Mathematics Stack Exchange
Mathematics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [soft-question]

For questions whose answers can't be objectively evaluated as correct or incorrect, but which are still relevant to this site. Please be specific about what you are after.

For questions whose answers cannot be objectively evaluated as correct or incorrect, but which are still relevant to mathematics.se.

12079 questions
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How do symbolic math software work?

As the answer to a question of mine I was referred to a website (see here please) How can WolframAlpha do it like humans?
seek
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How do Mathematicians send email?

I've been corresponding with people about math via email. It seems very weird to just be sending PDFs of the conversation back and forth, but there's no way to talk without typesetting. Is there an equivalent of MathJaX for email?
Xodarap
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How do mathematicians propose new theorems?

It seems that for a lot of great mathematicians, it was an usual case in their procedure of creating new theorems that they first came up with a rough idea of the theorem, after that they started thinking about how to prove it (some would reshape…
zyy
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Meditation and Mathematicians

It is said that Yitang Zhang obtained his key insights by relaxing and putting the problem away. With this said, is meditation a task that mathematicians often do when they are stuck in a rut? Meditation has been linked with increased working memory…
medmath
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What does it mean to say $BB(7918)$ is not computable from ZFC?

In a paper by Scott Aaronson, I read that Busy Beaver of 7918 can't be computed from ZFC. But $BB(7918)$ is a specific finite natural number, call it $k$. So, using $k$ applications of the successor function starting from $0$, we can define it.…
user107952
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Where to go with Mathematics?

I am currently a math major in college and my main problem is that it feels directionless. My college offers little in term of variety in undergraduate math so I moved on into taking graduate courses and I am actually loving it. But at this point I…
chaire
  • 91
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Mathematics and Perfectionism?

Background I am an undergraduate and I have just finished my first calculus class (Calc I) this summer. While this class has gone very well for me by any objective standard, I find myself drifting towards a pathological obsession with perfection.…
AnalysisStudent
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Are there any tricks to remembering proofs of mathematical theorems?

Is there a way to quickly and thoroughly remember theorems? For example, proofs of the mean value theorem, or Rolle's theorem. Having to remember all of them off by heart has been quite tedious. Understanding helps you get the basic gist of it, but…
RonaldB
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Should a high schooler be concerned with the abstraction of mathematics?

I'm currently studying precalculus in high school and have no hands-on experience with advanced mathematics (calculus and beyond). Every time I learn something new, I feel the need to connect it with other branches that I've learned. I try to do…
guest
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How to know if one problem is more difficult than another one?

I have seen in many places (books, lectures, ...) that people say that some unsolved problem is more (or much more) difficult than another one or sometimes they point some problem as the most difficult one. How they know the difficulty of reaching…
user231343
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Why can only those younger than 40 years old win the Fields Medal?

There are some prizes in Mathematics nowadays that may be considered probably as hard to win, like the Abel Prize, but they were established quite recently. Looking back to a few years ago, the Fields Medal was the most prestigious award in…
user200918
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Is it unheard of to say that you like math but hate proofs?

I have enjoyed math throughout my years of education (now a first year math student in a post-secondary institute) and have done well--relative to the amount of work I put in--and concepts learned were applicable and straight-to-the-point. I…
Steven Pece
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What is meant by a "diagonalization argument"?

From Wikipedia: A variety of diagonal arguments are used in mathematics. Cantor's diagonal argument Cantor's theorem Halting problem Diagonal lemma Besides the above four examples, there is another one I found in a blog. When proving that "if a…
Tim
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What would it mean if there was a link between e and $\pi$?

It is not even know if $\pi+e$ is rational, and the same is true for other similar expressions involving $\pi$ and $e$, but does this have an impact? If it were, for example, proven that $\pi=ae$ or $\pi=a+e$ for a rational number $a$ would there be…
Tim
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Is $\sqrt2$ a tricky notation?

When someone asked me how to solve $x^2=9$,I can easily say, $x=3$ or $-3$. But what about $x^2=2$? There is NOT any "ordinary" number to solve this question. It's an irrational number. So we say helplessly, the answer is $\pm\sqrt2$, but what does…
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