Just Another Update
All sorts of news from the last few weeks. Classes are going pretty well. The econ test yesterday was not bad, but walking out of the physics test today I felt like I'd just come out of an encounter with an angry weasal. Prof. Carone had promised us a formula sheet with everything we'd need on it. So when I studied, I would solve the problem,
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Professor: So if your polynomial only has even powers, then it's not so useful because you can factor it. See:
He writes (x^6+x^4+1) = (x^3+x^2+1)^2 on the board.
The class stares at him.
Daniella: What?
Professor: Well when you square a polynomial, you get each of the terms squared...
Daniella: Yeah....
Professor: And you get the cross-terms!
Daniella: Yeah.
Professor: And all the cross-terms have twos in them!!
Daniella: ???
Professor: And two equals zero!!!
He then turns back to the board and continues writing.
To be fair, we were working in a field where 1+1=0, but most of us had forgotten about that since the previous class. When he said that you could feel the class think about it (usually the conclusion to our thinking is: "Our professor is crazy!") and then it started to dawn on people. Although I know there are still a few members of the class who don't know why we can always take the square root of polynomials with even powers.
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