Comment on $1$

RustyNova@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@anarchist.nexus ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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  • HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Ahhhh Ramanujan summation. The Forsythe plausabilities but with regards to polynumerstatistical deprecations. Hortense Guildmeier is rolling in his grave!

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    • tdawg@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Those are words

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      • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I’m not sure they are!

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  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    That made about as much sense to me as when Wesley saves the ship by reversing the polarity of the navigational deflector array.

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• cAUzapNEAGLb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  leightonvw.com/…/if-you-add-up-all-the-positive-n…

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  • Klear@piefed.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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    • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@anarchist.nexus ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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).

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      • i_love_FFT@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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…

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    • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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  • khannie@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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