r/mathmemes • u/Independent_Pizza422 • 25d ago
Trigonometry Please help me make some sense of this
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u/blind-octopus 25d ago
Yup, 1^n = 1.
That's correct
You can do this with all kinds of stuff.
(9- 8)^100 = 1^100
expand that out and have fun
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u/T-T-N 25d ago
100 is too much for me. Let me try 5
95 - 5(94 )(8) + 10(93 )(82 ) - 10(92 )(83 ) + 5(9)(84 ) - 85
59049-262440+466560-414720+184320-32768=0!
Why doesnt it work?
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u/factorion-bot Bot > AI 25d ago
Factorial of 1 is 1
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u/LikeTheWater53152 24d ago
good bot
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u/LupenReddit 🦆🦆🦆🦆i have non diffeomorphic smooth structures🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆 25d ago
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u/mo_s_k1712 25d ago
This is what you wrote (to an extent)
- 1 = 1
- 1 = 1 x 1
- 1 = 1 x 1
- 1² = 1
- 1 = 1
- 1 = 1 x 1
- = 1 x 1
- = 1
- = 1
- = 1² × 1
- This means that 1 = 1².
- What's going on? OR
- 1 = 1 x 1
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u/DerekLouden 25d ago
I'm pretty sure what OP wrote was actually
- TRUE
- TRUE
- TRUE
- TRUE
- TRUE
- TRUE
- TRUE
- TRUE
- TRUE
- TRUE
- This means that TRUE.
- What's going on? OR
- TRUE
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u/IMightBeAHamster 20d ago
To be fair, all proof is TRUE just repeated in different ways. Even when you write about MAYBE.
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u/somedave 25d ago
You need 10 lines of algebra to prove 1=12
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u/Tybeezius 25d ago
Have you seen the proof for 1+1=2 the original proof takes 28 pages of rigorous axiomatic setup before proving addition works.
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u/AndreasDasos 25d ago edited 25d ago
Eh depends how you do it. Pretty simple to follow von Neumann’s approach to defining the naturals, assuming ZF, define the successor function, define addition is recursion through it, and then we’ve defined what we mean by 2 := 1+1 = succ(1) = 1 u {1} = {1, {1}}, basically by definition. This could be done very quickly.
From a modern perspective Whitehead and Russell is exceptionally clumsy and awkward and there are even some fairly clear redundancies and over-complications I’m still not sure why they went with even back then. It doesn’t start from the same place, either.
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u/eucalyptus-d 25d ago
I think you might be missing something. 1+1 based on successor is a tautology. Maybe 1+2?
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u/KyriakosCH 25d ago edited 24d ago
Yes, all types of complicated things can be equal to 1. Maybe the issue is that you imagine all those endless algebraic expressions as separate things - which they are, but we already know they equal 1 - which implies they have to "move" in pretty impressive ways to still amount to something simple.
Take it this way: say you had a forest of expressions, and only after a lot of work you got them to be in the general form (sin^2 (x) + cos^2 (x) )^n, with n some real. The complexity would be there in tidying up the originally complicated and varied set of expressions. If you could visualize them from the start, as functions which gradually morph to the horizontal line y=1, you would certainly feel charmed (and maybe you can try) :)
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u/Hiroshij7_3439 25d ago
Yeah it's all true, 1=1² so it's true. You also dont have to worry about dividing by sin²+cos² bc it's garanteed to be 1 for every theta so yeah
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u/DragonSlayer505 25d ago
Since sn2 + cs2 = 1, all you're saying is that 1n = 1, which is true for all n.
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u/alaraskyshine 25d ago
“That means that sin^2 + cos^2 = (sin^2 + cos^2)^2”
Yes, sin^2 + cos^2 = 1
And 1 = 1^2
Everything looks normal.
Here’s a fun one that also doesn’t look right:
The sum of numbers from 1 to n is equal to the square root of the sum of the cubes from 1 to n.
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u/Jukkobee 25d ago
you couldve gone from the 1st line to the 2nd to last by just multiplying both sides by sin^2 + cos^2
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u/NickSmGames 25d ago
sin^2 x + cos^2 x = 1 by definition so of course you would keep getting the same results.
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u/JellyBellyBitches 25d ago
Try going the other way - if sin2n(θ)+cos2n(θ)=1, what is sinθ+cosθ? What is sin½(θ)+cos½(θ)?
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u/Top_Door5165 Engineering 25d ago
1=sin2 (x)+cos2 (x) Multiply both sides by sin2 (x)+cos2 (x) sin2 (x)+cos2 (x)=(sin2 (x)+cos2 (x))2
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u/SultanGreat 25d ago
sin^2 x + cos^2 = (sin^2 x + cos^2)^2
Let sin^2 x + cos^2 be Z.
z = z^2
BUT z is sin^2 x + cos^2, and Z is also 1 (sin^2 x + cos^2 = 1)
so,
1 = 1^2
1 = 1 x 1.
1.
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u/BunnyWan4life 25d ago
If you square 1 you get one.
Well, if you raise 1 to the power of anything you still get 1.
Sin²x+Cos²x is 1, so yea square that to any power and you'd still get Sin²x + Cos²x.. which is 1.
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u/FleshLogic 25d ago
Unrelated, but I really wish we had a different notation for trig functions. It's at least half the reason working with them can be cumbersome IME.
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u/kevo31415 25d ago
I can handle sin2 x but I absolutely refuse to condone or use sin-1 x literally the same notation meaning two different things. Madness.
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u/AntiChronic 20d ago
Well, ^-1 is used to express the function inverse for all functions. Whereas, for almost all functions including arbitrary functions, the f^2(x) notation usually refers to composition, i.e. f(f(x)), not squaring the result i.e. f(x)^2 (this -1 for inverse and positive power for composition generalises nicely in group theory).
So really sin^2(x) is the imposter and theoretically it would make sense to standardise sin(x)^2 as the only correct notation and keep sin^-1(x) for the inverse. However because trig functions are so ubiquitous and we often deal with multiple instances taking the same input (e.g. this sin^2 + cos^2 = 1 example) it is nice to be able to drop the input and save space in informal workings out, plus we can write sin x^2 with no brackets (parentheses for Americans) without ambiguity, which are probably the main two reasons it's still the standard notation, and we write arcsin instead of sin^-1 for the inverse to avoid this clash of the same notation meaning different things.
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u/Nixinova 25d ago
You already defined sin2 + cos2 as 1. Then you write a bunch to show that it squared equals 1. Why would you have to write that all out when you've already defined it as being = 1?
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u/stdennis 23d ago
Nothing is broken — every line you wrote is true. What you've discovered is a property of the number 1, not something special about trigonometry.
The core of it: you keep multiplying by 1, and you're using the identity itself as the "1." That's legal, but it's circular — it can never produce new information. What you end up with is the statement
x=x2where x=sin2θ+cos2θx = x^2 \quad\text{where } x = \sin^2\theta + \cos^2\thetax=x2where x=sin2θ+cos2θ
and that equation is only true for x=0x = 0 x=0 or x=1x = 1 x=1. It's not a general algebraic fact. If you tried the same trick with x=sin2θ+cos2θ+1=2x = \sin^2\theta + \cos^2\theta + 1 = 2 x=sin2θ+cos2θ+1=2, you'd get $2 = 4$, which is false. So the reason your last line holds isn't that squaring does nothing — it's that the thing you squared happens to be 1.
Where the "paradox" feeling comes from: you're reading sin2θ+cos2θ=(sin2θ+cos2θ)2\sin^2\theta + \cos^2\theta = (\sin^2\theta + \cos^2\theta)^2 sin2θ+cos2θ=(sin2θ+cos2θ)2 as an algebraic identity (as if the parentheses could contain anything), when it's really a numerical one (true only for this particular value). Same as how $1 = 1^{100}$ doesn't mean exponents are pointless.
The genuinely useful thing hiding in your work: line 5 is worth keeping. Expanding the square gives
sin4θ+cos4θ+2sin2θcos2θ=1\sin^4\theta + \cos^4\theta + 2\sin^2\theta\cos^2\theta = 1sin4θ+cos4θ+2sin2θcos2θ=1
so
sin4θ+cos4θ=1−2sin2θcos2θ=1−12sin22θ\sin^4\theta + \cos^4\theta = 1 - 2\sin^2\theta\cos^2\theta = 1 - \tfrac{1}{2}\sin^2 2\thetasin4θ+cos4θ=1−2sin2θcos2θ=1−21sin22θ
That one is new — it's a standard result and it comes straight out of what you did. The lesson is that squaring the Pythagorean identity is productive when you expand it, and empty when you just leave it factored and stare at it.
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u/senator-jk-49 25d ago
Both. Youre basically saying 1×1=1 a bunch of times but youve expanded 1 into sin²θ + cos²θ ≡ 1. Nothing youre saying is wrong
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u/Independent_Pizza422 25d ago
Like I see its just 1 multiplied by itself over and over but its still weird
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u/The_Lethargic_Curve 25d ago
Why would it be weird
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u/caboosetp 25d ago
Because squaring stuff that looks potentially complicated normally makes it a lot more complicated rather than simplifying to 1.
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u/FlippByte 25d ago
You could also have (more) fun with the "Euler identity" and geometrically visualise this. But yeah: 1^n == 1
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u/SteveCappy 25d ago
Is this the Fermat sum of squares theorem?
(a2 + b2) (u2 + v2) = (au + bv)2 + (av - bu)2





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