Friday, August 19, 2011
Mathematical Proof of God
I shall now offer a mathematical proof for the existence of God.
Ahem.
Consider a right triangle of unit length 1. By the Pythagorean Theorem, the length of the hypotenuse, the side of the triangle opposite the 90-degree angle, is the square root of 2.
Consider a circle. The area of a circle is pi times the square of its radius, pi being the ratio of the circle’s circumference to its diameter. In fact, the circumference of a circle is 2 times pi times the radius.
Okay, I just lost half of you, but stick with me a moment.
Let’s focus on the square root of 2 and pi.
They are perhaps the two most well-known examples of a set of numbers called irrational numbers.
Now, they’re not irrational because they’re crazy or unpredictable. They’re called irrational because they cannot be expressed as a ratio between two numbers.
What does this mean?
If you attempt to express these numbers not as a ratio but as a decimal, you’ll quickly run out of paper. There is no solution. You can go on for millions and millions of digits, and never come to an exact figure for the square root of 2 or pi. For all we know, both expressions are infinite.
Here’s where God comes in.
Although we can never find a exact length for the hypotenuse of a right triangle of unit length 1 and can never find the exact length of the circumference, we can obviously see that these measurements are finite.
How can something infinite become finite?
Hmmmm?
Does it remind you of anything? This infinitude becoming finite?
Let’s not read too much into that previous teaser statement. At the most fundamental level, a quantity which can’t be quantified somehow becomes an exact quantity, be it a line in a triangle or the perimeter of a circle.
How can this be?
It’s almost supernatural, supernatural being “above” or “greater than” the natural. Transcendent, almost.
And this transcendence, I call God.
Your move, sir.
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