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-   -   Las Matemáticas — Mathematics (http://forums.tomisimo.org/showthread.php?t=4869)

alx May 23, 2010 03:27 PM

Hi there, here's my opinion

@laepelba
We tend to say "metros por segundo" just like you do, even though it should be "metros por cada segundo" (same happens with other x/y units), accordingly with definition of m/s, it is the distance covered by an object for each second elapsed.

I don't know exactly why we say it that way (as children we are taught this), i guess it's a bad custom of ours.

I found this at Wikipedia:
Quote:

Nótese que en la rapidez, o en el valor de la velocidad, la dimensión del tiempo es inversa (m/s en lugar de m•s), por lo que la expresión «metro por segundo» significa «un metro por cada segundo», «un metro en cada segundo», o incluso «un metro dividido por segundo». No se debe confundir con «un metro multiplicado por segundo», lo cual no es una unidad de velocidad.

This is a rough traslation:
Notice that speed-wise, the time dimension is inverse (m/s instead of m*s), thus <<metros por segundo>> means <<un metro por cada segundo>>, «un metro en cada segundo», or even «un metro dividido por segundo».
This must not be mistaken for «un metro multiplicado por segundo» since that's not a speed measuring unit.
Hope it helps.
Let us know if any doubts still remain.

Regards

laepelba May 23, 2010 03:50 PM

Thanks, alx - helps a lot! :)

chileno May 23, 2010 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alx (Post 83555)
Hi there, here's my opinion

@laepelba
We tend to say "metros por segundo" just like you do, even though it should be "metros por cada segundo" (same happens with other x/y units), accordingly with definition of m/s, it is the distance covered by an object for each second elapsed.

Hi alx and laepelba:

That explanation should be the same one in English.

Maybe one tend not to think of things like this until one decides to learn another language, and that's when "idiolects* and idiotsyncracies" start to surface, in both languages.

*(term taught from pjt, I love it!) :)

laepelba June 30, 2010 05:04 PM

Okay, how about this one... In Geometry we talk about "conic sections": circles, parabolas, hyperbolas and ellipses.

Would the vocabulary be as follows?
Las secciónes conicas son los círculos, las parábolas, las hipérbolas, y las elipses.

:?::?::?::?:

chileno June 30, 2010 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by laepelba (Post 87582)
Okay, how about this one... In Geometry we talk about "conic sections": circles, parabolas, hyperbolas and ellipses.

Would the vocabulary be as follows?
Las secciónes conicas son los círculos, las parábolas, las hipérbolas, y las elipses.

:?::?::?::?:

¿Por qué no "Secciones cónicas: (los) círculos, (las) parábolas, (las) hipérbolas, y (las) elipses"? ;)

You got it.

laepelba October 30, 2010 04:12 AM

How about the word "countability" (In mathematics, a countable set is a set with the same cardinality (number of elements) as some subset of the set of natural numbers.) In Spanish, "countable" would be "contable" or "numerable", right? How about the noun form, then?

AngelicaDeAlquezar October 30, 2010 06:07 AM

My teachers never used any equivalent (we only talked about "conjuntos contables"), and although I've never seen the word used in this sense, the DRAE gives contabilidad".
I suppose it will be correct to say "la contabilidad de un conjunto", to talk about it's quality of being countable.

laepelba October 30, 2010 06:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AngelicaDeAlquezar (Post 98322)
My teachers never used any equivalent (we only talked about "conjuntos contables"), and although I've never seen the word used in this sense, the DRAE gives contabilidad".
I suppose it will be correct to say "la contabilidad de un conjunto", to talk about it's quality of being countable.

Thanks - that's what I thought. But the word "contabilidad" came in a "word of the day" email as "accounting" or "bookkeeping", and I wasn't sure if it also applied to more "pure" mathematics as "countability".

In the RAE, are you looking at: "Aptitud de las cosas para poder reducirlas a cuenta o cálculo." ?? I suppose the reason I wasn't sure about that particular definition was because it seemed to be *not* about pure mathematics.

Anyway, thanks for the answer. It's actually a word we use quite frequently, but ONLY in reference to sets of numbers.

aleCcowaN October 30, 2010 03:25 PM

rotor / rotacional = curl / rotor
divergencia = divergence
gradiente = gradient
nabla (del) = del (nabla)

irmamar October 31, 2010 05:32 AM

Un conjunto es contable o numerable si es finito. ;)


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