Not your ordinary sum

Calculus Level 3

Is there a number system where a properly defined distance d d between two numbers (a metric) can be defined and satisfies the four axioms such that the following sum converges?

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + \large 1+2+3+4+5 + \cdots

No! Yes!

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1 solution

Mark Hennings
Jun 5, 2019

For any bijection f : R R f \,:\, \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R} , the function d ( x , y ) = f ( x ) f ( y ) d(x,y) \; = \; \big|f(x) - f(y)\big| is a metric. Given the function f ( x ) = { x 1 x > 0 x x 0 f(x) \; =\; \left\{ \begin{array}{lll} x^{-1} & \hspace{1cm} & x > 0 \\ x & & x \le 0 \end{array}\right. Then ( R , d ) (\mathbb{R},d) is a complete metric space and we deduce that d ( r = 1 n r , 0 ) = ( r = 1 n r ) 1 d\left(\sum_{r=1}^n r,0\right) \; = \; \left(\sum_{r=1}^nr\right)^{-1} so that lim n r = 1 n r = 0 \lim_{n \to \infty} \sum_{r=1}^n r \; = \; 0 with respect to this metric.

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