Re: Does Mathematica think Sqrt[2] is rational?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg86680] Re: Does Mathematica think Sqrt[2] is rational?
- From: Sebastian Meznaric <meznaric at gmail.com>
- Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 04:49:42 -0500 (EST)
- References: <frkv66$109$1@smc.vnet.net>
On Mar 17, 5:22 am, magma <mader... at gmail.com> wrote: > This might be already well known, but... > > Consider the following expression > > expr = ForAll[{x, y}, x^2 != 2 y^2] > > If we test it over the Reals, it should be false, since x=Sqrt[2] and > y=1 falsify it. > Mathematica agrees with us > > Reduce[expr, {x, y}, Reals] > > However if we test it over the Integers or the Rationals it should be > true, as a demonstration that Sqrt[2] is not rational. > Mathematica , unfortunately, does not agree with us > > Reduce[expr, {x, y}, Integers] > > Reduce[expr, {x, y}, Rationals] > > So it appears that Mathematica thinks that there are 2 integers x, y > such that x^2 = 2 y^2. > Let's consider the negation of the previous expression > > expr2 = Exists[{x, y}, x^2 == 2 y^2] > > Mathematica correctly finds out that expr is true over the reals > > Reduce[expr2, {x, y}, Reals] > > But gives a wrong answer over the integers or the rationals > > Reduce[expr2, {x, y}, Integers] > > Reduce[expr2, {x, y}, Rationals] > > Finally, if we try the inequality without the quantifiers, the results > are not very illuminating with the Reals, but still correct > > Reduce[x^2 != 2 y^2, {x, y}, Reals] > > While with Integers Mathematica misses the point entirely > > Reduce[x^2 != 2 y^2, {x, y}, Integers] > > Conclusion : Mathematica does not seem to realize that Sqrt[2] is > irrational. > > Am I missing something or WRI has been infiltrated by > Pythagoreans :-) ? That's very strange. I tried this expr=Exists[{x, y}, x/y == Sqrt[2] ] Reduce[expr,Reals] gives True. For Reduce[expr,Integers] or over Rationals I get Reduce::nsmet: This system cannot be solved with the methods \ available to Reduce. Looks like for your particular definition it breaks. On my system Reduce[Exists[{x, y}, x^2 == 2 y^2], {x, y}, Integers] returns x \[Element] Integers && y \[Element] Integers which is of course ridiculous since it does not hold for all integer x and y.