Tuesday, April 01, 2008

A mathematical "anomaly"

1+4+16+64+256+................... (i.e. 1+ x^2+x^4+x^6+x^8+x^10+........where x=2) is -1/3.
What the hell. How can the addition of positive numbers to infinity give a negative value?
Posted by varun at 6:37 PM

1 comment:

Sri said...

The formula for sum of an infinite number of terms geometric progression a/(1-r) that is used to reach the solution you got is valid only for r<1 which is not satisfied in this case(r=2>1).

7:37 PM

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