And I never believed my Grade 12 math teacher that calculus would be useful later on in life. Turns out it’s great for screwing with phone companies. Oh well. You’re still a dick Mr. Calder.
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January 12, 2007 at 7:12 pm
I love this!
January 17, 2007 at 6:56 am
Google is the best search engine
January 22, 2007 at 7:30 pm
So what is the amount he was going for?
.002 + 23.14^sqrt(-1) + .99999999999999… = ~.002
January 23, 2007 at 5:59 pm
beautiful :-)
January 25, 2007 at 7:31 pm
This is out of control. I love it! Way to go (the memo is my favorite part). Just listened to the call on youtube… and I thought I had horror stories with phone companies on the phone. Good night! This should be aired on tevevision.. you need to get on some kind of scarborough or o’reilly or something!
January 26, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Would have been funny if it added up to a real number. Or did I miss something?
January 27, 2007 at 5:01 pm
noob mathematicians ;-p the total is essentially 0.
e^([pi]i) = -1
just like ln(-1)=[pi]i
i, indicates an imaginary number which has a few different calculations than real numbers. You can do it by hand, or just say ’screw it’ and use a TI-83 or equivalent.
∑1/2^n = 1
Even though beginners will translate it as .999… that number is a fallacious number, and is thus translated as 1. (Just like 2/3 is equal to .666…, 3/3 = .999… AND 1)
And finally, when dealing with money, anything less than a cent, can NOT be rounded up to a cent. It is in fact rounded down.
Plan and simple, he gave them a check for nothing… and is refusing to pay his bill.
January 29, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Hey everyone,
The “i” imaginary number is factored out. e^ix = cos(x) + i*sin(x) (Euler’s Law); since sin(pi) = 0, the “i” is factored out — and cos(pi) = -1. Then the series shown does not equal “1″, but rather pi^2/6 (it’s a power series expansion). What you’re left with is:
0.002 - (pi^2)/6,
or roughly -$1.64. Which tells me that Mr. Munroe must have had a credit of $1.64 on his account… :-)
-shane
January 29, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Hey Nerds.
I think you’re missing the point. Stop doing math and enjoy the joke.
February 2, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Shane, you got the power series wrong. Expanded, it’s:
1/2+1/4+1/8+1/16+1/32…
which converges to 1. Mr. Munroe appears to be paying his good friends at Verizon 2/10ths of a cent.
February 5, 2007 at 7:33 pm
I think this check is somehow linked to this episode from YouTube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Gp0HyxQv97Q
Verizon does not know the difference between .002 cents and .002 dollars.
February 12, 2007 at 8:11 pm
That check is made out incorrectly. The numerical part on the right side is acceptable, but the “Dollar Line” is totally unacceptable because that line is supposed to be written in word form, and not a repeat of the numerical value. Verizon should have refused to accept it and maintained a balance due on the account. HOWEVER, the whole idea is terrific!
February 13, 2007 at 2:14 pm
someone smack Lew, he must work for a bank.
February 14, 2007 at 1:24 am
This is the funniest thing I’ve seen all week. Hats off to Mr. Munroe, and stick to your guns.
February 15, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Lew, in the US of A, the fractions of $ can be written as er… fractions. That’s numerically. So writing
0.002 $ is just the same as nought&.2/100$ which makes it acceptable. The series and the complex exponential are… higher order terms which can be safely neglected ;-)
February 19, 2007 at 10:00 pm
The summation evaluates to 1. The exp(i*pi) evaluates to -1 (actually to -1 plus undefined). So the total is 0.002 dollars, or 2 cents. He put in his “2 cents worth” AND it was the infamous number Verizon could not understand as well.
Priceless.
February 20, 2007 at 6:53 pm
I-Love-It.
Your math skills are amazing.
Please explain how .002 dollars is 2 cents.
Thats the only part i don’t get.
February 23, 2007 at 10:53 am
Actually, my math skills are not amazing. $0.002 is not two cents of course–it is 0.2 cents. My bad on that part.
March 5, 2007 at 11:08 pm
The only problem is you payed 39 cents to mail a worthless check to your phone company. Later you’ll pay late fees on top of that. I’m sure that a few people are impressed by your copy and past of a couple of famous mathematical terms that equal -1 and 1, but I am not. Also you gave out your full name, your bank, and your signature to the free world. You might end up with your account drained if some hacker type gets hold of that info. Well, maybe you’ll get a date out of it from some math geek groupie.
March 26, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Brad is a n00b. ANYONE’s account can be stolen. “Some hacker type”? What kind of nonsensical generalization is that? Not all hackers are bad people. In fact, you can get the information you stated anywhere else on anyone! Obviously you’ve got an intelligence complex. Mr. “Copy and Past” You sicken me, effing n00b.
April 20, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Randall you R DA MAN… that was funny. Well done. As for the NERDS doing all the calculation below? Get a life and smile a bit !!!!
May 14, 2007 at 11:02 am
Randall, I love your object lesson, but it’s not much point in blanking out your routing transit field in the MICR line of the check if you’re going to leave it visible under the check number. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.
June 18, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Looks like Shane mistook Σ(1/2n) for Σ(1/n2).
June 18, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I put some <sup> tags in there, and they got stripped. Fellow nerds will guess where.
June 28, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Randall Munroe, I wish I’d had this when Verizon tried to screw me over. I reported them to the BBB and after that we came to an understanding about what I REALLY owed them. You are a genius!!!
August 7, 2007 at 5:05 pm
I-Love-it has the math right (combining both his posts ;)
November 20, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Pure genius.
February 18, 2008 at 3:27 pm
To all those who disparaged the people who did/could do the math calculations: Is that the typical reaction of someone with intellectual deficiencies? Berate those who didn’t go to school with heads up their arses?
April 15, 2008 at 4:21 pm
$536.49 roughly
April 22, 2008 at 3:03 pm
The Math is correct it totals 2 tenths of a cent. And this is important to fully understand what he was saying. If you thought it was just to be confusing you missed the fact that it is referring to the “Verizon is bad at math” incident.
April 27, 2008 at 9:10 pm
I also got about $536.50
April 30, 2008 at 9:08 pm
$76.29 to be exact… Where did you guys learn your math?
It’s not about the math - It’s about the funny factor!
May 22, 2008 at 4:54 pm
It is 0.2 cents or 0.002 dollars as per my calculations… $76.29 is wrong and so is the ridiculous $536.50… I doubt the joke is on verizon if he’s giving them that much money…
It makes a lot of sense if it is 0.2 cents because verizon didn’t know the difference between 0.2 cents and 0.2 dollars.
e^i*pi = -1
and the sum as n approaches infinity is 1
so both cancel out and you get 0.002 dollars.
just my 0.2 cents :)
June 12, 2008 at 6:58 am
The value of the check is for $0.002
…2/10 of a cent.
Why ?
e^(i^pi) = -1
the infinite sume = =1
These 2 terms cancel,
leaving just the term $0.002.
People are misinterpreting the exponential
thinking that the i = sqrt(-1) is a 2.
June 12, 2008 at 7:07 am
Note: Typo is previous posting…
The correct form is: e^(i*pi) = -1
The value of the check is for $0.002
…2/10 of a cent.
Why ?
e^(i*pi) = -1
the infinite sume = =1
These 2 terms cancel,
leaving just the term $0.002.
People are misinterpreting the exponential
thinking that the i = sqrt(-1) is a 2.