Comment on $1$
RustyNova@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
I get the physics one but not the math one
cAUzapNEAGLb@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Klear@piefed.world 9 hours ago
Oh, good. There’s a Numberphile video on it linked at the end. That gives me much better odds of understanding this than just reading the article.
PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@anarchist.nexus 8 hours ago
Actually, the Numberphile video is notorious for lacking mathematical rigor. Mathologer did a video on it. IMO, it’s really really important to explain the difference between what’s going on here (assigning a number to a divergent series) and what we ordinarily do (computing the limit of a sequence of partial sums).
i_love_FFT@jlai.lu 3 hours ago
There was a full on mathematical war on YouTube, with numberphile coming back later to show that most partial sum methods also end up at -1/12.
As a science nerd, mathologer basically just took the camp of “old concensus” and gave no other argument than “this is alien math, nope, I don’t like it”. It just felt like mathologer was Pythagoras fighting against irrational numbers…
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 8 hours ago
There have been some claims that the numberphile video is very misrepresentative of the underlying math. But I never dug deep enough into it.
khannie@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Feels like a risky click. I’m not sure my worldview can take any more shattering. It’s already shattered I tell you. SHATTERED.
PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@anarchist.nexus 9 hours ago
The math one uses the fact that 1 + 2 + 3 + … “=” -1/12, where the equality is in the sense of Ramanujan summation. Classically, the series diverges, so using the equality sign is a bit deceptive. However, in some contexts, it is meaningful to assign a sum to divergent series.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
That made about as much sense to me as when Wesley saves the ship by reversing the polarity of the navigational deflector array.
HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca 8 hours ago
Ahhhh Ramanujan summation. The Forsythe plausabilities but with regards to polynumerstatistical deprecations. Hortense Guildmeier is rolling in his grave!
tdawg@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Those are words
RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I’m not sure they are!