Tuesday, December 25, 2001

this following is an excerpt from the fascinating book href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140296476/deftonecom">Zero
: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife

assume:


   a = 1

   b = 1


since a = b, then


   (eq. 1)   b² = ab


a equals itself, so:


   (eq. 2)   a² = a²


subtract eq. 1 from eq. 2:


   (eq. 3)   a² - b² = a² - ab


factoring both sides gives:


   (eq. 4)   (a + b)(a - b) = a(a - b)


now divide both sides by (a - b) and we get


   (eq. 5)   a + b = a


subtract a from both sides we get


   (eq. 6)   b = 0


but we set b to 1 at the very beginning, so this means that


   1 = 0


so what's wrong with the proof?


(yes, i'm aware i'm a dork)

comments:

a / a = 1

posted by MJ

man...i love that book. my grade 10 math teacher showed us this...but that was a long time ago. i forget...which sucks.


I think, technically, you can't divide by (a-b) because you can't divide by zero...

posted by eeeeep.

yup, that's it. if there was a prize i'd give it to you, but there's not, so i won't :P

posted by pinder

I found something like this when I was in High School:

10 / 3 = 3.3^
but
3.3^ * 3 = 9.9^

But it was just as simple to solve:

10 / 3 = 1/3
1/3 *3 =10

posted by Fëanor

*sniff* i wanted a prize...

posted by eeeeep.

you are so rad pinder! so the rumors are true you are the 11th wonder of the world.
xoxoxo
suejon

posted by suejon

pinder, you bastage. that is an old problem.

on an unrealted topic, i was watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas today.

these are the sorts of math problems we would all be doing if the Nazis had won world war two.

posted by josh

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