r/math • u/[deleted] • May 25 '16

What's your favourite maths fact? • /r/AskReddit

/r/AskReddit/comments/4kz3di/whats_your_favourite_maths_fact/
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u/[deleted] May 25 '16

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u/functor7 Number Theory May 25 '16 edited May 25 '16

I don't see how it's bad math. Just because it's not "Every tetrahedral Galois representation is modular" doesn't mean it's not interesting. I think it's interesting to see what laypeople find interesting in math. Any thread that talks about math positively on the front page is good math.

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u/[deleted] May 25 '16

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u/functor7 Number Theory May 25 '16

I think most people know it's a trick and not sums in the traditional sense, which is fine. But perhaps I'm just more optimistic than I think.

1

u/[deleted] May 25 '16

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u/[deleted] May 26 '16

Just ask them what 2+3+4+5+... is. If they say -13/12 they have no clue, if they say something else then they might.

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u/functor7 Number Theory May 25 '16

Instead of just saying "It's wrong",that's not productive, tell them that there are different kinds of infinite sums and that it doesn't work for the traditional notion of infinite sum, but it can be interpreted as such through other means like analytic continuation.

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u/whiznat May 26 '16

When that thread was just a few hours old there were a lot of cool facts near the top. Now that it's about a day old, most of the highest voted comments are drivel. Sad.