Monday, 21 January 2013

Monday Maths Madness 23

This is going to be a short one today, as I have a lot of assignments due in on Thursday, and not a lot of time to do them all in.

Consider a set, I shall call it A. A is the set of all sets which are not members of themselves.

If A is not a member of itself, then by definition it is a member of itself.

But if it is a member of itself, then by definition it can't be a member of itself.

This self-contradictory definition is known as Russell's paradox.

And it makes my head hurt.

Ponder on that for a while :)

2 comments:

  1. what does that even mean - 'not a member of itself'

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  2. We recommend introducing children to math trails by having them explore, in small groups, 4-5 areas of interest within their own classroom. Writing a maths question for the area they are in. help me with maths

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