the.com/summation

Adding infinitely many numbers and hoping the universe stops you before infinity does.

means The act or process of adding things up to reach a total — or a final summary that gathers everything said before into one closing statement.

from From Latin 'summa' meaning 'highest, total, sum' (the top of a stack, literally), via medieval Latin 'summatio.' 'Summa' itself relates to 'summus,' meaning 'highest' — the same root that gives us 'summit.' So a summation is etymologically a climb to the top of a pile of numbers (or arguments) to survey the whole from above.

symbol origin
sigma, Greek S, for sum
sneaky trick
order can change the total
calculus link
integrals are summation's continuous cousin
diverges often
not every sum settles down
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