http://blog.mathsian.io/enSun, 29 Jan 2017 14:13:18 GMTNikola (getnikola.com)http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rsshttp://blog.mathsian.io/posts/wowing-without-warping/Ian Dickerson<div tabindex="-1" id="notebook" class="border-box-sizing"> <div class="container" id="notebook-container"> <div class="cell border-box-sizing text_cell rendered"> <div class="prompt input_prompt"> </div> <div class="inner_cell"> <div class="text_cell_render border-box-sizing rendered_html"> <p>I'm usually a big fan of <a href="http://www.numberphile.com">Numberphile</a> but their <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww">most recent video</a> was disappointing for me. If you haven't seen it, it's titled "ASTOUNDING: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + ... = -1/12". You should definitely watch it, because it's really interesting. So what's the problem?</p> <p>The thing is, there are lots of counterintuitive results in maths and physics. There are lots of moments of wonder that our students should experience and enjoy and understand. This is potentially one of them. But the wow in this video pivots on a deceipt that is never addressed: that there is a consistent meaning of sum for a divergent sequence which corresponds either to our intuition or to our regular definition of adding. </p><p><a href="http://blog.mathsian.io/posts/wowing-without-warping/">Read more…</a> (2 min remaining to read)</p></div></div></div></div></div>infinityserieshttp://blog.mathsian.io/posts/wowing-without-warping/Mon, 01 Jun 2015 18:09:53 GMT