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"Trivial" doesn't exclusively mean "easy", though it is often used as a euphemism like that.

In a literal sense, it very well may have been trivial, even if neither you nor the professor would have been able to easily show it.



What's your definition of trivial?

The one I've always flown with is, trivial means (1) a special case of a more general theory (2) which flattens many of the extra frills and considerations of the general theory and (3) is intuitively clear ("easy") to appreciate and compute.

From this perspective, everything is trivial from the relative perspective of a god. I know of no absolute definition of trivial.


It originally hails from the trivium: the grammar, logic and rhetoric taught to beginner students.


the absolute definition of trivial is trivial to show




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