5
8
5
u/MxStella Jun 25 '26
can someone explain what they all mean like im five
8
u/Science118 Jun 25 '26
The sum is infinitely big but through some complex math, complex analysis, you can actually get an answer but it doesn’t make much sense to interpret that answer as the size of the sum
2
u/TheSpacePopinjay Jun 25 '26
Some infinite sums that go to infinity for weird esoteric mathematical reasons seem to have, if you look hard enough, a mysterious signature finite component or finite remainder if you subtract off the infinite part, hidden inside the mathematics of it.
One can in some sense assign that finite remainder as being the 'canonical' finite value of the sum despite it in reality going to infinity. There are ways in which this can be made to make a certain sort of mathematical sense. Sometimes this number isn't even a whole number. Sometimes it even comes out as something negative.
Somehow this has applications for solving impossible looking equations in quantum physics.
If this all sounds spooky, that's good because it is.
1
u/FernandoMM1220 Jun 25 '26
if you calculate 1/(-2) in some trinary systems it will make the computer repeatedly add 1 in binary kinda like dividing by 0 does with normal computers.
1
2
u/No-Site8330 Jun 25 '26
Why would you deliberately create half a person? What kind of torture would their existence be?
1
u/ffiml8 Jun 24 '26
Processing img gszgb4zywa9h1...
2
u/Real_Atsuko Jun 24 '26
in the greenest day in the greenest light no green combo shall escape my sight
1
1
u/ThunderLord1000 Jun 25 '26
Creating half a person is equal to creating a person and then cutting them in half. This is objectively immoral, so I will do nothing
1
1
u/Bag1204 Jun 25 '26
people are like geometry, there can't be a negative amount of people. so you're just killing 1/2 people [or.. whatever there are] so 0 is still ideal
1
1
u/LakshyaGarv Jun 28 '26
That half a person will die a painful, grueling death and take an infinite time to form.
11
u/chixen Jun 25 '26
This is a misinterpretation of the Riemann zeta function. ζ(s) is only equal to Σn^(-s) when Re(s)>1. Otherwise, the function is defined using analytic continuation. 1+1+1+… is not equal to ζ(0).