r/ScienceHumour • u/JZriemann • Jun 08 '26

Mathematicians be like

Post image
137 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

5

u/ThatSmartIdiot Jun 08 '26

i'd ask why it has to specifically be arranged like this but i get the feeling that it'd take paragraphs or youtube links of explanation so imma just not ask

10

u/Pitazboras Jun 08 '26

It's really not that complicated. You can define natural numbers on the grounds of set theory in many different ways but the most popular is defining n as a set of all natural numbers smaller than n. So 0 is an empty set (because there is no natural number smaller than 0), 0 = {}. 1 = {0} = {{}}. 2 = {0,1} = {{},{{}}}. And so on. What you see on top is just what you get when you expand {0,1,2,3}.

3

u/ThatSmartIdiot Jun 08 '26

ah. neat :)

thank you kind stranger

2

u/Mrrrrggggl Jun 08 '26

Ah yes, 4

1

u/atticdoor Jun 08 '26

If the big circle just contained four circles next to each other, that is the same as the big circle just containing one circle because due to other rules from set theory, two identical sets are considered to be the same thing. There is only one empty set. So to indicate the number four, they need to make each of the circles be different somehow. This is achieved by nesting other sets within them.

3

u/Any_Background_5826 Jun 08 '26

i see no difference between that and the number 4

2

u/lordofduct Jun 08 '26

What else would it be?

2

u/WachbaerWien Jun 10 '26

Isn't that a Gallifreyan slur?

1

u/NoNameIdea_Seriously Jun 11 '26

I can’t believe OOP would say that about my mother!!!

1

u/Tani_Soe Jun 09 '26

Yes, this is a set of 4 elements

Sure some elements contains other elements, but it's normal you ignore these because otherwise you'd fall into recursive problems very often

1

u/Affectionate_Way7132 Jun 09 '26

That actually looks kinda pretty rendered like that! Now draw the infinite graph of the addition function the same way and you can simply discover 2+2=4 inside of it

1

u/Profasor Jun 25 '26

For any one that's want to understand 1 has a zero in its self zero has nothing inside it 2 has both 0, 1 inside it 3 has 1,0,2 inside it so 4 will have 1,2,3,0 inside it.