this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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What are the most mindblowing things in mathematics? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by cll7793@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
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What concepts or facts do you know from math that is mind blowing, awesome, or simply fascinating?

Here are some I would like to share:

  • Gödel's incompleteness theorems: There are some problems in math so difficult that it can never be solved no matter how much time you put into it.
  • Halting problem: It is impossible to write a program that can figure out whether or not any input program loops forever or finishes running. (Undecidablity)

The Busy Beaver function

Now this is the mind blowing one. What is the largest non-infinite number you know? Graham's Number? TREE(3)? TREE(TREE(3))? This one will beat it easily.

  • The Busy Beaver function produces the fastest growing number that is theoretically possible. These numbers are so large we don't even know if you can compute the function to get the value even with an infinitely powerful PC.
  • In fact, just the mere act of being able to compute the value would mean solving the hardest problems in mathematics.
  • Σ(1) = 1
  • Σ(4) = 13
  • Σ(6) > 10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10 (10s are stacked on each other)
  • Σ(17) > Graham's Number
  • Σ(27) If you can compute this function the Goldbach conjecture is false.
  • Σ(744) If you can compute this function the Riemann hypothesis is false.

Sources:

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[–] mattiasdrp@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I may be wrong or have misunderstood what you said but the sets of natural numbers and odd numbers have the same size/cardinality. If there exists a bijection between the two sets then they have the same size.

f(x) = 2x + 1 is such a bijection

For the same reason, N, Z and Q have the same cardinality. The fact that each one is included in the next ones doesn't mean their size is different.

[–] Reliant1087@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Agree. Uncountable infinities are much more mind blowing. It was an interesting journey realising first that everything like time and distance are continuous when learning math the then realising they're not when learning physics.