Re:What Makes the Hardest Equations in Physics So Difficult?
by jcranmer on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @01:35AM
(#16165943)
Just because you don't understand doesn't mean it's "unsound pseudo-algebra." There are ways to properly manipulate infinite series, and Wikipedia does actually explain some of them on the page, even if it relies on a generally-unsound way to illustrate the intuition to a lay reader.
It is very well-known and long-recognized that our natural intuition is very wrong when it comes to infinities and infinite objects, and mathematics had a crisis in trying to come to grips with it.
Re:What Makes the Hardest Equations in Physics So Difficult?
by carterehsmith on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @09:25PM
(#16164958)
>> some cute but unsound pseudo-algebra on infinite series.
Sure it looks like that, but, amazingly, there is a physical meaning to that number.
I replied here: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=16164915
Only through a derivation which involves some cute but unsound pseudo-algebra on infinite series.
See, in the same page, the remark "Generally speaking, it is incorrect to manipulate infinite series as if they were finite sums".