this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
799 points (95.0% liked)

Science Memes

15943 readers
3652 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
 
(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Etterra@discuss.online 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Can somebody ELI5 this for my troglodyte writer brain?

[–] int_not_found@feddit.org 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] marcos@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Hum... I don't think the integral "operator" applies by multiplication.

You can put the dx at the beginning of the integral, but not before it.

[–] LeFrog@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] marcos@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Nobody on your link is treating the integral "operator" as multiplicative.

dx \int f(x) is blatantly different from \int f(x) dx

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Gods I wish I had a top to troll like this

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Droggelbecher@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Physicist behavior

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›