Talk:Equation/Archive 1

Archive 1

Merging with Left-hand side and right-hand side of an equation

I think that merging these two articles would be beneficial for those who are looking for basic descriptive information on actualy doing these mathematics. I do also think that the 'left hand/right hand' article could be maintained as succinct stand-alone resource for those searching specifiaclly for it. --anon

I vote against but I don't feel very strongly about it. I found my way here by searching Google for "right hand side". (I am writing a paper and I was curious if it is hypenated or not.) Jason Quinn 02:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I vote against. I think that it would be enough to put reciprocal links for these two articles. Dmitry, 9 June 2006.

I also disagree with merging and removed the merge tag. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:19, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

LIKE EQUATIOS ALGEBRAIC —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.114.160.129 (talk) 00:14, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Mentioning the identity symbol

Aren't three horizontal bars often used to distinguish an identiy from an equation? Is this worth mentioning given the discussion of telling the difference between the two?

I don't see why not, as long as it's clear that a reader can't rely solely on the convention, as many authors (including Wikipedia) don't usually follow it. Melchoir 16:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Solution point redirect?

Solution point Directs here, but the article never mentions what a solution point is. I think that it should be mentioned, or the redirect should be removed. Unfortunately, I don't know what a solution point is, so I'm not sure if its notable enough or how much it relates to this article. Anyone have any ideas? cøøkiə Ξ _(talk) 23:16, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I look it up on google and couldn't find anything —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.100.241.12 (talk) 02:30, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I also can't seem to find any points concerning this article on either Google or the Mathematical Global Net, it seems as if the points mentioned here, though are partly correct, I am finding it difficult to believe that there are no threads leading to it or from it.

([Signed: Birdymckee, 24.8.2011])

Final Note: The Author has made several mistakes with regards to absolutes, I strongly believe that the Author needs to provide more input with regards to this Article, without which, there should be a strong warning concerning verification of both the text body and the message it attempts to convey.

([Signed: Birdymckee, 24.8.2011]) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Birdymckee (talk • contribs) 22:58, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

solution of equation

Maybe also look here: Gowers: What is `solved' when one solves an equation? Boris Tsirelson 09:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

expansion/clarification needed

Currently, definitions of both functional equation and differential equation refer to this article. While I understand that many people have only seen algebraic equations, it would nevertheless be useful to explain that they are not the only type of equations considered in mathematics. Arcfrk 15:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

4/3+m/2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.56.135.2 (talk) 15:48, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Source for picture of first equation

I don't dispute that Robert Recorde came up with the equals sign and therefore the first equation as we know it, but are you sure that what is in the top box is equivalent to what is in the bottom box in the picture? I have a source (Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers by Jan Gullberg, page 107) that says that this equation in today's notation would be 14x+15=71, whereas the picture shows it to have the square root of x and absolute values of 15 and 71 (although the absolute values are the same when the numbers are positive). Just wondering what the source of this difference is, as it would not be the first error in Gullbergs' book.--Terets (talk) 14:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Identities

I do not agree that an identity is an equation. In fact, this is an equality of functions. Therefore, the section "Identities" is misplaced here, and should be moved to Equality (mathematics). I have just edited the lead of this article to mention "identities" in it. D.Lazard (talk) 10:40, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Confusing/Distracting Figure?

are I am sure that that animated gif (or whatever it is) contains a lot of good information. However, to just let it loop and loop is distracting. It is like the adds on my cell phone; meant to distract you and aggravate you just enough to click on them. That image looks like it could be a very good interactive figure or exercise. There could be some great mathematical pedagogy there and a lot of people could learn from it. However, in its current form (a looping animated gif) I am sure that it is just annoying a large proportion of the people who find themselves trying to use this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.139.247.12 (talk) 17:10, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but it's supposed to loop, and I certainly didn't want it to annoy and distract people intentionally... What do you want it to do? Just run once, pause a while, then start again? Or replace the animation by a sequence of images in a column, like the clay picture at topological mixing? I'll remove it until further feedback is given. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 18:23, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

What about running just once and then stopping until the page is reloaded? This way, the user can control when to see the animation and when not to see it. Anyway, a reference to the picture should be given on this talk page, so we can still view and judge the image after its deletion in the article. Jochen Burghardt (talk) 19:11, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

The version of the article prior to my removal was [1], the animations were --->

Multiplication, division, collecting like terms.

Addition, subtraction, negation, collecting like terms.

Animations of the equation balance analogy.

Running the animations once would not be too helpful, as the reader may miss most of them just after the page is loaded, then not be able to continue seeing what it has to show. Also, a pause between each loop wouldn't really change anything; while the animations are still running it would still be distracting. They are not good animations, and should just be replaced or removed.

In any case thanks for the input from both of you, it is appreciated. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 07:22, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

(P.S. for those confused the previous edit summary [2] should have said "reply" not "roeky", for some reason my fingers collapsed...). M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 07:25, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for showing the pictures. I think, their basic idea is good, but the animation is too fast for me to follow (i.e. read the eqn, view the image, establish the relation between both, and between the previous images). Wikipedia should provide a means to present user-controllable (back+forth e.g. by the mouse wheel, or some scrollbar; or a "continue" and a "back" button) animations, but there probably are technical problems with that. Maybe some video playing tools support such user-control; but then creating a video is more difficult than creating an animated gif... - Btw: At least in the left picture, I didn't understand where like terms are collected.

Concerning one-time animation: I can restart it by a "reload (no cache)" command ("ctrl-shift-R" in my Firefox browser). This works fine e.g. on the page Talk:Optical_illusion#Image_queue. Jochen Burghardt (talk) 13:13, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

NB: I made grammatical changes to my previous post.

Unfortunately I'm not sure how to include pictures into slideshows on WP, although that's a good point you make. If an animation is really desired, then maybe removing the algebraic equations and just showing the balance (the key illustrative idea) would suffice as less to follow, but then showing the algebraic notation is important as well, and having some flickering balances in the background would still be distracting. It seems the animations as they stand are too difficult to follow no matter what one does with them.

Maybe the best solution if desired would be my suggestion above: scrap the animations entirely, and just show a sequence of images (of balances and weights) in a column, like the clay picture at topological mixing. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 19:43, 18 August 2013 (UTC)