Easy as 1, 2, um ... whatever

2007-03-01T03:25:00.000-08:00

In life, one and one don't make two
One and one make one

Bargain The Who

He say "one and one and one is three"

Come Together The Beatles

Obviously the lyrics above present a s'tira - contradiction, in Hebrew. If one and one make one then one and one and one can't possibly make three. So what's going on.

There's a little known Jewish Urban Legend* that Roger Daltrey is the descendent of a long line of great Rabbis. In fact the name Daltrey is not English at all, but a corruption of the Yiddish term "Der Alter" (The Elder) after his great great grandfather who was a leading Rabbi of British Jewry in the early 19th century.

Something of a renaissance man among rock stars, Daltrey called on his Talmudic legacy and his knowledge of mathematics to solve this apparent contradiction between two definitive rock songs.

Assume a = b
Then a * b = b * b or b ^ 2
and a ^ 2 - a * b = a ^ 2 - b ^ 2
factor a * ( a - b ) = ( a + b ) * ( a - b )
and (a * (a - b) )/(a - b) = (( a + b ) * (a - b)) / (a - b)
therefore a = a + b
subtitute a = b = 1
and you have 1 = 1 + 1 or 1 = 2

If 1 is equal to 2 we can now explain both lyrics consistently.

1 + 1 + 1 = 3 or 2 + 1 = 3 then we subsitute 1 for 2 and we have 1 + 1 and as we have shown 2 = 1 so we now have 1 + 1 which again reduces to 2 and finally we substitute 1 for 2 one more time and we're left with
1 + 1 + 1 is not just equal to 3 but it is also equal to 1 and we have resolved these shvairer (difficult in Yiddish) lyrics.

And it's all due to the brilliance of the descendant of Der Alter, Roger Daltrey.

* Like statistics 97% of all Jewish Urban Legends are made up on the spot.

Rosenfeld's Ruminations

Easy as 1, 2, um ... whatever