Science Forums 2

[Don Blazys]

In this topic, I will be making an extraordinarily "strange claim", almost unbelievable in fact, and it will be up to you, the reader, to decide if the properties of logarithms, strange as they may be, are telling us the truth!

So hold on to your hats and buckle your saftey belts, because you are about to embark on the strangest, wildest, and perhaps most wonderfull mathematical ride of your life!

Let all variables herein represent non-negative integers. Then, the recently discovered identity:

(T/T)a^x=T(a/T)^((xln(a)/(ln(T))-1)/(ln(a)/(ln(T))-1))

shows that it is algebraically impossible to "cross out" the cancelled T's. What does this mean to you? Should we stop teaching students to "cross out" cancelled factors and common factors? I say yes, and will present my reasons for doing so as this thread continues. What do you say?

Don.