided the justification, in the proof,...
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You simultaneously cross-posted the same question on both Math.SE and Math Educators.SE. That is not appropriate: cross-posting is generally considered not suitable on Stack Exchange. See Is cross-posting a question on multiple Stack Exchange sites permitted if the question is on-topic for each site?.
This site is not intended for blog posts. You write ...
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I posted an answer to the only question I have posted on MSE so far. Blue asked me to show my work and, since my solution was complete (I was looking for a more elegant solution) and the question was well-formed without the answer, I posted my work as an answer instead of editing the question. It seems to have been well-received by the community (in fact, ...
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Yes. You are allowed, and even encouraged, to answer your own questions, not just on MSE but everywhere else on the SE network: see these questions on the main Meta and this page in the Help Center.
In short, the reason is because by self-answering questions, even in the case where you have asked the question intentionally to answer it yourself, you are ...
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I think that many upvotes for a one-word answer says more about Serge Lang's writing than the word itself
does.
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In very specific situations, you could ask a new question on which you ask for clarification/explanation. But this is often not useful, since the issue is probably an oversight or minor misunderstanding. The most productive thing to do is wait until you can comment and then do so.
In this specific case, it is not clear what your doubt is. The loop in ...
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Yes, it is OK to give such an answer. It is also OK to downvote that answer. (Or upvote)
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No.
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Reopened
Could we please reopen: How might I define a parabola in vertex form, such that…
The OP has made an effort to improve their question. They have clarified the question by including the vertex form of a parabola for future reference, and have also added MathJax to the question. I have also cleaned up the tags to better reflect the question ('...
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I don't know if a bot is needed, but I did write a query on the SE Data Explorer that finds links to deleted posts on other SE sites.
As the screenshot shows, there were 343 such broken links on math.SE as of last weekend's SEDE update. I've fixed about a dozen of them since then, but they'll still show up in the results until the next weekly update.
The ...
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An answer post should contain information that allows, or at least that helps, to validate the point that is made, and lends credibility to the answer. A simple "yes" or "no" does not do this. Therefore, such answers are in general not welcome.
I stress that the information should be in the actual answer; credibility inherited from the prestige of the user ...
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Overall there are very few migrations.
Over the last 90 days there were only 8 migrations to Cross Validated (the statistics site) and also 8 to Physics (one of them rejected). Moreover there were 2 to our own meta site.
As regards incoming migrations there were about 30 from each of MathOverflow and Physics, and about 10 from each of Cross Validated and ...
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From my experience, it is better to use this forum for answers/guides to specific questions/problems. That said, Pauls Math Notes contains the fundamentals from algebra to calculus.
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Let $m=2$, $r=3$, $n=4$; then the second equation says $${6\choose3}=\sum_0^3{2\choose k}{4\choose3-k}={2\choose0}{4\choose3}+{2\choose1}{4\choose2}+{2\choose2}{4\choose1}$$ Now let $m=2$, $r=1$, $n=4$; then the first equation says $${6\choose3}=\sum_0^2{2\choose k}{4\choose k+1}={2\choose0}{4\choose1}+{2\choose1}{4\choose2}+{2\choose2}{4\choose3}$$ These ...
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"I realize I hate my book for a host of reasons ..." This is not the sort of content that Math.SE seeks to collect and curate. Compare this previous Meta Q on asking for opinions about math journals.
Of course anyone is entitled to an opinion about books etc., but we want content that is tied to reasoned mathematical argument. For example, one might ask ...
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Although this site does not have a specific course, you can ask the question:,"explain how equations work". After you do so, you will know how equations work and therefore will have learned how to solve equations.
You still need to view external sources to know what to ask about, however.
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This site isn't really a good place to learn math - rather, its (most common) role is to answer specific questions which crop up during that process. You won't find coherent approaches to topics here because that's not the goal. MSE should only be used as an auxiliary source, to fill gaps and clarify issues that arise from the main text(s) or class(es) that ...
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First, to address your edit about the downvote: up- and down-votes on Meta are often construed as being in favour or against the proposal of the question. Here I expect that the downvotes are from people being against your initial proposition that proofs on the site should be only solved in "obvious" ways. Since for some proofs, using only things are ...
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They didn't write it out as a product, because it can be arbitrary length. That's the proper use of the notation. There are some other products, that you might not be able to write in full regardless because they have infinitely many terms. Sometimes a simple answer isn't obvious ( Goldbach's, Collatz, Twin prime, abc, Beal's, Grimm's, Legendre's conjectures ...
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This is of course opinion based:
No. While it's perfectly reasonable to ask why one's question (answer) has been downvoted, I think one should still show proper etiquette (especially when demanding such from others). I would suggest to respect the anonymity of voting in general (which is there for a reason, example given below), and instead ask: "I can see ...
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There is now a second apology, from the CTO this time. It is far better than the first (in particular, it personally apologizes to Monica Cellio), but still misses the heart of the matter. It rightly concedes that nothing resembling process was followed in the de-modding of Monica Cellio, and vaguely promises to create "a process for handling moderator ...
3
There is no (term/phrase/name) for the (idea/object) you're describing
This one is for questions that are like "Here's this mathematical object. Is there a common name for such a thing?"
No, no such thing exists.
I'm posting this CW answer so that users who confidently concur that the answer to the question is "No" have an answer to vote on, and so ...
3
Yes, your thoughts/proof is correct
Because there are a bunch of proof-verification type questions where the OP's proof is absolutely correct, and users have said and upvoted this fact in the comments.
Yes, this is correct.
I'm posting this CW answer so that users who confidently concur have something to vote on, and so this question doesn't ...
0
For questions that should be on MathOverflow
Given the rather advanced nature of the mathematics of this question, I think it would be more appropriately posted on MathOverflow. If you agree, you can click on flag near the bottom left of your question, then on in need of moderator intervention and request that a moderator migrate the question to ...
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Research Effort
While it is impossible to know why any individual downvoter chose to downvote, my guess would be that your post received a poor reaction because that particular question (and closely related questions) has been asked many, many times on this site in the past. As per the hovertext on the downvote button, a downvote indicates that the voter ...
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Let me take a crack at answering this, being the moderator in question. There are essentially two reasons:
The question is subpar. The fact that it was later closed, reopened, and attracted more closing votes now show that I am not the only person who felt this way. I don't think it's necessarily a bad question, that's irrelevant. But I don't think this is ...
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Moderators frequently remove questions from the HNQ. Our site is large and provides many interesting questions. The number of questions per site is limited. Removals increase the turnover of math-questions in the HNQ and thus allow more math-questions to get known network-wide.
Put differently it seems better to have eight questions there for three hours ...
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So if I understand your post correctly, the problem you see is that answering takes a long time and the reason is that you don't have macros automatically at your disposal. (Of course, for other users there might be other factors which slow them down - but it seems that you have singled out that this particular things as a problem for you.)
If you have a ...
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If you still want to post your answer, there's nothing wrong with posting a new question of your own and then posting your answer to it. You probably shouldn't copy the original question word-for-word, but you can make a post that's asking essentially the same question as the original.
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Reopened
Please consider reopening Minimal surfaces under conformal parametrizations - proof verification
It appears to have been closed after the user vandalised their question (rolling back the question would seem like the better approach, which I've done) and appears to have plenty of context and be a reasonable question asking for help.
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While I cannot speculate on specific cases, I've seen high-reputation accounts get deleted for a variety of reasons. For example,
dissatisfaction with the site direction,
disagreement with mods,
getting suspended for irregular voting patterns.
As for your suggestions to add a warning and grace period, I believe it's already the case. See this post for ...
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Regarding your two questions:
One problem with this situation (I mean the dismissal, not the license change) is that few have a complete picture of the situation. Even moderators only have a partial understanding of it. I am far from being one of the most involved in this, but I can assure you that I expended already more time on this than I am happy to ...
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Please undelete and reopen this elementary post:
How to find the value of the expression $\log_3(a)+\log_3(b)+\log_3(c)$ given that $a$, $b$, and $c$ are the roots of $24x^3 - 121x^2 + 87x - 8 = 0$?
I answered question in this post, and I do not consider it missing context at all. OP summarized his/her attempt succinctly in the post: "Finding the roots ...
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I failed an audit regarding an answer to the question "Is there a name for categories whose objects are sets?" because I thought that the answer was short and I commented asking to expand it a bit.
In my case, the comment was not negative and it was within the usual scope of the comments: to ask for more information.
Furthermore, I based my reasoning on ...
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Undeleted, reopened
Please undelete and reopen this post:
How can one use the direct comparison test for $S=\sum_{k=1}^{\infty}{\frac{1}{\sqrt{k}+10k}}$?
Even in the very first version of the post, OP states his/her thoughts and difficulties he/she has. This post is NOT missing context. And it is NOT a duplicate of any other question.
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The question you refer to were closed and deleted by regular users (with exactly one person voting on both actions, which is entirely allowed).
There is no abuse, this is how community-moderation takes place.
Self-deletions are different. They are not community moderated, quite the opposite. They are user-moderated. Sometimes it's someone trying to cover ...
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Please undelete this post: $n^4 + 4^n$ is a not a prime
OP clearly states context for his/her question:
This question appeared in the undergrad entrance exam of the Indian Statistical institute.
When $n$ is even the proof is simple. For $𝑛=2𝑚+1$ I am utterly stuck.
True that this is a duplicate of some previous posts, but duplicate can be useful. ...
2
Undeleted, reopened
Please undelete and reopen this post: How can one integrate $\int\frac{1}{(x+1)^4(x^2+1)} dx$?
OP wants to calculate this integral. He/she is not asking for a solution to this integral per se but states in the post his/her frustration on partial fraction decomposition (PFD) of the integrand. OP even has attempted to use something else (...
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Undeleted, reopened
Please undelete and reopen this post:
How to show $13\left(x^{2}+1\right)+\sqrt{2\left(x^{4}+1\right)}+62 x-\frac{45\left(x^{2}-1\right)}{\ln x}>0$ for $x\in(0,1)$
Context for the question was added upon request by the asker, which has been lifted to the post.
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I often claim to have a de minimus requirement for context, in which even a slight indication of effort or interest in a problem suffices.
It is with the intent of offering an example that I feel narrowly misses this qualification that I post this recent Close review instance:
Title: Prove : every 5 integer numbers have 2 numbers that their sum or ...
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For the specific question, the context seems completely clear. The question reads:
How deep is the liquid in a half-full hemisphere?
I have a baking recipe that calls for 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract, but I only have a 1 tsp measuring spoon available, since the dishwasher is running. The measuring spoon is very nearly a perfect hemisphere.
My ...
1
Undeleted, reopened
Please undelete and reopen this post: Evaluate this limit: $\lim_{n \rightarrow \infty} \frac{n\sin n}{2n^2 - 1}$
This post is by no means missing context. OP clearly stated at the beginning what he/she tried and where he/she got stuck. This post has also a detailed answer by a 50K+ user.
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Would you say that Pierre de Fermat was a mathematician?
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The original book on this won the Diagram Prize for the oddest book title in 2009. I bought a copy for my sister's best friend, who was enthusiastic about crocheting. I understand Thurston was a big part of encouraging Taimina to publish as a book.
Youtube Ted Talk by the author
Later book several authors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookseller/...
Top 50 recent answers are included
