A Mathematical Adventure, or, How I Spent an
Afternoon Proving Nothing.
Over the course of a few boring classes last
year, I discovered that the product of two numbers plus the square
of their difference divided by four is equal to the square of
their average:
(a * b) + (a - b) ** 2 / 4 = ((a + b)/2) ** 2
At the time, I thought that it was a pretty neat
equation. I couldn't find a use for it, but still was happy
about it. I showed my math teacher. She thought it was ...
interesting ..., but couldn't say that it had a purpose.
So, today, I was thinking up fun things to do,
and I realised that it had been a long time since I played with
numbers. I was thinking back to my previous discovery. I thought,
"Self, what would I have to add to the product of _three_ numbers
to get the square of their average? Wait, make that their cube!"
(a * b * c) + B = ((a + b + c) / 3) ** 3
So, I played around a bit, found out how much
of my basic algebra skills had disappeared. It was fun; the feel of the fountain pen in
my hand as it left a delicate trail of green ink on beautiful
white paper was exhilerating, refreshing. After a while, I found
that the bridging factor was the cube of their sum over twenty-seven,
less their product:
B = ((a + b + c) ** 3) / 27 - (a * b * c)
I didn't think real hard about that. I went on
to four digits, and eventually found that for n digits, the bridging
factor was:
B = sum ** n / n ** n - product
Plugging that back into the equation, I found:
product + sum ** n / n ** n - product = (sum /
n) ** n
(Remember, average is (sum / n)
I realised that I had goofed; that I had an
equality that was basically "x + y - x = y". I felt pretty dumb.
I decided to conduct an investigation. I looked back at
the equation for two numbers:
(a * b) + (a - b) ** 2 / 4 = ((a + b)/2) ** 2
The bridging factor there concealed the fact
that I was simply subtracting the sum; if I had bothered to expand
it, I would have noticed:
(a - b) ** 2 / 4 = (a + b) ** 2 / 4 - (a * b)
Silly me! It was good entertainment and stretched my brain, even if the only tangible evidence
of my endeavour is a large pile of scrap paper on the edge of my
desk.