A disturbing trend
 

I noticed something recently, and I find it rather terrifying. The higher you get in math, the more letters begin to replace numbers. I'm not just talking about as variables, but things such as the number E. This alone isn't that disturbing, however if you factor in 1337, then you see that letters have begun being replaced with numbers. The only way I can see this ending is with some bastard system of speech and counting containing the same set of numbers and letters. English is ended! Run for the hills.

The ancient Greeks had no numeral system to speak of. They used their letters and added some sort of curly thingy on the end to signify that the letter was going to be a number.

Notice how there arent' any more ancient Greeks.

and our society is following this trend....I'm going back to building my Y2K bunker now...

My math tutor once showed me a college level econ problem. There were no numbers. None. At all.

Oh you should see vector Calculus. Sure there are letters but there are so many numbers it's crazy. Like there are a few ways of writing equations that consist of nothing but numbers and these things <>. Keeping things straight can get a little hard.

Edit: Want to see something scary. This is the first page of a three page General Relativity equation dealing with a simplified 2D environment. Just to give you an ideal of how complex equations can get.

I think the valuable lesson that we can all learn from this is to take more Humanities courses. Avoid the "maths" and "sciences" like the plague. No one ever uses them anyway. I mean, come on... Science? Psh! What has science done for us in the past millenia? And math?! Don't get me started! Math most certainly and undeniably and unquestionably and undoubtedly has not done the human race any good or advanced any field of study or benefitted in the construction of fine architecture. Leave those types of courses for the masochists.

Because cool people only take history and wish they were good at math...

The day 'leet' replaces any language is the day when the aliens come down to destroy mankind...and I cheer for the aliens.

And I'll join you.

That equation looks fun, Sithdarth. How long does it take to solve, a month?

In calculus, they ran out of letters. i'm serious. They had to start using Greek letters because everything from a-z has been taken. I challenge someone to come up with a letter that hasn't been used. It starts with simple things like pi and theta, which represent angles and circular mathematics. But soon, you'll be using sigma (a new way of using addition) Phi and Rho (more angles in 3 dimensions) and alpha, which is used in numerous different applications.

btw, our "Calculus Club" t-shirt: http://www.scienceteecher.com/whatpartlrg.html

What's the big deal? AHHH! They are using different variable names so equations are easier to understand when you look at them. "X" can be anything, but theta is almost always a radian/degree. Physics would be impossible if variables weren't set.
I haven't done a math problem with an answer that was strictly numerical in years. If it is too hard, we could all switch to binary so words and numbers are in the same format?