1+1=?
It may sound funny, but have you ever wondered why is 1+1=2 in the first place? Or perhaps you may hear someone challenging you to explain why 1+1=2? If you're seeking for an answer, this discussion might be helpful.
First and foremost, perhaps there might be some people out there who would pose non-sensical questions such as "why 1+1 =2? why not 3,4 or 5?" Not wrong, but i really wanted to ask them whether they know what they are actually asking. What i mean is that here we're trying to play around with definitions. Two is just a notation for "two" objects. We can interchange the notation "two" with "three", and it doesn't change anything at all so long as they're just notations. Let's imagine that in the ancient times, people has made the symbols of 2 interchanged with 3, and therefore the sequence of numbers goes "132456789". Here, the argument is useless, and the answer on why 1+1=2 is all based upon definitions.
Now, there can be another interpretation when one encounters this question. When one ask why 1+1=2, they're actually asking why, if there's an A, and there's a B, then there's A and B? This seems like a more philosophical question. Well, it's illogical to have A,B and C if we started with only A and B. Let's extend our imagination a little bit. If we have "two" pencils, pencil A and pencil B, and we decided to "sum" it, it's impossible to get "three" pencils. A question would arise as to how do the system knows that we decided to "sum" them up? And how does the third pencil knew that it can inherit the property of the first two pencils? If we think that the third pencil suddenly "pops" up out of nowhere, then taking the 1st two pencils again leaving the third behind, we can sum them as many times as we want, and this would give an infinite amount of pencils enough to cover the entire earth!
Hence, from the two explanations above, I conclude that it is absurd to ask why 1+1=2!
First and foremost, perhaps there might be some people out there who would pose non-sensical questions such as "why 1+1 =2? why not 3,4 or 5?" Not wrong, but i really wanted to ask them whether they know what they are actually asking. What i mean is that here we're trying to play around with definitions. Two is just a notation for "two" objects. We can interchange the notation "two" with "three", and it doesn't change anything at all so long as they're just notations. Let's imagine that in the ancient times, people has made the symbols of 2 interchanged with 3, and therefore the sequence of numbers goes "132456789". Here, the argument is useless, and the answer on why 1+1=2 is all based upon definitions.
Now, there can be another interpretation when one encounters this question. When one ask why 1+1=2, they're actually asking why, if there's an A, and there's a B, then there's A and B? This seems like a more philosophical question. Well, it's illogical to have A,B and C if we started with only A and B. Let's extend our imagination a little bit. If we have "two" pencils, pencil A and pencil B, and we decided to "sum" it, it's impossible to get "three" pencils. A question would arise as to how do the system knows that we decided to "sum" them up? And how does the third pencil knew that it can inherit the property of the first two pencils? If we think that the third pencil suddenly "pops" up out of nowhere, then taking the 1st two pencils again leaving the third behind, we can sum them as many times as we want, and this would give an infinite amount of pencils enough to cover the entire earth!
Hence, from the two explanations above, I conclude that it is absurd to ask why 1+1=2!
posted by ardianto86 at 6:07 PM
2 Comments:
Great minds think alike. I always question others why -1 x -1 is +1. People beleived Science with faith like religion, but at the same time, they denied it and thought they are totally 'rational' and 'logical'.
Yep..that's true =)
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