Interesting Aspects of Mathematics
Created | Updated Jul 20, 2002
Although math is considered by many to be a totally boring and worthless subject, it actually is quite useful and has a lot of interesting little tidbits of information. And it's really not all that difficult if you think about it the right way: Mathematics is simply the logical consequences of a set of postulates. Here are a few interesting mathematical facts:
111,111,111 * 111,111,111 = 12345678987654321
Here is a surprisingly simple time dilation equation for calculating the amount of time a stationary observer experiences compared to the amount of time a traveller experiences:
T2 = T1/sqrt(1-V^2)
Where
T2 is the time for the stationary person
T1 is the time for the travelling person
and V is a fraction of the speed of light.
For instance, if you spent 62 years in space travelling at half the speed of light, you could find out how much time has passed on Earth with the equation
62 / sqrt (1-1/2^2) = ...
62 / sqrt (1-1/4) = ...
62 / sqrt 3/4 = ...
62 / .866 = 71.591 years on Earth.
You get strange answers when you set the speed of travel as equal to the speed of light, however, because then you'd be dividing by 1-1, or 0, which always gets you crazy answers.
Here's an interesting proof: 2=7.
Just assume that X=1.
Now, 5X - 8 = -3.
Add 2X + 1 to both sides: 5X - 8 + 2X + 1 = -3 + 2X + 1
Simplify it. 7X - 7 = 2X - 2
Use the distributive property. 7(X - 1) = 2(X - 1)
Divide by X - 1. 7 = 2
Interesting, eh? Free ice cream cone if you can find the error.
The digits of pi are: 3.141592653589732384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923... And so on. Pi has been calculated to over 51 billion decimal places.
111,111,111 * 111,111,111 = 12345678987654321
Here is a surprisingly simple time dilation equation for calculating the amount of time a stationary observer experiences compared to the amount of time a traveller experiences:
T2 = T1/sqrt(1-V^2)
Where
T2 is the time for the stationary person
T1 is the time for the travelling person
and V is a fraction of the speed of light.
For instance, if you spent 62 years in space travelling at half the speed of light, you could find out how much time has passed on Earth with the equation
62 / sqrt (1-1/2^2) = ...
62 / sqrt (1-1/4) = ...
62 / sqrt 3/4 = ...
62 / .866 = 71.591 years on Earth.
You get strange answers when you set the speed of travel as equal to the speed of light, however, because then you'd be dividing by 1-1, or 0, which always gets you crazy answers.
Here's an interesting proof: 2=7.
Just assume that X=1.
Now, 5X - 8 = -3.
Add 2X + 1 to both sides: 5X - 8 + 2X + 1 = -3 + 2X + 1
Simplify it. 7X - 7 = 2X - 2
Use the distributive property. 7(X - 1) = 2(X - 1)
Divide by X - 1. 7 = 2
Interesting, eh? Free ice cream cone if you can find the error.
The digits of pi are: 3.141592653589732384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923... And so on. Pi has been calculated to over 51 billion decimal places.
