What was your favourite subject in school?

@helenS Unless, of course, the equation is in y! 😄

@DrWatson At school, everything was in X. For whatever reason.

I cried when I understood that x*exp(x)=2 cannot be solved for x. Honest, true. Other girls cried because of their boyfriends, I cried because of an equation that can't be solved. 😐️

@helenS As a math nerd myself, I am impressed by that! Actually, the equation does have a solution, but the solution is an irrational number and can never be written down exactly. After reading your reply, I started playing around on my calculator. An approximation to the solution is x = .85263. If you plug it in, you get .85263*exp(.85263)= 2.000106.....(and with repeated trial and error, you can get better and better accuracy.)

The exact solution is a real number -- we just do not have a name for the number (like pi or square root of 2). Its decimal digits go on forever with no repeating pattern, so all we can do is write down approximations.

@helenS Why has this been labeled as "sensitive"?? It's totally candid! 😳

@helenS Ah. I was not sure how much math you knew, so please forgive my rather naive response to you. (math nerds are a rare breed here!)

@DrWatson "math nerds are a rare breed here!)
— Yes, we are the few, the proud... and math girls are extremely popular did you know that? 😁

@helenS I would hope so!!!!!!!

@DrWatson That's because everybody knows we are volcanos under ice!