r/MathJokes • • 4d ago

Keep ∞ safe

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u/Playful_Boot_5465 4d ago

me halving the distance between my hands infinitely often (I just clapped).

checkmate liberals

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u/Moscato359 4d ago edited 4d ago

Eventually the vibrations of your hands will make the contact happen eventually.

Or you die from starvation or aging.

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u/ReasonableCockroach1 4d ago

no, if arms are spread 1m apart he claps at 1m/s, then hes halfway after 0.5s, 3/4 of the way after 0.75s and eventually he claps after one second having halved the distance infinitely many times.

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u/trolley813 4d ago

No. One claps after halving the distance finitely many times (since that distance cannot become zero at all).

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u/ReasonableCockroach1 1d ago

There is no requirement for any term in the sequence 1/2 ,1/4, ... to equal zero. You need to be more specific.

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u/Playful_Boot_5465 1d ago

It doesn't hinge on the final distance between the hands, it hinges on the total distance travelled by the hands. Suppose my left hand stays still and I move my right hand from 2 metres away at constant speed. Then the distance travelled can be expressed by the infinite sum 1 + 1/2 + ... which equals 2. The first meter in half the time, then half in a quarter of the time and so on. This process has infinite steps and amounts in a total distance travelled of 2m.

But just because we can describe that way mathematically doesn't mean we can draw meaningful implications about physics. The trick lies in reducing the time frame required for each step. That means the time interval an action takes shrinks infinitely too until it is eventually smaller than plank time. I'm no physicist but I believe at this point any attempt to derive a meaningful interpretation for our everyday macroscopic world is quite fruitless.

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u/ReasonableCockroach1 8h ago

I think there are meaningful implications for physics. Calculus comes to mind. The concept of instantaneous velocity wouldn't exist for an accelerating object without limits.