Jump to content

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Mathematics/2012 June 19

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mathematics desk
< June 18 << May | June | Jul >> June 20 >
Welcome to the Wikipedia Mathematics Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.


June 19

[edit]

Unintelligible Question in Persian

[edit]

هل لمحايده الصفر اساس علمى مبنى على نظريات؟ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.235.238.172 (talk) 23:55, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I added a title for this, assuming that it's in Arabic and that it is a question. Once somebody translates it, please replace my temporary title with a better one. StuRat (talk) 01:15, 20 June 2012 (UTC) [reply]
Google Translate thinks it is in Persian language and gives a translation 'Do neutral zero scientific basis for building theories?' Hmm... --CiaPan (talk) 05:55, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I consulted my decision maker tool and it answered yes. Dmcq (talk) 09:44, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Was that a head or a tail?Naraht (talk) 13:42, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Heads, but before you look at fair coin try a little puzzle, how would you make a 50-50 choice using a biased coin? Dmcq (talk) 14:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Toss it twice. If you get HH or TT then repeat the tossing. Eventually you get HT or TH with equal chance. Is there a simpler solution? Bo Jacoby (talk) 14:28, 20 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]
Pick your preferred outcome and declare it fair by fiat. Seems to be used a lot... ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:54, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I interpret that question as:

"Is it true that there is no neutral underlying scientific basis upon which theories are built ?".

Perhaps this belongs on the Science Desk, but the OP, who presumably doesn't speak English, might have trouble finding it there. Would somebody care to answer here ? (And hopefully somebody will also translate the answer back to Persian.) StuRat (talk) 17:32, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My own take is that, yes, we have to make certain assumptions, like that things we observe actually exist, are not put there by God or the Devil to confound us, etc. StuRat (talk) 17:38, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Here's my machine translation, but it's probably not very accurate:

من سوال شما را تعبير مى كنند: " درست است كه وجود ندارد كه بر اساس نظريه هاي علمي بيطرف بنایی ساخته می شوند ؟ ". بله، ما بايد به برخي از فرضيات، مشاهده مي کنيم که همه چيز در واقع وجود داشته باشد، نه با خدا يا شيطان به حواس ما، و غيره. StuRat (talk) 17:47, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think he means: "Does the neutrality of zero have a scientific basis built on theories?" --Meno25 (talk) 03:44, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]