this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Why would a mathematician use j for imaginary numbers and why would engineer be mad at them?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The only thing I can think of is that the OP studied electrical engineering at some point. But it's a 4chan story so probably fake anyway.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago

fake and gay?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

I think it might be the wrong way around: Engineers like to use j for imaginary numbers because i is needed for current.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

Mathematicians are taught to be elastic with notation, because they tend to be taught many different interpretations of the same theory.

On the other hand engineers use more strict and consistent notation, their classes have a more practical approach.

Using the same notation makes it faster to read and apply math, a more agile approach helps with learning new theories and approaches and with being creative.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 day ago

I have no idea what they're talking about, but I do love a happy ending.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago

My initial thought was that it's surprising that the engineer is using i whereas the mathematician is using j. But I know some engineers who are hardcore in favour of i. No mathematicians who prefer j though. So if such an engineer were dating a mathematician of all people who used j, I could see that being ♠ .

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago

I love how that wannabe 4chan nerd just got outnerded in the comment section

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (7 children)

operative?

Also mathematicians use i for imaginary, engineers use j. The story does not add up. I have never seen a single mathematician use j for imaginary.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

imaJinary

TIL engineers can't spell for shit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

The associativity thing also doesnt make sense.

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[–] [email protected] 289 points 2 days ago (14 children)

Fake and gay.

No way the engineer corrects the mathematician for using j instead of i.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 2 days ago (7 children)

As an engineer I fully agree. Engineers¹ aren't even able to do basic arithmetics. I even cannot count to 10.

¹ Except maybe Electrical engineers. They seem to be quite smart.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Engineer here, I can definitely count to 10 tho

0 1 10

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Electrical engineers are the ones that use j though (because i is used for current)

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Having worked with electrical engineers, some of them are quite smart, the rest have lead poisoning.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago

Right? They got that shit backwards. Op is a fraud. i is used in pure math, j is used in engineering.

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[–] [email protected] 144 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Wait bottom mathematican is using j=√-1 instead of i and not the engineer? Because I'm EE gang, and all my homies use j.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 2 days ago (2 children)

That part also got me really confused. All the mathematicans I know use i while engineers use i or j depending on the kind of engineer. I've never seen a Pikachu engineer using anything other than j.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The fun starts when you study quaternions

i^2 = j^2 = k^2 = ijk = −1

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 days ago (9 children)
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[–] [email protected] 79 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Is anyone doing anything tonight?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago

Something something distance calls for norm, not just squares.

||i||² + ||1||² = 2

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[–] [email protected] 87 points 2 days ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 49 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Me, a language/arts person: "Huh?"

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Fullstack dev here. "Huh?"

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

Moron here. "Huh?"

[–] [email protected] 77 points 2 days ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (2 children)

$\int dx f(x)$ is standard notation for physicists

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Can somebody ELI5 this for my troglodyte writer brain?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Integrals are an expression that basically has an opening symbol, and an operation that is written at the end of it that is used also as a closing symbol, looks kinda like:$ {some function of x} dx.

The person basically said "the dx part can be written at the start also, and that would make my so mad :3": $ dx {some function of x}.

This gets their so mad because understandably this makes the notation non-standard and harder to read, also you'd have to use parentheses if the expression doesn't just end at the function.

Note: dollar used instead of integral symbol

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

An integral is usually written like ∫ f(x) dx or alternatively as df(x)/dx. Please note that this is just a way to apply the operation 'Integration', like + applies the operation 'Addition'. There is no real multiplication or division.

But sometimes you can take a shortcut and treat dx as a multiplied constant. This is technically not correct, but under the right circumstances lands you at the same solution as the proper way. This then looks like this ∫ f(y) dy/dx dx = ∫ f(y) dy

Another thing you can do is to move multiplicative constants from inside the Integral to in front of the Integral: ∫ 2f(x) dx = 2 ∫ f(x) dx. (That is always correct btw)

What anon did was combine those two things and basically write ∫ f(x) dx = dx ∫ f(x). Which is nonsensical, but given the above rules not easily disproven.

This is more or less the same tactic used by internet trolls just in a mathy way. Purposefully misinterpreting arguments and information, that cost the other party considerably more energy to discover and rebut. Hence the hate fuck.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

As a physicist I can't understand why would anyone complain about a +jb or $\int dx f(x)$. Probably because we don't fuck

[–] RamblingPanda 21 points 2 days ago (5 children)

As a software dude I can see you wrote a regex, I just can't find out what you're trying to match.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is the kind of brat I can get behind. 😏

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I think rather d/dx is the operator. You apply it to an expression to bind free occurrences of x in that expression. For example, dx²/dx is best understood as d/dx (x²). The notation would be clear if you implement calculus in a program.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If not fraction, why fraction shaped?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I just think of the definition of a derivative.

d is just an infinitesimally small delta. So dy/dx is literally just lim (∆ -> 0) ∆y/∆x. which is the same as lim (x_1 -> x_0) [f(x_0) - f(x_1)] / [x_0 - x_1].

Note: ∆ -> 0 isn't standard notation. But writing ∆x -> 0 requires another step of thinking: y = f(x) therefore ∆y = ∆f(x) = f(x + ∆x) - f(x) so you only need ∆x approaching zero. But I prefer thinking d = lim (∆ -> 0) ∆.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Better plot than 50 Shades of Grey

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