Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Weird things bother me...

Does it bother anybody else that differentiation is a lossy operation?

2x^3 + 5X + 3

Differentiated is,

6x^2 + 5

Then integrated (with respect to x),

2X^3 + 5x + C

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It lost the 3 and now has a more general constant. I know, there's no reason taking the change in a line need have all the original precision of the line, but somehow math is suppose to be idealized and perfect and with lossy operations it seems a little odd. I mean I can understand when it at least has the good sense to throw an exception.

Y * 0 = 0
0 / 0 ... DIVIDE BY ZERO EXCEPTION.

Sure, we can't get Y back out of the equation, but only because the math throws a fit.

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