the.com/sum
Where countless little numbers surrender their identities to become one larger truth.
means The total you get when you add numbers together, or more loosely the whole amount of something.
from From Latin 'summa,' meaning 'the highest' or 'the top'—the feminine of 'summus,' superlative of 'superus,' 'higher.' The link is delightfully physical: Romans added columns of figures from the bottom up, so the final total sat at the TOP of the column. The 'sum' was literally the topmost line. It reached English through Old French 'somme.' The same root crowns 'summit,' 'summary,' and 'supreme'—all things at the peak.
- symbol origin
- Sigma sign comes from Greek S, for synthesis
- gauss trick
- Added 1 to 100 instantly as a schoolboy
- infinite sums
- Adding endless numbers can still total something finite
- strange result
- 1+2+3+... famously assigned the value negative one-twelfth
- empty sum
- Adding nothing at all equals zero by convention
for instance
checksums in data transmission — error detection method using crc-32 or md5 hashes in tcp/ip protocols