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Well, I saw the video only for 1 min until now, but when you have an infint math-task there´s only one solution. There is none coz it´s infinit. Only person who can solve that is chuck norris who counted till infinity twice. :P
 
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Linux said:
I disagree. These kind of math questions (puzzles, whatever) have more meaning than games we are playing every day xD (my opinion). And he kinda gave us proof that this sum equals 1/2, so why isn't it solved then? :D There are no different mathematical arguments, there is just one, the one he showed us as a proof (1/2). Those 1 or 0 are just answers that our common sense gives us, he wanted to show us that this is false.

That is how I understood the video, and I found it very amusing :)
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From what i see, he gives 3 answers, each answer based on how you would split the infinite sum. The derivation he gave for 1/2 is slightly more rigorous and he points that that this is currently the "more popularly accepted answer" but you can see all the way through the video he tried very hard not to imply that this is the "answer", but simply another way of viewing the problem.

Is this kind of maths and puzzles more meaningful than playing games everyday? Definitely without doubt. It keeps your brain thinking. Is this kind of maths puzzles more USEFUL than playing games? I'm not so sure. As an engineer I have rather low opinion of people who do pure theoretical mathematics. In my mind they are wasting their undoubted talent on things that will never concern the real world or the advancement of mankind :D
 
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Mathematicians arent always supposed to solve "real world" problems, but often enough to provide ways for others to solve real world problems. The question he "solves" in here might be relavant for someone, e.g. a physicist, using Grandi's Series only to end up with a singularity having 0, 1 and 1/2 as possible results. And maybe tell him to just follow a different approach, if he is looking for specific results.

Personally, the video actually answered how Haruki Murakamis novel "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" ends.

For your question why Dr. James Grime makes "senseless" Youtube-vids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yexc19j3TjE

Almost every Numberphile video, same as Computerphile, 60 Symbols and others, isnt made for the purpose of solving complex scientific issues, but to show what the discipline is/can be about.

It works as a PR and recruitment tool, to show what a discipline has to offer and often enough just to give insights to subject foreign people.

A lot of Academic work force nowadays is actually just to get sponsors for ur research (one of my sociology professors estimated up to 1/3), therefore raising people's awareness for the importance of science, is a a good way to get finacial ressources in public founded academic tradition.
 
I'm reseacher in a fairly technical/mathematics based subject. I write papers for a living and my progression through University hierarchy is judged on the number of papers I publish. And I can honestly say that in the fields of physics, pure mathematics, even in engineering, the majority of papers are useless in the "real world" sense. They are written to make sure the author can obtain his PhD, get promoted to lecturer, reader and eventually professorship. The real difference is being made by a very small minority of groundbreaking papers. As far as technology is concerned, most of the groundbreaking work are done by R+D centres in companies. University research is often out of touch with the real world, especially in alot of mathematically related fields where lets just say people tend to get a little "carried away" with theory.
 
Gotta agree with ya there Durden, but take a look at this below.

I saw a video where you can actually see that in physics book about string theory, they use the sum of all integers (1 + 2 + 3 .....) to be -1/12. And for that physicists used the same way of prooving it as this guy did. Here is the video, if you don't find it hard to watch (on begin he actually shows that this is in the book actually): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww

And it ain't out of the real world, this is one of the most modern theories. (talking about string theory)
And this is a proof, as you can see there are other ways to prove this. So, some may call it bs, but I find it interesting


Alright, Mag, put some more riddles for us :)
 
Linux said:
And it ain't out of the real world, this is one of the most modern theories. (talking about string theory)
And this is a proof, as you can see there are other ways to prove this. So, some may call it bs, but I find it interesting


Alright, Mag, put some more riddles for us :)
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string theory is a pretty theoretical topic, based on my very limit knowledge of it i'd definitely classify it as "out of the real world", unless someone here can explain exactly what it's practical uses are :D
 
I ain't familiar with it as well, but it doesnt need to be out of the world :D Also people called Ainstein's stuff out of the world - unreal, and it showed up as true :D (for now)

Practical applications? Well dunno much about it, but it could provide wormholes or such stuff? Which means faster travel through universe. And that is the most noobish application of it probably, if you can break fabric of space, then you are kinda travelling in time in some kind.
 
I can tolerate the theoretical stuff so long as there is a endgame with meaning. Even though my phd research area is very much practical (currently I design channel coding for physical layer network frameworks that might find use in 4G and 5G comms models), the solutions and designs we come up with are heavily theoretical, it's all based in number theory and information theory, stuff that even an average maths graduate might find challenging. However, the fact I know my proposals have an end purpose, and that it's practically useful, is what ultimately motivate me to put myself through all this.

On the other hand, there are researchers far smarter and resourceful than me working in pure mathematics, theoretical physics, etc, who study problems that are a billion miles away from reality that will never have any use for mankind. they thrive on a different kind of motivation to engineers. they solve useless problems for no other reason than to prove that they can.
 
But on a fair note, u will never know what one might find useful one day.

The first ppl to work on prime numbers werent thinking of nowadays it-encryption.
 
Arphis said:
But on a fair note, u will never know what one might find useful one day.

The first ppl to work on prime numbers werent thinking of nowadays it-encryption.
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I agree with you. Mathematics creates tools that lay the foundation for much of engineering and compute science. To be clear I’m not bashing mathematics but just those mathematicians who focus on trivial areas and trivial problems. Those are some of the brightest people on the planet yet some of them devote their life to some of the most useless shit on earth.

I know a guy who graduated first class pure mathematics from Imperial college London and went on to do a PhD during which time he got pretty disillusioned with life largely thanks to his research. It took him 5 years (maximum period) to complete it. Most people with his qualifications would continue working at uni doing research and eventually teaching but it turns out mathematics fucked up his head and now he didn’t want to do theoretical maths no more. Problem is pure mathematics isn’t good for anything else and he didn’t have the programming skills to go into software so it took him further 3 years to find a job(he worked in a sushi bar for 3 years). Eventually he found a job teaching maths in secondary school.
 
Dyhidrogen = 2 H atoms
Monoxide = 1 O atom

Therefore, H2O = water ? Though I never saw this name for this compound :D

EDIT: Durden was faster :D
 
Durden said:
I can tolerate the theoretical stuff so long as there is a endgame with meaning. Even though my phd research area is very much practical (currently I design channel coding for physical layer network frameworks that might find use in 4G and 5G comms models), the solutions and designs we come up with are heavily theoretical, it's all based in number theory and information theory, stuff that even an average maths graduate might find challenging. However, the fact I know my proposals have an end purpose, and that it's practically useful, is what ultimately motivate me to put myself through all this.

On the other hand, there are researchers far smarter and resourceful than me working in pure mathematics, theoretical physics, etc, who study problems that are a billion miles away from reality that will never have any use for mankind. they thrive on a different kind of motivation to engineers. they solve useless problems for no other reason than to prove that they can.
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I wonder if ppl argued same way when there were some who told they could move tiny negative loaded objects trough specific massive materials. That you cant even see and what probably might not even excist hence there are more then 3 theoretical models about it. Why the fuck would you wanna do that?? Oh wait let me turn on the light.
 
Kiehs said:
I wonder if ppl argued same way when there were some who told they could move tiny negative loaded objects trough specific massive materials. That you cant even see and what probably might not even excist hence there are more then 3 theoretical models about it. Why the fuck would you wanna do that?? Oh wait let me turn on the light.
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electricity wasn't discovered by pure mathematicians. It was discovered by based on generations of knowledge most of which were gathered by physicists who did countless amounts of practical investigation.
 
Yea but thats what its about. Human wants to know everything and solve it even if its impossible. Cause luckily there are enough who say 'I cant live with the fact I don't know the answer for that'And I know enough practical examples where those fucked up mathematical theorems get used. Cryptography data sorting algorithms search algorithms

In your area it would be echo cancelling and stuff if im not wrong.

Mathematics is something abstract created by human and based on the Tought '1 + 1 = 2' and then someone came and asked what happens if I add one more etc. Etc. So if someone asks crazy fucked up questions hes trying to prove that this simple system is still working and logical enough and trying to enlarge the mathematical world a little more same as we simply use the pythagorean theorem in alot situations without even questioning why someone would think about such stuff in first place. So basically its understanding our own system more and more
 
Kiehs, I’m not arguing against mathematics if that’s what you think my posts are about. And I’m certainly not against scientific thinking :D I’m simply saying that right now there are research going on in branches of pure mathematics and theoretical physics that are unproductive, unpractical and simply a waste of research time and funding. That’s not to say those ideas can never be useful. Perhaps 1000 years from now they might find use in something. But the point is, right now, there are more pressing research issues in areas engineering, computer science, and medicine, the “real world disciplines”. Those are areas where the real progress can be made on human wellfare. In many of those areas, companies, R+D centers work with businesses, governments to find out the needs of society and formulate ways to develop technology for the sake of society.To create relevant technologies and solutions, you have to ask the right questions and tackle the right problem.


Regarding your previous post, my point is, people didn’t discover electrons or electricity using mathematics, and certainly they were not discovered by mathematicians playing around with numbers. They were discovered by physicists, scientists, engineers who observed physical phenomena, proposed theories, and then carried out experiments to verify their theories. Later on, they used mathematics to explain alot of the theory but ultimately they were objective in their research, the focus of their investigation is clearly part of the “real world”


As for my area of research. If you switch out the word “echo” for “interference” than you are much closer to the mark. Basically signal your phone transmits weakens as it passes through a medium full of interference. My job is to find ways to either eliminate or make use of this interference, and improve the data rate. Echo cancellation is signal processing which is a seperate branch of comms.
 
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