this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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Witchcraft (mander.xyz)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (2 children)

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + ... = -1/12

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Under very special circumstances an argument can be made for this, at least

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Not really. The left side comes from trying to evaluate the Reimann zeta function at a point outside its domain, and the right side comes from evaluating the analytic continuation of the zeta function at the same point. The deepest truth it reveals is that applying the definition of a function outside its domain can give you nonsense results.

It's one of those ideas like Scrödinger's cat or pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, where something that was intended to illustrate an absurdity is instead taken as representing some amazing and unintuitive truth.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Never understood those circumstances, but I choose to believe that all even numbers summed are -2/12 and all odd numbers therefore 1/12.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

That's where I assumed it was going.