What does 1+1 equal to? Too easy of a question, you might think. Well yes the answer is 2. There were not any traps whatsoever. But why is it that 1+1 equals to 2? What's the logic behind? This is an amazingly complex question actually.

At first I was asking this question to literally everybody I met,
just for fun. But then I realised that the why behind 1+1=2 may not
be that simple; it was, in other words, no joking matter.

People always say truth comes from a child. That was my chance to
consequently test this saying. I asked my kid brother aged 6 why he
thought 1+1 gave 2. Here is his answer:
If you take a sweet from the market and put it with the one sweet in
your pocket, with how many sweets will you end up? TWO!'

Well he is half correct. He preferred to do an analogy with sweets
instead of dealing with the figures. In this particular case, it may
have been a better idea. However there was something missing in this
answer. I came to find out that it would be missing in my answer as
well.

To get a really clear and concise answer however, I decided to
email some persons who work with mathematics everyday. I mean
astronomers. Although I only received one reply – which came from Dr
Brad Carter of the University of Southern Queensland, thanks to thee –
I knew that the answer that I was provided with matched (and even
overlapped – see below) my original idea upon this complex question of
why 1 and 1 makes 2.

My original thoughts were roughly as stated below:
'Somebody wanted to give the number '1' the name 'one.' He also
wanted to give the number '2' the name 'two'. So two '1's, which is
equivalent to 1+1, will gives two.'

As my brother, I'm only half correct and we both made the same
mistake. We had not mentioned that two is defined as two ones. If we
had done so, we would have consequently come to the answer of why 1+1
equals to 2! Confused? Well Dr Carter's answer might be of some help. This is exactly what he said:

'The answer is simple: it is simply a matter of definition. '2' is the name we give to result of the process '1+1'

The why to the complex question suddenly became crystal clear. But
I wasn't finished with the question as yet. I decided to use one of
the search engine Google, latest innovation to get a bit more info
about the why behind 1+1=2. I therefore connected to Google Answers!
Google Answers is a sort of forum where individuals ask questions and
tag an amount of money on the former. A specialist then answers your
question and pockets the money. The best part of it, though, is if a
question had already been asked and answered, anybody could view both
the question and answer free of charge.

I entered '1+1=2' is the search form and lucky me... somebody else
had already asked why 1+1=2 and a mathematician had indeed given an
answer.

I was satisfied and thought that that question was now filed. After having joked about it, questioned my kid brother, emailed astronomers and googled it, I think I now finally have a rather good and simple answer to the why behind 1+1=2.

'In number base systems higher than '2', 1+1=2 because it is
defined as such. Based on the definitions of the number '2, the
number '4' and the mathematical operation of addition, the answer is
always the same.'

Such a simple question which is at the base of so many complex
equations, isn't that simple after all, is it? There is actually an
entire book, Principia Mathematica by Whitehead and Russell (not the
one by Sir Isaac Newton) which devotes several hundred pages to
deriving and explanation of just why 1+1=2.

Other science issues (not too complicated don't you worry)
can be found at:

Not Scientific Science
Archive

NotScientific

17.02.05 Front Page

Back Issue Page