Re:Making any integer with four 2s (2025)
by direwolf20 on Sunday November 08, 2026 @12:57AM
(#50410794)
It can be written as ²√2 and there's also ³√2 and so on
Re:Making any integer with four 2s (2025)
by schiffern on Sunday November 08, 2026 @06:04AM
(#50412211)
Yep.
It would be like if we had a stylistic convention that you can drop the second number in an addition and it becomes 1. So "6 +" means "6 + 1."
Now I can trivially make any number, but I'm just 'exploiting' a convenience feature of the notation:
0 = 2 + 2 - 2 - 2
1 = 2 + 2 - 2 - 2 +
2 = 2 + 2 - 2 - 2 + +
Etc
If we agree that 2^2 uses two twos (and, indeed, that 2^3 isn't valid, because it uses a 3), then what's the equivalent of a square root?
Of course to my simple math brain, a square root is ^1/2, which includes the digit 1. But I agree there is someone 2-ish about the square root.