The Math of XKCD
Mar. 19th, 2009 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helen99A while ago, This Story appeared in Blogspot, posted by someone who was having a problem with Verizon billing. Apparently they thought he owed them a lot of money, when in fact he had not been a customer for five years, and furthermore, they owed him money according to his calculations. After this had gone on for a long time, it came to the attention of the author of XKCD, who became ... inspired.
Here is his inspiration: http://xkcd.com/verizon/
The check is written for an amount which contains the number "i", a.k.a., the square root of negative 1. Therefore the amount of the check would be called an 'imaginary' number in mathematical terms (because there is nothing you can multiply by itself to get -1). This should not be a problem, however, because the amount Verizon was charging was also imaginary...
Edit: From the comments, we see that the equation actually resolves to a real number that Verizon can spend whichever way it wants:
"Ah, but e^(i*pi) = cos(pi) + i*sin(pi) = -1 + 0i = -1.
And the infinite sum resolves to +1
So in fact he wrote them a check for two tenths of a cent.
That, of course, would require Verizon to do math to figure out."
XKCD - brilliant as usual.
Brought to my attention by way of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lindsaybits
Here is his inspiration: http://xkcd.com/verizon/
The check is written for an amount which contains the number "i", a.k.a., the square root of negative 1. Therefore the amount of the check would be called an 'imaginary' number in mathematical terms (because there is nothing you can multiply by itself to get -1). This should not be a problem, however, because the amount Verizon was charging was also imaginary...
Edit: From the comments, we see that the equation actually resolves to a real number that Verizon can spend whichever way it wants:
"Ah, but e^(i*pi) = cos(pi) + i*sin(pi) = -1 + 0i = -1.
And the infinite sum resolves to +1
So in fact he wrote them a check for two tenths of a cent.
That, of course, would require Verizon to do math to figure out."
XKCD - brilliant as usual.
Brought to my attention by way of
lindsaybits