Math Forum / Mathematics / Undergraduate Math / November 2008

Those who know how I use the newsgroups know that I like to put out
early research results to help in critiquing them.  It speeds things
up.  For years I've worked at finding a new way to factor with so many
failed approaches that I have often been nearly at my own limit, so

Definition: A compactification of a topological space X is a pair (Y,phi) satisfying:
(1) phi:X->Y is a continuous map
(2) Y is compact
(3) phi(X) is dense in Y

The great thing about my research into factoring is that it lets you
solve for f_1 when f_1*f_2 = nT, where T is the target to be factored,
and n is an integer control variable.
f_1 = ak mod p and f_2 = a^{-1}(1 + a^2)k mod p

Is anyone besides myself having difficulty reading sci.math posts? I
haven't seen any new posts for at least 24 hours, which seems
unlikely, yet other groups such as this are OK.
--Lynn

I have a feeling that my questions are again pointless and that I'm just nitpicking, but I do have a problem distinguishing between what's important and what isn't
I started learning linear functions and so far the subject seems reasonably easy, but there are some confusions with ...

All human beings do things from emotion.  Emotion is what drives you,
without it, you do nothing.  Emotion demands a goal to satisfy the
emotion so you can have a new one, to be driven to do something else.
Understanding what drives you is the first step in figuring out how

How do I show using the angle sum formulars that cos pi/12 is 1/4(sqrt
(6)+sqrt(2))?
Lars

Remarkably the seemingly well-known quadratic equation
z^2 = y^2 + nT
can be analyzed rather thoroughly with a solution for z using some
basic algebra.  That solution for z is

If I place a hundred evenly spaced points on the circumference of a circle, radius 1, and then randomly choose three points from the hundred, how do I determine the expected area of the triangle formed by the three points?

Hi, I've been given data which is grouped into age groups, ie 0-10, 11-18, 19-40, 50-70, over 70. I'm wanting to transform this and understand that I cannot simple do this by changing them to 1,2,3,4,5. Any ideas??
Thanks
Teegs

As a physics undergrad I remember being taught that the "hidden
variables" idea for physics was not considered to be valuable though
it had its proponents, and now many years later I'm fascinated by what
might otherwise be considered "pure math", where it has me re-thinking

Can someone help me write the following sequence in closed form
without resulting to a recurrence relation?
-6, -2, 0, 1, 3/2, ... (+4, +2, +1, +1/2, ....)
Also, how does one know if a non-recursive closed form exists for a

Let A be the adjacency matrix of the path with n verties, then how to count A^n. Any solution is appreciate, i have think it for a long time.

A function is well behaved relation. But why do we need to specifically expose functions and treat them as 'more special relations' and even give them special notation?
Thus why do we find functions so much more useful than other relations?
Just because they enable us to draw ...

The usefulness of the factoring equations in terms of how effective
they are against large numbers still remains to be determined,
however, a fairly simple algorithm using them is readily apparent.
Given a target composite T to be factored, first find a prime number p