Keywords
the Hydra
Goodstein sequences
Internet
ordinals numbers
Peano’s Arithmetic
Hércules
la Hidra
sucesiones de Goodstein
Internet
números ordinales
Aritmética de Peano
How to Cite
Abstract
Hercules killed the Hydra of Lerna in a bloody battle—the second of the labor tasks imposed upon him in atonement for his hideous crimes. The Hydra was a horrible, aggressive mythological monster with many heads and poisonous blood, whose heads multiplied each time one of them was severed. This article explores some mathematical methods about this interesting epic battle. A generalization of the original Kirby & Paris model is proposed. We also study the connection of this model with Goodstein ultra-growing and recursive sequences. As an interesting application, we next analyze the inevitable death of another huge monster of our modern era: the Internet.
References
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