Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-48285-20151005173825/@comment-1220514-20160504135045

Marceline Saga wrote: I agree, it's very easy. But it was just warming up...here you are:

I will prove that 1 = 2

Lets say y = x xy = x2 (Multiply through by x, that 2 is a power) xy - y2 = x2 - y2 (Subtract y2 from each side, also, those twos are powers) y(x-y) = (x+y)(x-y) (Factor each side) y = x+y (Divide both sides by (x-y)) y/y = x/y + y/y (Divide both sides by y) And so... 1 = x/y + 1 Since x=y, x/y = 1 1 = 1 + 1 And so... 1 = 2

Any comments ? My only contribution to this thread is that you didn't do this right. I know it's a joke, but you can't just throw around variables and multiply them through. If you really wanted to, you'd have to multiply by y/y, which cancels to 1, since you can multiply almost anything by 1 to not change the results. Also x2-y2 does not factor to (x+y)(x-y). It doesn't factor at all, especially not if y is a function of x.

Also you can cancel variables, even if they end up dividing by 0. Differentiation by first principles is an example of cancelling out a variable that by all reasonable explanations is 0 (when the variable is the denominator).

I'm just really bored. Please don't eat me.