Terry Woods
Member
- Join Date
- Apr 2002
- Posts
- 3,170
So... you must have heard the question posed by the little girl, on the radio, to her Daddy...
"Why is the concept of odd and even a philosophical illusion?"
It sounds a bit like the tree falling with no one to hear.
But, maybe not...
We all know the basic definition of odd and even.
"n = 2k"
"n" is an even number for any integer "k".
... -4, -2, 0, 2, 4,... are all even (yes, even zero is even!)
But then it occurred to me... there appears to be a bit of an identity crisis in that "k" could be even or odd and yet "n" will always be even.
Some numbers are "really" even while others are "no so even".
I think the terminology is "doubly-even" and "singly-even".
That is, if an even number is divided by 2 and the result is even then the first number is doubly-even. From that point on, all subsequent devides by 2 will produce even numbers.
However, if an even number is divided by 2 and the result is odd...
ooops... gotta go...
Any thoughts?
"Why is the concept of odd and even a philosophical illusion?"
It sounds a bit like the tree falling with no one to hear.
But, maybe not...
We all know the basic definition of odd and even.
"n = 2k"
"n" is an even number for any integer "k".
... -4, -2, 0, 2, 4,... are all even (yes, even zero is even!)
But then it occurred to me... there appears to be a bit of an identity crisis in that "k" could be even or odd and yet "n" will always be even.
Some numbers are "really" even while others are "no so even".
I think the terminology is "doubly-even" and "singly-even".
That is, if an even number is divided by 2 and the result is even then the first number is doubly-even. From that point on, all subsequent devides by 2 will produce even numbers.
However, if an even number is divided by 2 and the result is odd...
ooops... gotta go...
Any thoughts?