Thread: Math Puzzles
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Old 07-11-2022, 04:21 PM   #31
psyang
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86 View Post
Spoiler!
Haha, the old "exercise to the reader" argument. I remember in undergrad someone put together a list of different proof types. Along with common ones like "proof by induction" or "proof by contradiction" were "back of the textbook proof" and "proof by intimidation".

I think your method works, but you do have to prove that that one item is irrational. It certainly looks irrational, but how do you know for sure?

Maybe, to help further narrow the scope, I'll amend the problem one last time to say there exists 2 irrational algebraic numbers a and b such that a^b is rational.

Algebraic numbers are numbers that are solutions to P(x)=0 where P(x) is any polynomial in x with rational coefficients.
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