There’s so much to like about this kdrama, and it’s not just the nerdiness of it all. But hey, it’s about time we do some more Math for Bitches.
Remember this? Shortly before the first lightning scar appeared on Lee Gon’s shoulder blade, we were shown some equations on the glass window. (BTW, I’d hate to be the cleaning lady of his hotel room. He’d better leave a big tip.)
Lee Gon appeared to be calculating the area. The second line is the one that I’m going to focus. Don’t worry. I’ll simplify it.
He’s searching for a number between 0 and 1. It’s greater than zero but is less than or equal to 1. He scribbled funky math equations. I’ll try to break them down.
The symbol “ln” means natural log. It’s the inverse (or “doppelganger,” if you wish) of Lee Gon’s favorite number, the Euler’s number e or 2.7182818284590….
Now, let’s imagine Lee Gon coming up to me to ask, “Hey, packmule3, what if I love you for 3 years? Will that make you love me more?”
My answer will be “Yeah! Sure, kiddo! I will love you 20.08 times the way I love you now.”
20.08
Where did I get that number? From here, from this equation: ex or e raised to the x power. I raised his favorite Euler’s number, 2.7182… to the 3rd power. I multiplied 2.7182 x 2.7182 x 2.7182 to get a compounded growth of 20.08 times my original love for him after three years.
Theoretically speaking, what can Lee Gon expect to receive with 20.08 more love from me? Well…not much. Probably a glass of banana smoothie every night, a cup of coffee in the morning, hot air balloon rides on anniversaries, a Beatles song when he’s sad, and homemade chicken noodle soup when he’s sick. That’s it. I don’t believe in spoiling guys.
But we’re talking about “ln” here, and I said “ln” is the opposite of e. So, let’s reverse the scenario, okay?
Imagine Lee Gon again coming up to me and whining, “Hey, packmule3. Where’s the love? I’m dying here. Can’t you show me a bit more love? How about giving me 20.8 times the love you’re giving me right now? Huh? Huh? Hey, where are you going?!!!”
Of course, I’ll be annoyed with him. I hate being pressured, so I’ll say, “Sorry, buddy! You have to wait 3 years. Or if you can settle for less, like 7.38 times the love I’m giving you, you can wait for 2 years. That’s my final offer. Take it or leave it.”
See, if he settles for less, he can get 7.38 growth without waiting 3 years. He only has to wait 2 years (or death whichever comes first, lol).
Where did I get 7.38? Again, from his favorite Euler’s number e.
That’s just the e number raised to the second power or 2.7182… x 2.7182… which rounds up to 7.38.
Do you get it?
If e is about growth, then ln is about time. That equation that Lee Gon wrote on the window, ln(n), is simply asking for the TIME he needed to grow n.
But the mind-boggling thing about Lee Gon’s equation is that he’s asking for infinity. Infinity is not technically a number so we set limits.
And that’s what he wrote on the window: what’s the limit of the natural logarithm of n when n approaches infinity.
lim ln(n) when n→∞
In other words, how much TIME does he need to grow to infinity?
lol.
Of course, you know that answer is infinity. You don’t need to be a mathematician to figure that out. You can’t really rush infinity. How much time do you need to grow to infinity? Well, infinity.
Or if you want the math equation, lim ln(n) = ∞ when n→∞
Next, he wrote something that looks squiggly.
Don’t be intimidated by those squiggles. That’s just the capital letter sigma (or “S” in the Greek alphabet), and the symbol means “sum it up!” In this equation, we’re supposed to add all the fraction all the way to infinity again.
Sum = 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + 1/5 + 1/6 … to infinity.
And here again the answer is infinity.
However, there’s one part that stumps me about this equation.
The subtraction sign.
Did you see what he did there? He subtracted infinity from infinity. We all know that any number subtracted from itself equals zero.
Like if I have Lee Gon, and you kidnap Lee Gon from me, then I have no Lee Gon.
lol. Seriously, though, you can have him. I’m still on Cynical Island (population: 1).
So what did Lee Gon mean by subtracting infinity from infinity?
Beats me.
I’ll guess I’ll have to wait for Prof. Indiana Jones to answer that. He’s the ultimate liberal arts guy out there.
Anyway, moving on…
Did you get that Eunsup’s joke about the bathroom door?
LG: I went to the Royal Bakery myself and got it made just for you.
ES: Wow, you really didn’t have to. All right. Cut me a large piece.
LG: I’m afraid I can’t do that. But I could buy you the bakery if you want.
He means that as King of the realm, he’s used to being waited on hand and foot. He’s not accustomed to cutting a slice of cake for somebody else. It’s easier for him to spend money to buy him the bakery than to cut him the cake.
ES: Really? You better mean it. I really respect you, sir. (whispering to TaeEul) I lost my chance to have a canned peach company last time. I was so upset.
He meant that last time, in the hospital, Lee Gon offered to buy him a canned peach company in lieu of opening a canned peach for him. (Remember ES injured right hand? He probably needed help opening it.) LG probably said “I’ll buy the company just don’t make me open the can of peaches.” But ES probably insisted and LG had no choice because hey! the guy took a bullet for him, right?
TE: Then next time, ask him to open a car door for you.
I’m sorry. I laughed here. I laughed at her because she has no loyalty. Lee Gon’s reaction said it all.
ES: Wow. Why didn’t I think of that?
TaeEul meant that if Lee Gon was always going to resist doing menial jobs because they were beneath him, then ES should ask him to open a car door. Lee Gon was sure to resist, too, and he’d offer to buy ES a car dealership/car company in lieu of opening the car door for him. ES would be rich!!
See that? Once LG realized that he was being scammed by these two Koreans, he wizened up.
ES: Sir, can you open the bathroom door for me? The spot where I got hit is suddenly hurting. (whispering to TaeEul) This hospital is pretty huge.
lol. Eunsub was baiting Lee Gon. He wanted Lee Gon to say that he’d rather buy the whole hospital than open the bathroom door for him. But….
LG: (stands up and opens the door)
ES: What?! Noooo! What’s this? Why are you doing that?
He learned fast.
That is so funny!! I totally missed that joke! I think I didn’t catch the part about buying the Canned Peach company. Loved it.
AS for the equation with the minus sign, our King wants to have his Zero, no matter what! LOL.
LOL the generous response to the plagiarist. Banning people from anywhere makes little difference, since they can change name and pretend to be someone else, unless we can ban their ip address. They have to keep changing machines to get in again and under a new name, at least.
At least you’ve managed to protect the contents from easy copy and paste. 😏
Yes, right? He was his zero. 😂
She’s going to be the butt of jokes.
The unfortunate part of all this is my readers who se language isn’t English are going to be messed up. So… I’m still thinking this through. 🙂
I did get the Eunsub joke :))
The math though.. I wondered while that scene played if I should watch it again to figure out if there’s some meaning to it or they just used cool math stuff (lim, ln, sigma) for the aesthetics of it only
Still not sure
I knew than ln of infinity is ♾ infinity.
But I didn’t know where the story was going with it, so I just kept it to myself. Plus, natural logs (and logarithm in general) are abstract and theoretical.
But hey, I just threw it out because we’re already at the end anyway. 😂
But it’s cool that the production had a math guy or team doing those math “extras”. They weren’t just doing lip-service to LG being a math kid. 👍👍
Readers of other languages – Ah yes, readers may need to copy and paste into a translator to get the nuances of your posts.
My husband has a phone app (something like MS Translator) which allows him to take a photo of words in a foreign language and it translates to English direct from the photo. I’m not sure if it would work in reverse ie from English to other languages. This is one way out for our readers in the mean time, as we look for alternative ways to protect your content.
And it also puts a burden on other readers like Izumi opialda and our Turkish Lady so I’m still weighing my options. Unfortunately, computer tech isn’t my field of expertise. Earlier, I had to brush up on what an RSS was. 😂 I’m a dinosaur.
Dear @Packmule3, sorry you had to go to such extremes to at least make the plagiarist’s work a little harder. We will see how commited to her ways she is.
As far as infinity goes, yes: it is not a number. But as I mentioned in one of my earlier post there are infinites of infinites… and while we can’t measure them we still can compare them (and see which infinite wins!!!). That is where lim->inf concept comes so handy.
On the other hand if the number he is looking for is between 1 and 0 in his inequation, then it can be translated as his desire to compromise in order for them to “meet in the middle” with Tae-Eul.
About the screenshot with the formula.
Of course, it is unlikely that the script will ask the viewer to do math and understand the formula.
However, there are some simple elements that most people can understand:
– Part one, top “area”. It is understandable that this is a way to calculate an area, a place.
– Second part “0 <" and "<= 1". I hope it's understandable enough for a majority of people. We see here a reference to the dialogue concerning the inter-world.
– Thirdly, but this already requires a less accessible effort, we notice that part of the formula at the top is found in the formula at the bottom.
As an ordinary spectator with an elementary level of mathematics, I understand here that Lee Gon is looking for something about the in-between world. In a previous dialogue, he says he doesn't know how far this place goes. My conclusion after seeing this scene (or rather, after seeing it again and freeze-framing it, lol!): He is looking for something in this in-between world, perhaps its borders.
Thanks, WEnchanteur.
Yes. I doubt that the director would want us to do calculus 😂😂 just to watch the show. But I’m still glad that that the team went through the trouble of actually doing the right math. They could have just scribbled nonsense and jargon there but hey! They did their due diligence.
It’s like when I listen to a drama with a prodigy musician, usually a violinist. I’ve to grit my teeth when the actor doesn’t even know how to play the instrument and the director compounds the error by filming the actor up-close while he’s holding the bow wrong on a difficult passage. 😂😂 Like, please Director??? Just do a body double.
Btw, I got your message earlier. 🙂 I deleted it as soon as I read your advice. Thanks.
When these two functions are plotted,they’d give parallel lines that do not intersect. Like TE and LG. Running so close together but never meeting. So, if TE and LG were to live in their own seperate worlds, they’d diverge just like these two seperate functions.
However, the way LG wrote, subtracting one function from the other, the graph would stabilize somewhere between 0 and 1 with a single representation. That is the significance of the place that he’s looking for between 0 and 1.
I take no credit for the above explanation. I’m a biologist as you all know by now. Ask me how neurotoxins work. Not functions.
This wonderful explanation can be found at
Oops. I can’t paste the link !
I get it.
Often, this kind of detail jumps out at me when it comes to computer programs. One scene shows characters using a software program, for example, to conduct an investigation, or to do a spinning. The screen is of course animated, with lots of flashy details. The kind of thing that doesn’t exist!
This is excusable because it makes it easier for the viewer to understand. But I rather like to see something more realistic, in a story with a realistic atmosphere. It makes me feel confident “Wow, they thought of everything!”.
The multiple details of a story should be treated this way, but it requires a lot of research. Often TV writers don’t have the time, so they rely on clichés that everyone understands.
For TKEM, hiring a mathematician for the math details is necessary. The walls of Lee Gon’s room are covered with mathematical formulas everywhere. The mathematician had a lot of work here! I can imagine him consulting his math or physics books. Choosing formulas that roughly correspond to topics in relativistic or quantum physics. Then writing all this down. It must have taken him hours and hours.
I also wonder how the mathematics influenced the script. Last time I detected details showing the relationship between this source of inspiration and the story of the drama. That is not nothing! It means that the writer’s imagination worked from that. I don’t know how. If she talked to a mathematician friend, and that gave her the ideas from the beginning. Or if she already had the idea for a story with parallel worlds. And then she looked to mathematics to fuel her story. Once done, she declined whole logical parts of the story, according to this source of inspiration.
Well, I’m going to pour myself a glass of whisky and start episode 13. 😉
I seriously am unable to paste the link, I do not know why! Interested individuals can please check Twitter user @brunette931 (not me).
Been a silent reader all these while… But dayum… You’re so smart and observant I can’t. 🤓
Hahaha now i get it ! Thank you once again
@packmule3! I was puzzled by their random conversations in the hospital. And LG did buy a car and opened the door for ES in the end:))
Btw i failed maths miserably when i was younger yonks ago but reading your explanation of the maths symbols and equations and outcomes made maths beautiful as LG said! Now i am interested in maths because of you and the other gals here!! The team behind the show put in much effort. Kudos to them!!
The fact that TE and ES are busting LG’s chops about royal rules and regs was very entertaining. I thought LG opened the door to the bathroom to tell him that he is full of shit. The scene was flush with dry humor.
No, LG opened the door of the bathroom bec he realized that two TaeEul and Eunsup were ganging up on him.
TaeEul figured out that if LG was going to uppity about doing menial jobs and offer to buy his way out of it (bakery for slicing cake, fruit canned company for opening a can) then ES could him to do improbable stuff like open car doors.
ES then thought he could con LG into buying him a hospital (bec in Korea, if you own a hospital, you’re chaebol lol) so he asked LG to open the bathroom door. That’s why he was dismayed when LG stood up and opened the door as requested. ES was going, “No! What are you doing?!” 🤣😂
See the script is actually funny. And LG is deadpan so the audience doesn’t get the usual helpful visual cue when a joke had been delivered. 🤪
It is amusing to see most-likely-to-be-certified-by-MBTI-as-KING Lee Gon getting huffy when he senses he’s being ignored or snubbed. It must be a new experience for him. He lists being deprived of a share of popsicle as some of his motivation for returning to KOC the first time. I suspect that was only partly in jest. I also suspect a measure of TE’s charm in his eyes is that she doesn’t fawn over him. She’s not artificial due to fear of his position, or wanting to take advantage of him because of his wealth and power.
Thanks again, @Packmule, for explaining this scene and letting me in on the joke. Understanding social convention and deciphering verbal communication is hard for me sometimes, so this flew over my head, as did the popsicle scene in an earlier episode when LG got stuck walking up the ramp behind TE and SJ.
I thought that scene was funny because LG pretty much stated that ‘no, I’m not buying a hospital for you’ to Eunsop. 😂
I’ll watch episode 13 after I give hubby a haircut 💇♂️.
I guess TKEM team somehow needs this kind of humor to lighten up the not so ordinary complication of scenes, twists here and there. Not all the viewers can get those jokes, though.
This is my first time to watch Kdrama with Math concept involve. I love Math until high school but they’re all forgotten until I saw LG’s room with those formula. Now I know why I nearly failed my Math subjects in college! Thanks to @pm3 I could understand your simplified explanation!
ES personality can be a breath of fresh air to LG and TE since he is down to earth and yet serious with responsibilities being asked of him. Still curious how Lady Noh (or whoever is her ally) chose JY as young as four years old to be part of the plan to stay with LG’s side. She has good taste!
I literally needed to replay 3 times before understanding the joke.
KES is quite something.
As always, well done @pm3 👏🏼 I love how this drama is so well written & thought of. That as an audience, it challenges us to think. Kudos also to the main cast for their superb acting chops. Can’t wait to see how this all ties together in the end.
hello
I can continue reading you.
But It’s harder to write now…
I curse the thief,
but Ilove you so much…
I love that scene, ES is the comic relief in the show. In episode 13, LG did open the door for ES: “You wanted me to get the door”. Well…LG said “I was going to buy you that company but paperwork got in the way.” Honestly I wonder how ES was going to drive when he technically didn’t pass the test. Wouldn’t he be a reckless driver? :O
Thanks for explaining the math, I am forgetting all about it and now that you mention it, and @Arihsi mentioned that if you graph a y=ln(n) and y=e^x curve there is a space between these two graphs that will never meet, that space I am thinking may be the strange 0-1 between the two worlds (if you look at the graph like a picture).
Also, there is no way ln(0) is possible, it will never touch 0 it will almost touch, I wonder what the significance of getting as close to 0 or 1. Was he finding the area of something…the area of no man’s land? so he can get to the end of it? LG said somewhere that he tried reaching the boundaries of no man’s land but he couldn’t. It sounds like he was assuming it was flat. Reminds me of TE saying she is a flat land believer.