Knights Reborn

I am a mathematical genius and I have figured out a way 2 make 2=1!

a=1
b=1

a=b
multiply by a

a^2=ab
subtract b^2

a^2-b^2=ab-b^2
Factor

(a-b)(a+b)=b(a-b)
Divide by (a-b)

a+b=b
Substitute

1+1=1
2=1?!?!?!?!


Can u figure out the flaw?

...I'm pretty sure you just did all the math...completely wrong, because there is no possibly way that you could make it so that a=b can become 2=1...unless I'm wrong here. Someone else good at math care to look this over @_@

Edit: Is the flaw in when you subtracted b^2? Cuz I have no idea why you did that or where b^2 even came from.

@_@ As if math didn't confuse me enough already.

Necros wrote:Is the flaw in when you subtracted b^2? Cuz I have no idea why you did that or where b^2 even came from.

No thats not the flaw... as long as you do it to both sides of the equation it is valid. Good guess though.

Its actually really simple. People like me just make it look hard.

Divide by (a-b)
is divide by zero

like saying n = m when they are different bc n^0=m^0 or n*0=m*0

Yeah, I don't know what you did wrong, but I can guarntee you that 2 does NOT equal 1. I'm sure if this were possible, highly payed mathematicians would've figured it out many many years ago (no offense to you Hawk.)

a-b = 0 but you cannot divide by that


illegal move

edit oops Jawfin already spotted

Jawfin and Chantelle are CORRECT!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!

*Feels stupid*

You don't even have to divide. If you plug in a and b, you get:
(1-1)(1+1)=1(1-1)
(0)(2)=1(0)
0=0

So you did the third to last step wrong.

Well yea... thats basically the same thing though...

woot, I passed a grade 9 algebra puzzle; i'm glad my degree in science wasn't wasted [/smugmode off]

the answer is that there is no solution for 3 reasons:

the reason stated above by multiple people

if a and b were both known to equal 1, they would be represented by the same variable.

the domain of such an equation would require that if a=1, b can be any real number that does not equal 1.

cake

So much for showing off my 100 percent'ing of my algebra benchmarks and mid-term exam
Even though I found the same flaw as chantelle and jawfin <_>.

the disguise is surely the algebra..

strip it back to numbers the division by zero would normally be alarming..
Well I say alarming, I don't mean you'd freak out et el. I mean you;d recognise it!