Why 1 + 1 = 2

Why does 1 + 1 = 2?

Well, to put it simply: that's what we said it would be.

This question will make much more sense if we confine our discussion to mathematical symbols, instead of natural language.

The question is in itself both true and false; we could use our current symbols and see 1 + 1 = 2; we could also switch the symbols we represent 1 and 2 with, and then 2 + 2 would equal 1, while 1 + 1 would not equal 2.

We happen to have pretty consistent symbols, but even when the symbols are constant, it took over 300 pages of mathematical writing to conclude that 1 + 1 = 2, which the authors dryly noted was "occasionally useful."

(If you want to see for yourself, it's called the Principia Mathematica. Although I did have to look up what the symbols mean.)

In general, however, the fact still remains that 1 + 1 = 2 is just a way of teaching people to count. Remember: TWO + TWO IS NOT THREE.

Anyways...

Hope you enjoyed this blog post! I’m MatthewNotebook, find me on Wikia, and hopefully we’ll meet again.