Incredible Proof for the BASEL PROBLEM by Greek-American mathematician Tom Apostol

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  • čas přidán 3. 07. 2024
  • All the proofs of the Basel problem are beautiful, but this one got something special about it. Maybe it's just me. Or can you see it as well? :)

Komentáře • 97

  • @andy_lamax
    @andy_lamax Před rokem +29

    Another digestable approach to the bassel problem perfectly explained. Good job

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem

      Thank you so much I’m happy you liked it ☺️🍀

    • @azzteke
      @azzteke Před rokem +2

      What is bassel, please?

    • @JanB1605
      @JanB1605 Před rokem +1

      *Basel, as in the place Basel in Switzerland. ;)

    • @chrisl442
      @chrisl442 Před rokem

      ... and a great demonstration that 1 = 0 at 10:26.

    • @cyananamation2466
      @cyananamation2466 Před rokem

      ​@@chrisl442lmao I just noticed

  • @problemasresolvidos_ar
    @problemasresolvidos_ar Před rokem +4

    I love all Apostol books! I learn most of my first math topics thanks to him! Great video.

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem +1

      How amazing 🤩 he was a very good teacher. Thanks for your appreciation:)

  • @phenixorbitall3917
    @phenixorbitall3917 Před rokem +6

    I just liked the video and subscribed: I absolutely love this kind of derivations! Excellent job 👍

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem +2

      Thank you so much and welcome on board fellow path integrator :)

  • @Nusret15220
    @Nusret15220 Před rokem +2

    Absolutely amazing!

  • @lukehastings2214
    @lukehastings2214 Před rokem +33

    10:22
    The top equation suggests that
    u=1-sin^2(theta)=cos^2(theta)
    This contradicts the second equation
    u=1-cos^2(theta)
    Which both need to be satisfied by the same substitution to do the substitution
    also cos(2theta)=cos^2(theta)-sin^2(theta)=2cos^2-1=1-2sin^2 not 1-sin^2(theta)
    Also also
    if u=cos(2theta)
    du=-2sin(2theta)
    Some of this is kind of pedantic but this stuff is important.

    • @lukehastings2214
      @lukehastings2214 Před rokem +1

      11:06
      Also the -2sin(2theta) dtheta seemed to be replaced with -2dtheta without reason. Also bounds should be half the arccos of 1 and 2 if cos(2*theta)=1 &1/2 since 2*theta=arccos(1) & arccos (1/2) and so theta=1/2*arccos(1),arccos(1/2)

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem +2

      You mean not using the same substitution variable both times?

    • @divisix024
      @divisix024 Před rokem +9

      In fact the substitution u=cos(2θ) may be pulled directly from the half angle formula for tangent, i.e. tan(θ/2)=sqrt((1-cosθ)/(1+cosθ))

    • @martinepstein9826
      @martinepstein9826 Před rokem +6

      ​@@thepathintegrator No, the equations at 10:22 just don't make sense. The top equation says u = 1 - sin^2(theta) which equals cos^2(theta). The bottom equation says u = cos^2(theta) - 1. So u = u - 1?

    • @jaafars.mahdawi6911
      @jaafars.mahdawi6911 Před rokem +5

      Indeed, well noted, though it can easily be resolved. Also we should all agree that otherwise this video is a job well done.

  • @ActMIRANDARAZOANGEL
    @ActMIRANDARAZOANGEL Před rokem +2

    I actually love this video.❤

  • @fitbit4518
    @fitbit4518 Před 8 měsíci +1

    Apostol's approach is nice. If we want the simplest way to solve the Basel problem , it is the Fourier series.

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před 8 měsíci

      Yes but that would require knowledge of Fourier analysis 🧐

  • @bjornfeuerbacher5514
    @bjornfeuerbacher5514 Před rokem +3

    If you look at what Mengoli actually wrote, he did not really use the alternating series directly. Instead, he considered two sequences of numbers, one consisting of the sums over 1/k with k going from n to 2n-1, and the other consisting of the sums over 1/k with k going from n+1 to 2n. The first he called the hyperlogarithms, the second the hypologarithms; and then he argued that the hyperlogarithms are descending, whereas the hypologarithms are ascending, and that the hyperlogarithms are always greater than the hypologarithms. Hence the two sequences converge to a common limit, and he argued that this limit is the logarithm of 2 (or actually, of the "double ratio").
    The partial sums of the alternating series over 1/k consist of the hyperlogarithms and hypologarithms by turns, so his argument amounts to providing that this alternating series converges to ln(2). But he never actually talked about the alternating series.

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem +1

      Oh wow didn’t know about the history so much thanks for the input 🙏 super interesting

  • @GicaKontraglobalismului
    @GicaKontraglobalismului Před rokem +3

    Thank you Sir! This is a wonderful presentation of a wonderful mathematical gem! Gems like this show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Science in general and Mathematics in special are ...wayyy better than... sex! Even though chalk and chalkboard reign supreme, your electronic presentation of the problem is not only innovative but outright revolutionary as the formulas (in very pretty font!) are introduced gradually as they would be written by hand, allowing the information to be more readily absorbed by the mind. The speed of human understanding is the speed of speaking and writing as it is very well explained in a You Tube video by Professor Patrick Winston.

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem +1

      Thank you so much for your very kind and heart warming words. I’m happy you like my way of sharing the beauty of maths ☺️

  • @Inosen_Infinity
    @Inosen_Infinity Před rokem +2

    At 2:16 is it really valid to drag the sum out of the integral? The problem is, in order to be integrated element-wise, a functional series has to converge uniformly over the entire region of integration (including edges). In the presented case, however, the given series don't converge at (1, 1) even pointwise, not to mention uniform convergence. Am I missing something?

  • @spiderjerusalem4009
    @spiderjerusalem4009 Před rokem +4

    as some may have noted, 10:40 should just've been u = cosθ,
    since
    tan(½θ) = ±√[(1-cosθ)/(1+cosθ)]
    though yes i comprehend the motivation, to annihilate the term tan⁻¹, but what you obtained was
    1-sin²θ=cos²θ-1
    yet the actual is
    √[(1-u)/(1+u)] = (1-cosθ)/sinθ
    again, since (1-cosθ)/sinθ = tan½θ
    Still a very well done vid. I remember stumbling upon this approach for the first time back when i was still self-learning calc using stewart's, in which he used the sub x=(u-v)/√2 and y=(u+v)/√2

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem

      Thanks for the tip and also I appreciate your compliment a lot :) I’m glad you like my work

  • @hansulrichkeller6651
    @hansulrichkeller6651 Před rokem +1

    Sehr gut!

  • @yyaa2539
    @yyaa2539 Před rokem +1

    Imho this is a very good proof because of the following generalization used for prooving the famous Apery theorem concerning ζ(3):
    "... ζ(3) was named Apéry's constant after the French mathematician Roger Apéry, who proved in 1978 that it is an irrational number...The original proof is complex and hard...
    Beukers's simplified irrationality proof involves approximating the integrand of the known triple integral for ζ(3)..."

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem

      Yes I also found that out during my research it’s absolutely amazing! I’m currently also trying to understand the “simpler” proof by Beukers properly

    • @yyaa2539
      @yyaa2539 Před rokem +1

      @@thepathintegrator It is remarkable that the duble integral can be calculated and this leads to the solution of Basel's problem and in the same time the value of the corresponding triple integral it is not known

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem

      Yes one might think it cannot be that hard, just do it like the double Integral but no. The zeta function indeed is a very weird thing which makes it so interesting. What is so special about the uneven numbers?

  • @iagree3409
    @iagree3409 Před 8 dny

    at 11:30, arccos of 1/2 is pi/3 and not pi/6, right??

  • @pyropulseIXXI
    @pyropulseIXXI Před rokem +4

    The alternating harmonic series can be made to have a value of -ln(3) if one merely rearranges the series to have blocks of 1 positive followed by 36 negatives

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem

      Interesting where did you find out about it?

    • @AccessDen
      @AccessDen Před rokem +1

      @@thepathintegrator The alternating harmonic series is conditionally convergent, it is a well known fact from Real Analysis that
      If a series is conditionally convergent, then:
      1) re-arrangements of the terms do not necessarily sum to the same values
      2) for any real number r, there exist re-arrangements such that the series sums to r
      3) there exist re-arrangements such that the series diverges to positive/negative infinity

    • @pyropulseIXXI
      @pyropulseIXXI Před rokem +1

      @@thepathintegrator I read about it once, regarding the exact value of -ln(3) being the rearrangement of 1 positive term followed by 36 negative terms
      There is an old theorem from Riemann that says there is a _simple_ rearrangement of the alternating harmonic series to get any exact value of ln(sqrt(r)), where r is a rational number.
      So r = 1/9 shows, via this theorem, that -ln3 is a simple rearrangement of the alternating harmonic series

  • @slavinojunepri7648
    @slavinojunepri7648 Před rokem +1

    This is a nice proof indeed!

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem

      I do think so too, Tom Apostol really nailed it with this one ☝️

  • @chrislubs1341
    @chrislubs1341 Před rokem +1

    What software was used to produce this video please?

  • @williamperez-hernandez3968

    For second integral, using h for hypothenuse, we have sqrt(1-u) = h sin T and sqrt(1+u) = h cos T. After squaring we get two expressions for u, u = 1 - h^2 [sin T]^2 = h^2 [cosT]^2 -1. So this gives h^2 = 2! Therefore, u = 1 - 2 [sin T]^2 and u = 2 [cos T]^2 - 1. Finally, adding we get the correct expression: 2u = 2 ([cos T]^2 - [sin T]^2) simplifying to u = cos (2T).

  • @jovencanopen6332
    @jovencanopen6332 Před rokem +1

    At 10:54, shouldn't it be du = -2sin(2theta)dtheta ? The argument 2theta has to be included right?

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem

      Yes true little mistake I’m sorry 😞

    • @ArthurNischev
      @ArthurNischev Před rokem

      @@thepathintegrator its fine bro it happens sometimes, ive had the same mistake many times before

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem +1

      Thanks bro :) man signs and factors drop so easily ^^

  • @r2k314
    @r2k314 Před rokem +3

    Nice. What was the motivation for the U,V substitution?

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem +7

      Most interestingly I couldn’t find a real motivation for this change of coordinates. I’m guessing that Tom Apostol was playing around with the integral and found this to be the best way. Let me know if you (anyone who reads this) finds something about it! :)

    • @ominollo
      @ominollo Před rokem +2

      There is always some art involved in solving integrals 😉

    • @birdbeakbeardneck3617
      @birdbeakbeardneck3617 Před rokem +3

      I think he wanted to introduce saquares(u+v times u-v) in the denominator which is knoz to hive arctan which gives pi
      Pretty cool stuff

    • @Devesteter252101
      @Devesteter252101 Před rokem

      @@birdbeakbeardneck3617 yep, thats how I thought about it too: 2xy is sort of dual to x^2 + y^2 with respect to u = x + y, v = x - y, and since generally it is a good idea to take advantages of symmetries, this substitution would be (and of course, is) a sensible step in this direction

    • @pyropulseIXXI
      @pyropulseIXXI Před rokem +3

      @@thepathintegrator It is what works; asking what the motivation is is like asking "why is he even doing math?" This is how real math is done; people experiment and find stuff. Then, once you do all this hard work, you only keep the single line of reasoning that provides the elegant answer, thus making people think math is done via single line of reasoning found via intuition alone
      People will then say "Wow, what intuition motivated such an answer?!?!" Whilst they are totally blind to the actual process.

  • @alebisello9106
    @alebisello9106 Před rokem

    Beautiful video! I just got a question, at minute 10:38 there is the relationship "cos(2a)=1-sin²(a)", which, at least to my knowledge, is not valid. cos(2a) should be "cos²(a)-sin²(a)", which can be written as "1 - 2sin²(a)". Was this the relationship you meant to use? (I apologize for any spelling mistakes, english is not my mother tongue)

    • @piotrskalski1477
      @piotrskalski1477 Před rokem +1

      Yes, there's a mistake there

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem +1

      @alebisello9106 thank you so much for your appreciation :) yes you’re right this was a mistake in the video I’m very sorry :/

  • @padraiggluck2980
    @padraiggluck2980 Před rokem +3

    At 10:51 you dropped 2 from the argument. du = -2*sin(2*theta) dtheta

  • @MCMCFan1
    @MCMCFan1 Před rokem +2

    6:00 result is right but the explanation is wrong. We can multiply by 2 not only because of the symmetry of the Integration area but also because of the symmetry of the integrand with respect to reflections across the u-axis!

  • @strikerstone
    @strikerstone Před 5 měsíci

    5:20 i kinda didn't understood

  • @canadagooses
    @canadagooses Před rokem +1

    you lost me with the substitutions in the second integral. I’m not sure what all went wrong as you got to the right answer, but I don’t understand how you justified some of the steps. One example:
    if u=cos(2θ)
    then du=-2sin(2θ)dθ
    you neglected the 2θ
    again I can’t argue with the correct answer but some of the steps along the way are a little questionable. It seems to all work out in the end but I would like a more rigorous proof.

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem

      I’m sorry I lost you at the second integral. You’re right that I dropped the 2. Concerning the substitution I tried to give an explanation of why Tom Apostol back then chose it, but it didn’t quite work out unfortunately. So just stay maybe with the fact that he chose cos(2theta) to be the best substitution and then you get the solution

  • @wankachalawea
    @wankachalawea Před rokem +2

    9:10 You said 62 but it says 72. Doesn't really matter just wanted to comment

  • @pyropulseIXXI
    @pyropulseIXXI Před rokem +2

    If u = 1 - sin²(θ), then du = -2sin(θ)cos(θ) = -sin(2θ)
    Also, cos(2θ) = 1 - 2sin²(θ)
    Also also, if you have u = cos(2θ), then du = -2 sin(2θ), but this isn't even the correct u, as cos(2θ) != 1 - sin²(θ)

    • @thepathintegrator
      @thepathintegrator  Před rokem

      Does the integral value change?

    • @IoT_
      @IoT_ Před rokem +1

      @@thepathintegrator Man, if you got the correct result using incorrect calculations, you are not a mathematician, you are a fortune teller.

    • @pyropulseIXXI
      @pyropulseIXXI Před rokem

      @@thepathintegrator Well, your end result is correct, so no, the integral value doesn't change. I haven't worked it out, since I was doing this in my head. I need to work this out on paper to see what happens

  • @bscutajar
    @bscutajar Před rokem +2

    arctan(tan(x)) is only x if x is between -π/2 and π/2, you didn't show that.
    Also tangent is with a soft g, why are you saying tanghent?

  • @dougr.2398
    @dougr.2398 Před rokem

    Tom Apostol

  • @TheDavidlloydjones
    @TheDavidlloydjones Před rokem +1

    You can be before you solve; you can't be before you're going to solve since you a.) already announced that you're going to solve and b.) always were about to. OK?

  • @erfanmohagheghian707
    @erfanmohagheghian707 Před rokem

    Jesus! Since when cos(2t)=1-(sin(t))^2? LOL! you just need a substitution of u=cos(2t) for the second integral. Luckily the bullshit in the middle did not affect the final result.

  • @johnnyq4260
    @johnnyq4260 Před rokem +1

    This is cute, but does a rise to the level of being worthwhile to mention Apostol's heritage??

  • @robblerouser5657
    @robblerouser5657 Před rokem +3

    I believe tangent is pronounced "ˈtanjənt".