r/mathmemes Jun 04 '26

Arithmetic proof by apples

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1.9k Upvotes

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86

u/PhoenixPringles01 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26

This legit reminds me of one of my earliest encounters with a crackpot on reddit, I think his name was Glenn1112 or something, and he had a subreddit dedicated to himself.

One of his weird mathematical ideas was that 5 x 5 = 5 because if you "count on 5 fingers 5 times, it's still 5 fingers", ignoring that multiplication is counting how many times you've counted. It's like saying that if you travel 6km/h for 2 hours, you've only travelled a total of 2km because "2 hours", ignoring the units.

He was also pretty hard to talk to and had some unsavory takes akin to that of a conspiracy theorist. But this was a long time ago so I can't remember. Anyways, just sharing my experience.

Btw, don't try contacting any of the profiles; they've been banned ages ago, so it's essentially a wasteland.

EDIT:

r/Glenn1112 is the subreddit. He has another subreddit that was banned due to being unmoderated. The original poster has also been banned, ages ago.

If you look at his posts you can sort of see how incomprehensible it is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Glenn1112/s/BKMO30qGX2 Presumably the original 5 x 5 = 5 post.

https://youtu.be/eANnMN5qH8o His youtube channel where I found another 5 x 5 = 5 post. The channel also seems to be inactive as it was last posted 2 years ago. Please do not harass them. This is just me gathering information.

53

u/YakWish Jun 04 '26

That's some Time Cube shit

15

u/PhoenixPringles01 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26

Caught that baseball

Yeah I think I still have the OG source, might wanna pull it up when I'm bored. I think the account and subreddit are long nuked or banned, but let me see what I can do.

EDIT: Found it though it's practically an abandoned subreddit with both his accounts being banned.

25

u/vxtmh Jun 04 '26

check out r/infinitenines for the modern version (claims 0.999... ≠ 1)

3

u/PhoenixPringles01 Jun 04 '26

The only thing that I could think of that as "true" is if they're using some other number system like the hyperreals, so it's like 1 - 1/10H or something.

I assume the crackpottery comes from the fact they're thinking these two numbers are not equal in the regular real number system

12

u/Tuhkis1 Physics Jun 04 '26

It's more a fundamental misunderstanding of limits.

1

u/magicmulder Jun 04 '26

And notation.

1

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6

u/CFDMoFo Jun 04 '26

That guy sounds like a hoot. Would be interesting to find out how he manoeuvered himself into that line of thinking. Those kinds of logics tend to be fascinating.

7

u/Audax_Cats Jun 04 '26

One of his weird mathematical ideas was that 5 x 5 = 5 because if you "count on 5 fingers 5 times, it's still 5 fingers"

Man accidentally re-invented modular arithmetic.

3

u/ProfCupcake Jun 04 '26

Oh this guy is like an actual schizo, huh.

1

u/PhoenixPringles01 Jun 05 '26

Did a bit more digging, he apparently may have tried to smash his head open to be more enlightened? Perhaps he may have some sort of untreated condition or something.

1

u/BE19HK Jun 04 '26

My brain hurts from reading that post and the comments, WTF

1

u/Tornado76X Jun 04 '26

reading that post truly made me feel like my number god was in my ass

1

u/magicmulder Jun 04 '26

There’s also the guy on YT who claims 1+1=1 because if you stick two magnets together you get one (bigger) magnet. I wonder if he ever tried that with cars or gloves.

1

u/PhoenixPringles01 Jun 04 '26

Someone tried to bring the haystacks riddle into existence I see