Friday, January 02, 2009

Strange Equation

I found this equation in one of my bedtime books. So interesting that I'd like to share with you all here!

Given:
a=b, a=1, show 1=2

Proving:
a = b
ab = b² (multiply both sides with b)
ab - a² = b² - a² (minus
a² for both sides)
a(b-a) = (b+a)(b-a) (factorize)
a = b+a (cancel off the b-a)
a = 2a (since b=a)
1 = 2 (since given a=1, but wait... what the??)


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Alright, there's a mistake at the equation above, can you spot it? *laugh* Oh yeah, check the comments for answer (after trying to solve larh!)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

wat i found out was d " multiply both sides with a"...should be " multiply both sides with b" la...lol... this consider mistake tak??

Lai Yeong King said...

ahhh, my bad, should be both side with b :p

*fix fix*

Anonymous said...

Aha, nice try.

I was following it but seriously, it'd got me like this @_@ lol


Jordan,
Das Connection

Anonymous said...

this is wat i get after seeking someone...

since a=b,
then b-a will = 0
if like that,
u cannot cancel off d (b-a) in ur step 5...
cause, nothing can be divided by 0..

is that d mistake???!!!

Lai Yeong King said...

*clap clap*

bravo! you got it! hahahha... yeap zero division is the error :)