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A comment on The Point of the Banach-Tarski Theorem. Parent comment

Re:The Point of the Banach-Tarski Theorem by quchen on Monday January 23, 2023 @05:24AM (#34487224)
Had a laugh about that too. It’s sometimes hard to tell what’s »non-technical« when you’ve spent a lot of time on something, and even then what it means to be »technical« depends a lot on the audience. Non-technical here means knows basic math but is not familiar with measure theory; it does not mean _anyone_.

I like that they added my favorite math joke in their (linked at the very top) limited audience jokes section [1] (bottom left, starts with »Two mathematicians are in a bar«), which is also a about what basic math knowledge is.

[1]: https://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/LimitedAudienceJokes.html

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Re:The Point of the Banach-Tarski Theorem by yellowapple on Monday January 23, 2023 @10:06PM (#34498629)
> Non-technical here means knows basic math but is not familiar with measure theory; it does not mean _anyone_.

I guess "knows basic math" is relative; I tend to draw the "basic" line at "it's required for a high school diploma or GED", but I suppose I can blame my country's education system for that bar being much lower than what mathematicians seem to assume :)

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