Man, I thought compiling mplayer was hard. ;)

forgive me for being silly infront of you guys ,just for curiosity,
is there any way to prove that 1+1=2 with maths ?

it's fun reading posts in this thread,i'm interested in maths suddenly

Are you sure 1+1=2??? Well I know a math teacher that will argue that one.

I'm not a mathematician, so maybe someome can provide a proof, but I think this is more a case of definitions, or conventions.

Sometime way back people agreed that the word we use to mean a singular item is one.

This was good, but on its own it had limited usefulness, so some bright spark said why dont we call one and another one two?

So I think that by definition 1 + 1 = 2, because that is what two means.

eh ?
don't tell me it's 11 ?

we might have problems with 0 (which is a zero)

Well if I remember correctly, originally there was no 0. It was only when the current method of numbering (?is that a word?) was adopted that the 0 was used. It was basically a place holder between two other digits, or on its own, to show the space where nothing is.

But again it is really a definition, someone decided to call the absence of any items zero.

ahh. Yeah. I think you're right on that one!

al_periodical. Why would there be a problem with zero? At least not as far as addition and subtraction are concerned.

It's with multiplication and division that zero becomes a problem. Look at this:

2+x=6
2+y=6

Therefore, x=y, namely 4. Right?

But look at this:

0 / 2 = 0
0 / 3 = 0

Therefore 2 = 3! :p

The real beauty though is this:

If x is a finite number, the Limit of x / y as y approaches 0 is infinity! :D

:edit: ahh, you snuck one in on me! Mathematicians and physicists deferentiate between zero and non-existance! (Don't ask!)

it seems that some maths are best explain in words while the rest only in maths

deferentiate? Nice spelling radostsguy!

Differentiate!

Harishankar!

To put your signature a little differently:

"It's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it!"

I did know that the concept of zero was missing in Europe for a long time. Think of the Roman Numerals - there isn't one for zero!

Boy, did this thread ever get busy all of a sudden! :D

thanks guys
i tried wikipedia with zero and Roman numeral,
i didn't expect zero was/is so problematic

Is this really the equation you want to solve? It is trivial. It reduces to

(3+(N+2))*(N/2) = (5+N)*(N/2)

No iteration at all required to solve it.

1 + 1 = 10