Tuesday, April 19, 2005

A Baez gem...

From his Quantum Gravity Seminar:
1+2+3+4+... = -1/12.
And no, this is not a joke. Read the notes.

5 comments:

  1. Why would he write something like that? Is this mental illness at this point? And how would you feel being a student having to accept these ideas? 

    Posted by Anonymous

    ReplyDelete
  2. Huh ? This is a proof by Euler. Read the notes before accusing someone of mental illness. 

    Posted by Suresh

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wasn't this one of the identities also sent by Ramanujam to Hardy in his famous letter. 

    Posted by Anonymous

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  4. It seems disingenuous to claim that 1+2+3+...=-1/12 since he seems to be using a special summing technique which he calls "Abel summation" to achieve this effect. So perhaps, Abelsum(1+2+3...)=-1/12 is more accurate is it not? 

    Posted by Anonymous

    ReplyDelete
  5. You're right of course, but I am taking the same license that Baez does in hos own web page :) 

    Posted by Suresh

    ReplyDelete

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