Watch the Communitive Laws fail right before our eyes!!!

A couple of months ago, we were working with infinite series, and even proved that the primes are an infinite series. Today, we will work with another infinite series, known as the harmonic series. It goes like this:

1 - 1/2 + 1/3 - 1/4 + 1/5 - 1/6 + 1/7 - 1/8...

Let's add this up. Because of its nature, we can tell it won't go to infinity. If you can picture it, it kind of moves over a certain amount, then goes back in between, then a little forward again, and so on, zeroing in on a specific number. In fact, it is zoning in on a number called ln2, which is somewhere around .683. I don't really know the proof, but it involves a little bit of calculus.

However, let's try something else. How about we rearrange the numbers. Let's go for every odd denominator, we do two even ones.

1 - 1/2 - 1/4 + 1/3 - 1/6 - 1/8 + 1/5 - 1/10 - 1/12 + 1/7 - 1/14 - 1/16...

It is still the same series because we are adding every odd denominator once and every even denominator once. Let's tackle this in chunks. Let's just group together some terms every so often.

(1 - 1/2) - 1/4 + (1/3 - 1/6) - 1/8 + (1/5 - 1/10) - 1/12 + (1/7 - 1/14) - 1/16
1/2 - 1/4 + 1/6 - 1/8 + 1/10 - 1/12 + 1/14 - 1/16

1/2(1 - 1/2 + 1/3 - 1/4 + 1/5 - 1/6 + 1/7 - 1/8)

Just with that little adjustment, we have turned the same series into 1/2ln2. What we've just seen is that the little rule we learned back in second grade with the turn-around facts, fact families, fact triangles, all of that failing right before our eyes. In fact, this Communative Law that we learned can fail when dealing with infinite series involving negative and positive numbers.

What I find odd is that you can rearrange this series to get whatever number you want. If you tried hard, you could rearrange this to get π, e, or whatever else you want!! I haven't really looked into this, but it seems pretty cool.

Bonus Proof: While we are watching the Communative Law fail, we should ask a question. How do we know it is true? Why should 7 bags of 4 apples be the same as 4 bags of 7 apples? This proof is so obvious, yet I would never had thought of it! In fact, one of the things I've wondered for a while is why the Communative Law is true.

Think of it this way. Take a 4 x 7 rectangle made up of dots. How would we figure out how many dots there were total? Well, we could say, "there are 4 rows made up of 7 dots in each row," or, "there are 7 columns made up of 4 dots in each column." Both ways, we are finding the amount of dots in the rectangle. Which one is right? They both are, which proves why the Communative Law must be true.