Add up an infinite series of positive integers and get... -1/12. Huh?

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Wierdly, it does, but I've never quite understood the explanations. This result pops up in quantum mechanics and all sorts of other places too, so it's not just some mathematical trickery.

Here's a playlist from Numberphile of all their 7 videos covering this weirdest of results. There may be more videos added over time.



This video by Mathologer debunks the original video, saying it's a misrepresentation of what the mathematicians were trying to say. See what you think, but note that the presenter is an expert mathematician who really knows what he's talking about.

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Here's Wikipedia's take on it. Note that it's very high level with lots of squiggly maths though, so not comprehensible to most of us.

 
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