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Not quite. I posted this because of the whole switch/reverse issue which Mark T. DeNucci brought up. In this case, I'm a huge stickler for saying f of x is equal to the opposite of x.

Long night last night . . . [/B][/QUOTE]

Man, I thought I was the only one that made a point of this! I think it came from my algebra teacher in high school. He was known to go off like Sam Kennison if you called -x "negative x," or god forbid, "minus x!"

Same here! You don't soon forget an 80-year-old priest shouting "Not minus! Opposite of X, opposite!!!"

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mark Dexter

Quote:

Same here! You don't soon forget an 80-year-old priest shouting "Not minus! Opposite of X, opposite!!!"

Since in math (particularly Algebra and above), "negative" means roughly the same thing as "oppsosite", what's the difference? What's the big deal about "negative"? I honestly don't know and I took a year and a half of college calculus.

Chuck

There's not much of a difference (my college calculus professor uses both), but negative refers to a number itself, as in "negative five" or "negative twenty-four." Saying "negative x" implies that f(x) is going to be a negative number whether the original x is positive or negative.

In the end, it matters about as much as "switching" or "reversing" the arrow :D.

The reason that I have been silent on this thread is that we were without electricity from 01:00pmEST, Jan. 31st, until 04:35amEST, Feb. 02nd. Having said that let me jump into the fray.

f(x) means: A function in terms of x. I know that is the obvious. We could aslo write f(x) = -x as: f(x) = y = -x.

Going with f(x) = -x, it means that for a given value of x = A, f(x = A) = -A. The plot of f(x) = -x, is a straight line with a slope of -1. The standard equation for a straight line is y = mx + b, where m is the slope of the line and b is the y-intercept at x = 0. So the value of
f(0) = 0.

I do not remember who wrote that his algebra teacher did not like calling -x: negative x or minus x. I can understand not calling it minus x, but negative x it quite acceptable. On the other hand F(x) = 3 - x would be read as three minus x, but could also be written and F(x) =
3 + (-x), which would be read as three plus negative x. But in either case the mathematical sentence says the same thing.

Just remember, I thing Mark Dexter started this nonsense.

Of course - blame it all on Dexter!! :D

(However, I should know better than to argue with an engineer!)

And to think that I used to never think that any good ever came out of power outages! :D