6 ms·

This kind of coincidence is just cute, it doesn't imply anything useful mathematically right?

BGthaOG 7y ago
I would not be surprised if it is found to be useful. My reason for this is the Quran's mathematical composition, founded on the number 19: https://www.masjidtucson.org/quran/miracle/ https://www.masjidtucson.org/quran/miracle/
- lonelappde 7y ago
  That's numerological nonsense like Bible Code.
  - BGthaOG 7y ago
    It is not; I invite you to study it before you reject it.
    - mangamadaiyan 7y ago
      The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. Pray supply something more substantial than a link (to what looks like a religious organisation) in support of your claim.
      - BGthaOG 7y ago
        I agree, hence the link. You are asking me to write out in a comment the information that is presented clearly and accessibly in the link.
        mangamadaiyan 7y ago
        Took a quick look. All that it seems to say is a version of "19, therefore {deity}didit". Not clear, smells like numerological nonsense, so no thank you, moving on.
dwaltrip 7y ago
The fun thing about math (and science and technology as well) is that it is you can't always tell what is going to useful down the road. "Interestingness" is often as good a heuristic as any when looking for paths that lead to useful developments, although the path is often not a straight one or short one. I also like the idea of secondary and tertiary effects. One simple example: By "playing" with cute yet fun ideas that are highly likely to not lead to anything immediately interesting, we can build up skillsets and capabilities that lead to very useful results for other problems. Perhaps this is somewhat akin to how the young of predator species "play" around in a way that prepares them to actually hunt when they are older.
- Cpoll 7y ago
  Have any developments come out of adding the digits? My impulse is to dismiss it out of hand because it only works in base-10, which in my mind leans it towards numerology instead of math.
  - dwaltrip 7y ago
    It looks like there are some applications. Checksum algorithms are probably the easiest to appreciate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_sum#Applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_sum#Applications
  - mafaa 7y ago
    I think small random uses add up to practical value although there are those who make a religion out of its 'meaning'. some (n mod 9) can be found by (is congruent to) (sum of the digits mod 9) instead is the most obvious example True only in base 10 although similar congruences exist for other bases and also involve adding the digits
nitrogen 7y ago
I'm terrible at discrete math so I'm not going to work it out, but I'm sure it would be possible to express that relationship in a way that it could adapt to other number bases, and then it might be easier to tell if there is something there. (something like treating the digits as coefficients of a series of powers of the number base, defining a function f(b,n) that returns the sum of the digits of n in base b, setting that equal to the product of the forward and reverse representation of that result in base b, and seeing if the equation looks interesting) E.g. you can use a similar technique to show why the finger counting method of multiplying by 9 works, or why multiples of 3 have digits that sum to a multiple of 3 (same for 9)

I would not be surprised if it is found to be useful. My reason for this is the Quran's mathematical composition, founded on the number 19: https://www.masjidtucson.org/quran/miracle/ https://www.masjidtucson.org/quran/miracle/

lonelappde 7y ago
That's numerological nonsense like Bible Code.
- BGthaOG 7y ago
  It is not; I invite you to study it before you reject it.
  - mangamadaiyan 7y ago
    The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. Pray supply something more substantial than a link (to what looks like a religious organisation) in support of your claim.
    - BGthaOG 7y ago
      I agree, hence the link. You are asking me to write out in a comment the information that is presented clearly and accessibly in the link.
      - mangamadaiyan 7y ago
        Took a quick look. All that it seems to say is a version of "19, therefore {deity}didit". Not clear, smells like numerological nonsense, so no thank you, moving on.

dwaltrip 7y ago

The fun thing about math (and science and technology as well) is that it is you can't always tell what is going to useful down the road. "Interestingness" is often as good a heuristic as any when looking for paths that lead to useful developments, although the path is often not a straight one or short one. I also like the idea of secondary and tertiary effects. One simple example: By "playing" with cute yet fun ideas that are highly likely to not lead to anything immediately interesting, we can build up skillsets and capabilities that lead to very useful results for other problems. Perhaps this is somewhat akin to how the young of predator species "play" around in a way that prepares them to actually hunt when they are older.

Cpoll 7y ago
Have any developments come out of adding the digits? My impulse is to dismiss it out of hand because it only works in base-10, which in my mind leans it towards numerology instead of math.
- dwaltrip 7y ago
  It looks like there are some applications. Checksum algorithms are probably the easiest to appreciate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_sum#Applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_sum#Applications
- mafaa 7y ago
  I think small random uses add up to practical value although there are those who make a religion out of its 'meaning'. some (n mod 9) can be found by (is congruent to) (sum of the digits mod 9) instead is the most obvious example True only in base 10 although similar congruences exist for other bases and also involve adding the digits

nitrogen 7y ago

I'm terrible at discrete math so I'm not going to work it out, but I'm sure it would be possible to express that relationship in a way that it could adapt to other number bases, and then it might be easier to tell if there is something there. (something like treating the digits as coefficients of a series of powers of the number base, defining a function f(b,n) that returns the sum of the digits of n in base b, setting that equal to the product of the forward and reverse representation of that result in base b, and seeing if the equation looks interesting) E.g. you can use a similar technique to show why the finger counting method of multiplying by 9 works, or why multiples of 3 have digits that sum to a multiple of 3 (same for 9)