Q:

What type of number gets a mathematician in trouble the most when trying to usefunction to model a real world situation? Why?

Accepted Solution

A:
Answer:Step-by-step explanation:Interesting question. Perhaps an inverse relationship. y = k/x where k is a constant like 10. The problem begins to become a problem when  x approaches 0 and that happens quite frequently. I would say as a class of numbers, 0 is the most problematic. 0 was developed about 1100 years after the death of Christ so the concept is pretty subtle. The Romans had no value for 0 as a place holder. 2019 for them was not written with anything that resembled a zero. (MMXIX is how they would write it). That's got to be very awkward when giving parts of an inch in their engineering drawings.The second group that probably causes some trouble would be the irrationals. pi for one. sqrt(3) for another.  That took a while to develop as well.