Fake Mathematical Proofs

Not being very mathematically inclined, these had me puzzled for a while. The first proof shows that 64=65. It's quite convincing, until you actually get graph paper out (like I did) and try to do it yourself. Then you'll discover that the parts don't match up as nicely as they do in the animation.

A more complicated fake proof can be found here, where 1 is shown to equal 2. I started to go glassy-eyed when I began to analyze the equation, so I quickly broke down and peeked at the answer explaining why the proof is wrong. (via Metafilter)

Science

Posted on Wed Aug 18, 2004



Comments

Good effort. This was quite interesting, though a photograph of a man being attacked by a giant shark would have been nice.
Posted by BJ  on  Fri Aug 20, 2004  at  08:51 AM
My math sucks to the core. 😏
Posted by Shah  on  Sun Aug 22, 2004  at  12:12 PM
1(one) can also be made to equal 0(zero). It's done using algebra, which proves what a stupid branch of maths it really is...
Posted by Dale Irwin  on  Mon Aug 23, 2004  at  10:59 PM
I'm still confused. 😖
Posted by Shah  on  Tue Aug 24, 2004  at  12:29 PM
After I tried 64=65 with my own squared paper and realizing how the pieces just don't fit together, is easy to see on the animation how the figures are slightly overlaped in the middle and not so straigh on the edges...
Posted by corax  on  Mon Oct 04, 2004  at  10:12 AM
N'importe quoi!
Posted by sinta  on  Thu Sep 07, 2006  at  05:13 AM
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.