64Digits

As much as I think that Polystyrene Man is pretty cool, I just wanted to prove that he was wrong. Don't get me wrong, I think he is a great person, but since I haven't had any recent blogs, I just decided to post this.

Let us carefully analyze his blog:

Quote:

I thought about this in math class. 2 + 2 CAN equal 5, and I'll prove it to you using simple pictures. This is not a joke; I am absolutely serious. I am ready to give my life defending this theory. Kind of.

First Take two ropes. In each rope, tie two knots. It should look like this:

Now, as Dictionary.com defines it, "addition" is:

Quote:

the process of uniting two or more numbers into one sum, represented by the symbol +.

How do you unite two seperate ropes? You need to turn them into one, am I right? So, do just that; tie the two ropes together to form one. It should now look like this:

Now, you can argue that I had four knots to begin with, but they were on two seperate ropes. The tying acts as the addition sign in this case. Apart you don't have four knots, you have two ropes with two knots. It's as if they are two different equations.

I'm really tired and it's a school night, so I'd like to defend myself but I need sleep so you can talk and debate and all that but this is a run on sentence.

2+2=5

………………….

As you have seen, there was originally 2 sets of 2 knots, but now, there is 5.

This may seem right, but the thing is, this is totally wrong.

In the given situation, "PolyMan" had the original intention of adding 2 knots to another pair of knots, which is what the pictures represent.

But WAIT!

In the images given above, PolyMan only added the ropes together, NOT the knots. So technically, in the given situation, PolyMan did not prove that 2 knots + 2 knots = 5 knots.

Instead, he proved that 1 rope + 1 rope = 1 rope. [:?]

Bizzare as it may seem, when you tie 2 ropes together, you still only see one rope, which is split in half from the knot.