[ekjhgkejhgk]

Just because someone said it doesn't mean we all agree with it, fortunately.

You know the meme with the normal distribution where the far right and the far left reach the same conclusion for different reasons, and the ones in the middle have a completely different opinion?

So on the far right you have people on von Neumann who says "In mathematics we don't understand things". On the far left you have people like you who say "me no mats". Then in the middle you have people like me, who say "maths is interesting, let me do something I enjoy".

[geomark]

Of course. I just find it hilarious that someone like von Neumann would say that.

[ekjhgkejhgk]

von Neumann liked saying things that he knew would have an effect like "so deep" and "he's so smart". Like when asked how he knew the answer, claiming that he did the sum in his head when undoutedly he knew the closed-form expression.

[srean]

I have tingling suspicion that you might have missed the joke.

To date I have not met anyone who thought he summed the terms of the infinite series in geometric series term by term. That would take infinite time. Of course he used the expression for the sum of a geometric series.

The joke is that he missed a clever solution that does not require setting up the series, recognising it's in geometric progression and then using the closed form.

The clever solution just finds the time needed for the trains to collide, then multiply that with the birds speed. No series needed.

[ekjhgkejhgk]

Ah. I was going by memory, and I had those two as separate stories. I didn't remember that he said "I did the sum" on the trains problem.