It was about half-way through when I realized that I had messed up. I was left puzzled. So were my parents. I could not believe that creating money would be this hard. In fact, there was even a mathematical proof backing me up. Everything was in my favour, everything except my parents. They just could not believe what I had done with the five dollar bill.
There is a mathematical theorem that needs to be brought to light. It is called the Banach-Tarski Paradox. In laymen terms, it states that an object can be broken into five different parts and then rearranged in such a way that the rearrangement can lead to the creation of an extra copy of the original object. Sound pretty complex though right? At least I thought so too, but it came from the …show more content…
I looked back at the Wikipedia article I read on Banach-Tarski Paradox hoping to find instructions on how to assemble the pieces. The “how-to” guide looked so complex. There were letters, fancy Us, fancy upside down Us and funny looking Es. I decided it would be faster if I just used brute force. How hard could it be, it should be just like putting a jigsaw puzzle together.
I started out mixing the pieces. I tried putting them in a row. Then in a column. I tried putting them diagonally. Then on top of each other. But nothing was working. It became really clear to me that I was not going to rearrange the five pieces into ten dollars.
I messed up.
Something else also became obvious to me, I was not going to get that yo-yo. But that was not the issue at hand. The issue at hand was that I needed to dispose of the pieces. I knew that if I did not find a way to either put them back together or destroy them before my parents found out, there were going be big, big problems. I cringed in fear at the thought of my parents finding out. It would be the same routine I had experience before: scold, scold, scold, preach, preach, preach, followed by more scolding. Who has time for that? I knew I could not let another hour of my life be wasted listening to the same jargon over and …show more content…
In school, when something ripped, I would see the teacher use tape to put it back together. I tried to tape the piece back but it was too obvious. Besides, we only had masking tape at home. I tried another trick I learn from school – glue. In order to glue the pieces, I need to overlap them and I realized after gluing on the last piece that the final bill as not a rectangle anymore. But now it was too late. All I had with me was the badly glued five dollar bill and a sinking feeling in my heart. I could not put the bill back together. I could not fix the problem I made. I was going to have to tell my
There is a mathematical theorem that needs to be brought to light. It is called the Banach-Tarski Paradox. In laymen terms, it states that an object can be broken into five different parts and then rearranged in such a way that the rearrangement can lead to the creation of an extra copy of the original object. Sound pretty complex though right? At least I thought so too, but it came from the …show more content…
I looked back at the Wikipedia article I read on Banach-Tarski Paradox hoping to find instructions on how to assemble the pieces. The “how-to” guide looked so complex. There were letters, fancy Us, fancy upside down Us and funny looking Es. I decided it would be faster if I just used brute force. How hard could it be, it should be just like putting a jigsaw puzzle together.
I started out mixing the pieces. I tried putting them in a row. Then in a column. I tried putting them diagonally. Then on top of each other. But nothing was working. It became really clear to me that I was not going to rearrange the five pieces into ten dollars.
I messed up.
Something else also became obvious to me, I was not going to get that yo-yo. But that was not the issue at hand. The issue at hand was that I needed to dispose of the pieces. I knew that if I did not find a way to either put them back together or destroy them before my parents found out, there were going be big, big problems. I cringed in fear at the thought of my parents finding out. It would be the same routine I had experience before: scold, scold, scold, preach, preach, preach, followed by more scolding. Who has time for that? I knew I could not let another hour of my life be wasted listening to the same jargon over and …show more content…
In school, when something ripped, I would see the teacher use tape to put it back together. I tried to tape the piece back but it was too obvious. Besides, we only had masking tape at home. I tried another trick I learn from school – glue. In order to glue the pieces, I need to overlap them and I realized after gluing on the last piece that the final bill as not a rectangle anymore. But now it was too late. All I had with me was the badly glued five dollar bill and a sinking feeling in my heart. I could not put the bill back together. I could not fix the problem I made. I was going to have to tell my