
False "proofs"
Although fallacious proofs are not scams, they remain a teaching tool that often amuses math buffs… and everyone else!


Although fallacious proofs are not scams, they remain a teaching tool that often amuses math buffs… and everyone else!


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Engineer Henri Pitot (1695–1771) is remembered for the tube that bears his name, which he proposed in 1732 to "measure the speed of flowing water and the wake of ships" and which is still widely used in aerodynamics. But geometry was this self-taught scholar's first love.

Behind its sleek appearance, the parabola brims with fascinating properties. Thus, the study of its tangents reveals remarkable angular properties and offers a playground of astonishing richness, where classical geometry meets luminous reflections.

Like any real number—for example, pi—a fraction can be written as a finite or infinite decimal expansion. Remarkably, the resulting decimal expansion is always eventually periodic.
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