this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
11 points (100.0% liked)

Science Memes

11892 readers
1608 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
11
positivity (mander.xyz)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I might be wrong, but I thought absolute values weren't positive or negative?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If your task is to turn any number that could be negative into positive then you would use abs right?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

I'd use a pencil. I'm too out-of-shape to have abs, particularly ones I could do math with.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

I don't understand this argument. I've heard high school teachers decree it as a mathematical truth before.

Do we all agree absolute value is a function from reals to reals? If so, the absolute value of any real number is nonnegative. It can be zero or any positive numbers.

Case closed, right?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

They're not negative, thus they're positive.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What about non binary numbers?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

Those are just complex.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It was my understanding that it's like velocity vs speed. Positive/Negative numbers have a directional component, that is that they are above or below zero. Absolute values, however, lack a direction. They're a value, but they don't tell you if the value is positive or negative.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

Absolute value shows only distance from the 0 value on the number line without the direction. All distances are positive when viewed without direction.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

Technically true, but they are always graphed in positive quadrants.