Small talk is shallow and has no relevance.
From the Latin trivialis , trivial is an adjective that allows us to name something common and known by everyone . It is something vulgarized, that does not stand out from the ordinary and that lacks importance or novelty.
For example: “I have never heard such a trivial political speech,” “I like reading Jorge Luis Borges because none of his books are trivial,” “Enough arguing, let's talk about something more trivial.”
The trivial is the opposite of the profound or novel . Trivial sayings can be ignored, because they do not contribute anything new or generate knowledge . That is why the adjective has denotes a certain contempt towards the noun it modifies. A literary or cinematographic criticism that describes a work as trivial makes it clear that it lacks depth, that it does not generate a great impact on its audience.
Origin of the idea of trivial
From the study of its etymology it can be seen that the term trivial represents the union of three subjects considered basic in the formation of the Middle Ages: logic, rhetoric and grammar. This preparation represented a path towards the most advanced disciplines, encompassed in the concept of quadrivium : arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.
It is interesting to analyze the deterioration that we have suffered at a cultural level, taking into account that the subjects that a millennium and a half ago were considered simple represent a great challenge for today's school population and that only a few consider putting a standing on the quadrivium ground.
It is common for public figures, in an interview, to respond in a trivial way to avoid controversy and conflict.
a game
Trivial Pursuit is, on the other hand, a board game that consists of answering general knowledge questions to advance. The inventors of the idea were sports editor Scott Abbott and photographer Chris Haney , and the game was released in 1981.
A few years later, Trivial Pursuit enjoyed considerable success in the United States. In 1988 , Parker Brothers , a game manufacturer and distributor, purchased its license. Statistics indicate that until 2004, nearly 88 million copies of this game, published in 17 languages , were sold.
Trivial Pursuit has six categories of questions , each identified with a color on the board: Art and Literature (brown), Science and Nature (green), Entertainment (pink), Geography (blue), History (yellow) and Leisure and Sport (orange).
Trivial in mathematics
For mathematics , the word trivial is often used to refer to objects or problems that exhibit a structure of very little complexity. It is worth mentioning that for people outside the world of numbers, whether due to lack of vocation or knowledge, this simplicity is not always obvious. On the other hand, situations that do not generate deep interest in those who study them but that must be pointed out when presenting a topic , simply because they are part of it, are also called trivial.
The latter usually occurs when an attempt is made to make a demonstration by mathematical induction (a reasoning that is based on an infinite set of integers that share a series of properties ), which is usually divided into two: a first part in which the in evidence that if a theorem holds for a value n , then it will also hold for its successive value ( n + 1); the attempt to verify the theorem for base (also called trivial) cases , which are usually " n = 0" or " n = 1."
Another case of triviality in mathematics can occur when trying to demonstrate that a certain property holds for all the elements of a set: first, we will proceed to check each element of a non-empty set ; If, on the other hand, the set were empty, then one could say that all its elements satisfy the property, since there would be no way to prove otherwise.