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Finagle's law of dynamic negatives (also known as Melody's law, Sod's Law or Finagle's corollary to Murphy's law) is usually rendered as "Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment." The term "Finagle's law" was first used by John W. Campbell Jr., the influential editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later Analog).
If n is a negative integer, is defined only if x has a multiplicative inverse. [37] In this case, the inverse of x is denoted x −1, and x n is defined as (). Exponentiation with integer exponents obeys the following laws, for x and y in the algebraic structure, and m and n integers:
The adage was a submission credited in print to Ronald M. Hanlon of Bronx, New York , in a compilation of various jokes related to Murphy's law published in Arthur Bloch's Murphy's Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong! (1980). [1] A similar quotation appears in Robert A. Heinlein's novella Logic of Empire (1941). [2]
The law of non-contradiction (alternately the 'law of contradiction' [20]): 'Nothing can both be and not be.' [19] The law of excluded middle: 'Everything must either be or not be.' [19] In accordance with the law of excluded middle or excluded third, for every proposition, either its positive or negative form is true: A∨¬A.
When exponents were introduced in the 16th and 17th centuries, they were given precedence over both addition and multiplication and placed as a superscript to the right of their base. [2] Thus 3 + 5 2 = 28 and 3 × 5 2 = 75. These conventions exist to avoid notational ambiguity while allowing notation to remain brief. [4]
To find the number of negative roots, change the signs of the coefficients of the terms with odd exponents, i.e., apply Descartes' rule of signs to the polynomial = + + This polynomial has two sign changes, as the sequence of signs is (−, +, +, −) , meaning that this second polynomial has two or zero positive roots; thus the original ...
The six most common definitions of the exponential function = for real values are as follows.. Product limit. Define by the limit: = (+).; Power series. Define e x as the value of the infinite series = =! = + +! +! +! + (Here n! denotes the factorial of n.
This can be generalized to rational exponents of the form / by applying the power rule for integer exponents using the chain rule, as shown in the next step. Let y = x r = x p / q {\displaystyle y=x^{r}=x^{p/q}} , where p ∈ Z , q ∈ N + , {\displaystyle p\in \mathbb {Z} ,q\in \mathbb {N} ^{+},} so that r ∈ Q {\displaystyle r\in \mathbb {Q} } .