CURED - 2019-09-21

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2:06 AM

I'm not sure that I understand why an experience user would point out that a question is a duplicate, but then not vote to close it as such.

11 hours later…

user21820

12:40 PM

I can't make sense of this 'answer'. @XanderHenderson @RRL @JoséCarlosSantos

José Carlos Santos

1:11 PM

delete Not an answer

user21820

D1, D2, D3.

D4, D5, D6.

D7, D8, D9.

3 hours later…

Xander Henderson

4:00 PM

Not to be a nag, but perhaps we might consider discussing posts, not people? The discussion seems to have gotten a little off-topic.

TheSimpliFire

Indeed, I was about to mention that.

user21820

4:16 PM

C1, C2, C3.

C4, C5, C6.

C7, C8, C9.

C10, C11, C12.

C13, C14, C15.

@XanderHenderson Yup; back to cleaning up.

Xander Henderson

@user21820 :)

Xander Henderson

4:44 PM

@user21820 C9 is particularly egregious. There are several answers by high XP users, all of whom should know better, and there are numerous potential dupe targets in the sidebar. The question should have been (and still should be) closed for lack of context, but the answerers should have at least made the effort to find a duplicate target (of which there are likely hundreds on MSE).

@user21820 C13 probably needs special attention. It sat in the review queue long enough for all of the close votes on it to be invalidated, yet I have difficulty seeing why anyone would want to keep it around, even if we consider the idea that "older posts are held to a different standard."

@user21820 C15 is a common enough problem for students learning about the Pigeonhole principle that I suspect that we can find a duplicate. On the other hand, I find the answers to be fairly unsatisfactory, so perhaps the best alternative would be for me to post a new question which provides some additional context (though I am not sure what that context might be).

Xander Henderson

5:10 PM

Ugh... I can't find a good dupe target. :(

Tanner Swett

5:47 PM

Q: is there such thing as a "smallest positive number that isn't zero"?

My brother and I have been discussing whether it would be possible to have a "smallest positive number" or not and we have concluded that it's impossible. Here's our reasoning: Firstly, My brother discussed how you can always halve something, (1, 0.5, 0.25 etc.). I myself believe that it is impos...

Why was that closed as a duplicate of "What is the meaning of infinitesimal"? They seem like almost completely unrelated questions.

In particular, "Is there a smallest positive real number?" and "What does the word 'infinitesimal' mean?" are obviously different questions.

And none of the answers on "What is the meaning of infinitesimal?" seem to address the question of "Is there such a thing as the smallest positive number that isn't zero?" in any way at all.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I just voted to reopen.

Xander Henderson

6:29 PM

@TannerSwett (1) While the title questions are different "Is there a smallest positive number?" vs "What is an infinitesimal?", and while the emphasis is different, I think that the two questions are fundamentally related, and that answers to the question "What is an infinitesimal?" address the question about the existence of a smallest positive number.

So, while the questions are not exact duplicates of each other, I think that the question about smallest positive numbers is an abstract duplicate of the older question.

(2) I am curious about what brings this pair of questions to your attention now. Both questions are quite old, and most of the people involved (particularly with the newer question) seem to be long gone.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive title detected (53): Need help to see if I have drawn the good fucktion ✏️ by 16yokidtryingtolearnmath on math.SE

Tanner Swett

6:56 PM

@XanderHenderson Well, I think the answers on "infinitesimal?" fall short of answering the question in "smallest?". In particular, none of the answers on "infinitesimal?" state that for every positive real number, there is another real number which is smaller.

(Though one of the answers comes close. It defines a positive infinitesimal as a number smaller than $1/n$ for all positive integers $n$. It also states that the real numbers have no positive infinitesimals. These facts entail that for every positive real number, there is another smaller positive real number of the form $1/n$.)

Anyway, as for what brought it to my attention: I was looking at the top-voted questions with the tag [paradoxes] and "smallest?" was near the top.

2 hours later…

Xander Henderson

9:24 PM

GAH! SERIES IS SINGULAR! >:(

Q: Radius of convergence of a power serie

Can the radius of convergence of the expansions in power serie of a function be calculated from the expression of this function. For example the function $$f(x)=\sum_{n = 0}^{\infty} \frac{1}{2^n}\sum_{k = 0}^{2^n-1} e^{(k/2^n)x}$$