Apropos 1+2+3+4+5+...=<img src="http://latex.codecogs.com/gif.latex?-\frac{1}{12}" title="-\frac{1}{12}" />: Mapping Infinity in Light of the Number Circle (or Cycle), in L. Euler’s Footsteps and with the Aid of Two Dimensional Infinite Series, and Replacing Negative Infinity and Positive Infinity with Just Infinity

Abstract

The number circle—that is, the notion that the largest possible positive numbers are followed by infinity and then by the smallest possible negative numbers—is not new. L. Euler defended it in the eighteenth century and, before him, J. Wallis considered something vaguely similar. However, in the nineteenth century, the number circle was for the most part abandoned—even if something similar is on occasion accepted in geometry, in the sense that space is circular. The design of the present paper is to present positive proof of the veracity of the number circle and therefore, at the same time, to falsify the number line. Verifying the number circle implies falsifying negative infinity and positive infinity—infinity instead being neither negative nor positive, just like 0. Part of said proof involves showing that infinity can be defined both as 1+1+1+1+1+1+... and as -1-1-1-1-1-... and that the following Equation applies: 1+1+1+1+1+1+...=-1-1-1-1-1-... The principal mathematical technique that will be used to provide said proof is introduced here for the first time. It is called the two dimensional infinite series. It is an infinite series of infinite series. Some additional observations regarding the geography of infinity will be made. A more detailed description of the geography of infinity will be reserved for other papers. The Equation is discussed in this paper only to the extent that the attention that has been paid to it has necessitated the construction of a theory of infinity that, upon closer inspection, makes the Equation more self-evident and intuitively apparent; a fuller discussion will take place in a later paper.