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Is Math A Sport?
theodp writes "The close of the International Mathematical Olympiad prompts Slate to question if math is a sport, wondering if mathletes might someday compete in the Olympics alongside track stars and basketball players."
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Math:
The study of the measurement, properties, and relationships of quantities and sets, using numbers and symbols.
Sport:
An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.
who | grep -i blond | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
Math is interesting, math is fun, math is usefull, but math is not a sport.
From WordNet (r) 2.0:
sport
n 1: an active diversion requiring physical exertion and
competition [syn: athletics]
Many people cite it as a "non-sport," but synchronized swimming is incredibly difficult, both athletically and otherwise. Here's a way for you to find out:
swim 60 meters underwater.
stay underwater 3 out of 5 minutes.
train in a pool 7 days a week in addition to a periodized weight regimen and plyometrics.
Those things are just auxiliary. As a prerequisite, you must to have incredible overall swimming skills, cardiovascular and muscular endurance, great strength, agility, balance, discipline and superbly-honed technique.
As a British Junior Invitational Mathematical Olympiad (Yes, really.) I must say, unequivocally, no.
This isn't using divisions by zero. This particular "proof" relies on the fact that rearranging the terms of a nonabsolutely convergent series does not necessarily give the same sum. In fact, such a series can be transformed into a series with any given sum simply by rearranging the terms.