1+1=3, Thinking in Arrays

Kyrie's face when she's trying to do math.

Thinking out loud why 1+1=3. This does not constitute a mathematical proof.

Combination Formula

Full disclosure: Earth math is not something I excel at. Except maybe calculus. But this isn't Earth math I'm considering here. At least, it's not the way Earth thinks about math. Earth doesn't usually consider the whole of something.

1+1 = 3
1, 1
W

1+1+1 = 7
1, 1, 1
W1, W1, W1
​W

1+1+1+1 = 15
1, 1, 1, 1
W1, W1, W1, W1, W1, W1
W2, W2, W2, W2
W

For every individual, there is a whole for each of the possible combination of individuals. And then the whole of the group.

Now my brain hurts, because I keep thinking "Oh, this is like combinations."

Combination formulas do not add all the potentials together at once. You have to define what the set of number is. But if I run the formula for each possible set, I do indeed get the same result +1 for the whole of the group. Yet I see no formula that calculates all at once.

Ah, but then I look a little more (Seraphel gives me a nudge, because he's a mathematician at heart), and I see that there is a much, much, much simpler formula...

2^n - 1

We subtract 1, because we are looking at wholes and null is not a valid value. n being the number of individuals being considered. Called "proper subsets".

And if you really want to bake your noodle, do subsets on the individuals and subsets on the wholes. It's infinity every time, because you will just keep cycling through the same grouping of wholes with no end, since you are counting wholes of wholes.

Anyway, 1+1=3 and I'm sticking to it.


I thank you for your time. Adiamas.

--Kyriel

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