The Loony Bin
(
loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk
)
Sun, 26 May 1996 11:02:27 +0100
Hiya Folks...
Here it is...absolute proof that 2=3...
Wishes & Dreams...
- ANDREA
xx
************<andrea@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk>************
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*** THE LOONY BIN ***
*** loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk ***
*** ***
******************Internet Goddess*******************
*********************ANDROMEDA***********************
------- Forwarded foolishness follows -------
Let a = 2, b = 3, c = 5
Then a + b = c
Multiply both sides by (a - b):
(a - b)(a + b) = (a - b)c
a^2 - b^2 = ac - bc
a^2 - ac = b^2 - bc
Add ab to both sides:
a^2 + ab - ac = ab + b^2 - bc
a(a + b - c) = b(a + b - c)
Divide both sides by (a + b -c):
a = b
Therefore 2 = 3
How can this be??
This is pretty embarrassing, guys. I have to come clean to ease my
conscience, no matter what the personal cost to me.
In college, we were doing some bizarre mathematical experiments. I don't
want to explain the nature of the experiments, both because it's fairly
complex and because it's a path that no mortal should ever tread again.
Suffice it to say that things went wrong: terribly, terribly wrong.
As a result of the experiment, 2 and 3 became equal. It seemed fairly
harmless, and even a little comical. It might have been, if it had
stopped there. But it cascaded. Before we knew it, 1=0. That really
opened the floodgates, because then all real numbers were equal to zero.
When the smoke cleared, there was only one real number left.
We tried to hush up the results of our tragic catastrophe as best we
could, knowing that all of physics, economics, and countless other
fields depended on the fact that the set of real numbers is not a
singleton. But, about eight years ago, the proof presented by the above
equations came up. We pretended not to be alarmed, mumbled something
about "division by zero" or "illegal square root operation", but the
stories ... the rumors ... the proofs haven't gone away.
I've been trying to maintain a low profile all these years, knowing full
well that I would be a pariah of the scientific community if the depths
of my crimes were made known. But I can't keep my secret myself. And
maybe there's still time to undo the damage that I've done to the
continuum.