@LionJim, prove me wrong

IrishHerb

Senior
Oct 13, 2021
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Did you know that 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... = -1/8? Here is why ...

Let X = 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+ 8+9+10+... then
X = 1+(2+3+4)+(5+6+7)+(8+9+10)+ ...
X = 1+9+18+27+...
X = 1+9(1+2+3+...)
X = 1+9X
X-9X = 1
-8X = 1
X=-1/8
 

psuro

Heisman
Aug 24, 2001
9,370
20,520
113
Facebook? What’s that?
It's a book.....for your face.....

Girl Eye Roll GIF
 

NittPicker

Heisman
Jun 30, 2001
6,151
13,005
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Did you know that 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... = -1/8? Here is why ...

Let X = 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+ 8+9+10+... then
X = 1+(2+3+4)+(5+6+7)+(8+9+10)+ ...
X = 1+9+18+27+...
X = 1+9(1+2+3+...)
X = 1+9X
X-9X = 1
-8X = 1
X=-1/8

Pretty cool, had never seen it before. Wild that someone bothered to come up with something like this. The mistake is in sixth line, as infinity minus infinity is undefined.
I'm a math dummy. Ask my high school teacher. But with all due respect to those of you who have spent your lives solving problems much more difficult than me adding up my 150 golf score, wouldn't the mistake be in line #1?? It was always my understanding that X equals an unknown but discoverable quantity which can be found by applying the order of operations to the equation. OTOH, since infinity cannot be defined and isn't discoverable, it cannot be called X. Therefore, line #1 is an impossibility. X ≠ ∞.

∞ = 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10..... That would be correct and would need no further analysis.
 

LionJim

Heisman
Oct 12, 2021
15,015
20,859
113
I'm a math dummy. Ask my high school teacher. But with all due respect to those of you who have spent your lives solving problems much more difficult than me adding up my 150 golf score, wouldn't the mistake be in line #1?? It was always my understanding that X equals an unknown but discoverable quantity which can be found by applying the order of operations to the equation. OTOH, since infinity cannot be defined and isn't discoverable, it cannot be called X. Therefore, line #1 is an impossibility. X ≠ ∞.
Great try. Infinity can be defined. X equals infinity if X is greater than every natural number. Pretty good try, actually, kudos.
 

LionJim

Heisman
Oct 12, 2021
15,015
20,859
113
Get back to me when you guys solve Collatz Conjecture. I'll wait. 🤪
Had never heard of it. It's hard for me to believe that it hasn't yet been proven.

Start with any natural number greater than 1, call it x. There's an algorithm for creating a new number, if x is even, let the next number be x/2; if x is odd, let the next number be 3x+1. The Collatz Conjecture says that you'll eventually hit 1.

Example: x=9. Then the sequence will be 9, 28, 14, 7, 22, 11, 34, 17, 52, 26, 13, 40, 20, 10, 5, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1.
 
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Nittering Nabob

All-Conference
Sep 17, 2024
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Did you know that 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... = -1/8? Here is why ...

Let X = 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+ 8+9+10+... then
X = 1+(2+3+4)+(5+6+7)+(8+9+10)+ ...
X = 1+9+18+27+...
X = 1+9(1+2+3+...)
X = 1+9X
X-9X = 1
-8X = 1
X=-1/8
Are all leprechauns this poor at math?

Your first four (4) “equations” were essentially

X = ∞

WTF? 🤷🏼‍♂️
 
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LionJim

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Oct 12, 2021
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While we’re all gathered here, a birthday shout-out to Charlie Fefferman, one of the really great ones. One of U Maryland’s most illustrious graduates, along with Jim Henson and Sergey Brin. Fefferman was a child prodigy, makes for a good read.

Fefferman won the Fields Medal when he was 29, the second youngest ever, I believe. (Serre was 27.)

 
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LionJim

Heisman
Oct 12, 2021
15,015
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Since Lion Jim has his pencil and paper handy, I always wondered about this. If you look at the attached chart, 29/64 is 0.453125. From the right side, ,5 is on the chart (1/2). .25 is on, .125 is 1/8, .3125 is on, .53125 is on. This happens with every number on the chart. It can't be coincidence, can it?

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/85/b1/0d/85b10dec902de5641693decd22097b92.jpg
I get what you’re trying to say. I’m off to the gym now, will get back to it. Should be fun. Confident it’s not a coincidence, if I do understand correctly.

I once went to a meeting of the American Mathematical Society and after five minutes on the first day my sign language interpreter turned to me and said, “I’ve been to a thousand of these meetings. At every non-math meeting when people greet each other it’s all How was your flight? How is little Debbie adjusting to her braces? That kind of thing. Here, they go straight up to each other and start talking math.” I was way way into literature when I was growing up and really really wish I had that time back for math.
 
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LionJim

Heisman
Oct 12, 2021
15,015
20,859
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Since Lion Jim has his pencil and paper handy, I always wondered about this. If you look at the attached chart, 29/64 is 0.453125. From the right side, ,5 is on the chart (1/2). .25 is on, .125 is 1/8, .3125 is on, .53125 is on. This happens with every number on the chart. It can't be coincidence, can it?

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/85/b1/0d/85b10dec902de5641693decd22097b92.jpg
The increments are in units of 1/64=0.015625 and the last two digits of this is 25, so any multiple of 1/64 will end with a multiple of 25, namely 00, 25, 50, 75.
 

slwlion

Freshman
Oct 14, 2021
67
99
17
Did you know that 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... = -1/8? Here is why ...

Let X = 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+ 8+9+10+... then
X = 1+(2+3+4)+(5+6+7)+(8+9+10)+ ...
X = 1+9+18+27+...
X = 1+9(1+2+3+...)
X = 1+9X
X-9X = 1
-8X = 1
X=-1/8
I'm going on the Panther lair. You younguns are too much for me. I never got passed casting out nines. lol
 

ApexLion

Heisman
Nov 1, 2021
6,093
10,406
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Pretty cool, had never seen it before. Wild that someone bothered to come up with something like this. The mistake is in sixth line, as infinity minus infinity is undefined.
Boo-ya math slap down! You like apples?
 
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