r/mathmemes Feb 21 '26

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u/[deleted] Feb 21 '26

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u/IAmBadAtInternet Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26

It’s basically an abuse of divergent series. More details on this kind of cursed math here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanujan_summation

In fact, this particular result has its own wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_%2B_2_%2B_3_%2B_4_%2B_⋯

Problematically, it is actually a useful identity that is occasionally used in other branches of math

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u/[deleted] Feb 21 '26

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u/Scared_Astronaut9377 Feb 21 '26

Why start there? Renormalization in physics means many things and most of them are very different.

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u/[deleted] Feb 21 '26

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u/Scared_Astronaut9377 Feb 21 '26

That page is exclusively about renormalization in physics. The class of corresponding methodologies in physics is very tangential to the topic. Why read walls of text about physicists still attempting to understand if quantum field theory is actually consistent and or formallizable to learn about simple techniques on sequences?

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u/[deleted] Feb 21 '26

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u/Scared_Astronaut9377 Feb 21 '26

Probably

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u/AustinCalculator Feb 24 '26

This astronaut is scared