Talk:2042: Rolle's Theorem

Now we wait for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munroes_theorem. 172.69.54.165 15:51, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Can't wait to see how long it takes to remove the article. Linker (talk) 17:05, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposed ideas for Munroe's Law:

- Any seemingly simple idea will be difficult to prove; the simpler it seems, the harder the proof.

- Any proof which is discovered by a layperson will have been previously discovered by an expert (or an "expert") in the field.

Raj-a-Kiit (talk) 17:57, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I do not have the time to do it good, so here a suggestion: Would someone go to the wikipedia page of Rolle's theorem and add a "in popular culture" section? may be a first? Not even "Nash equilibrum" has that :-) 162.158.234.16 08:13, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I feel like Euclid beat Randall to the punch here, a couple millennia. 162.158.155.146 16:54, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't see that Thales has proven Randall's theorem. Do not to be confused with Thales's theorem, that's about right angles. Maybe I'm blind or just dumb, but if so it has to be explained with more traceable background. I just believe that this diagonal is so trivial that even the ancient Greeks weren't engaged on a proof. --Dgbrt (talk) 21:38, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

• From Wikipedia: Other quotes from Proclus list more of Thales' mathematical achievements: "They say that Thales was the first to demonstrate that the circle is bisected by the diameter, the cause of the bisection being the unimpeded passage of the straight line through the centre." Alexei Kopylov (talk) 05:39, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
• On the other hand not all historian believe Proclus. But van der Waerden does: [1]. Alexei Kopylov (talk) 05:49, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Rolle's Theorem counterexample?

Isn't the TAN(x) function a counterexample to this? Starting at a given point, it rises to infinity, then returns from negative infinity to the same point without ever having a slope of zero. 172.68.58.89 06:58, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

TAN(x) isn't differentiable at pi/2, hence the theorem doesn't apply--162.158.92.40 07:48, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

And tan(x) has a slope of 0 at pi, so even if it applied, it wouldn't prove it wrong. A better example would be 1/x, but still invalid. Fabian42 (talk) 08:01, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Nope: tan(x) has a slope of 1 at pi, and its slope is never less than 1. Of course, that doesn't make it a counterexample. Zetfr 09:17, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

The math in the comic is well explained, but shouldn't there be something about the "math equivalent of the clueless art museum visitor..." part? Zetfr 09:17, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Just so we're on the same page, while the proof of Rolle's theorem is not completely trivial, neither is it difficult by any means. Proving it seems to be a pretty common homework assignment in undergrad math classes, for example, so one might legitimately ask why it deserved to be named. Perhaps it's simply that it's old enough that the methods at the time were crappy, and so modern proofs are much easier. 172.69.22.140