1+1=2 (don't groan!)

I know this has been done to death etc...

BUT

Has anyone seen this image:

It's allegedly a proof that 1+1=2. Does it make any sense? And can anyone follow it/give a more simplistic version of the proof.

Reply 1

generalebriety

It does make sense, but it's not a full proof (as it says at the bottom, you need to define addition). And er, I would attempt to translate it into something that makes sense if I could read it. :wink:

There's a website around that explains it somewhere too.

Reply 2

bon

Ok, thanks :biggrin:

Reply 3

SsEe

The whole book looks like that. I heard that it's actually wrong though.
Slightly less pedantic proofs I've seen are that 1 is positve, root 2 exists and 1+1=2 in the real numbers constructed by factoring the ring of all Cauchy sequences in Q out by the ideal of null Cauchy sequences in Q.

Reply 4

Creole

This is just something I've heard but isn't 1+1=2 just an axiom, a necessary and fundamental truth that we base the rest of mathematics upon?

Philosophically speaking, numbers are a social construct, although their meaning is natural.