"Magic" regulating functions for divergent series

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  • Thread starter Swamp Thing
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Swamp Thing
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This recent video on Numberphile revisits -1 / 12 😱 after a hiatus of nearly 10 years.



One point that they make is that there are infinitely many choices of regulating function that converge directly to the correct value (e.g. -1/12) without having to throw away "infinities" or terms of order N, N^2 etc.

Q1 : Is it true that:- If we choose a regulating function and then look at the integral corresponding to the weighted sum, and if that integral taken to infinity is zero, then that regulating function is a "magic" one? (They don't say so in the video).

Q2: If the above is true, is this particular aspect really a profound advance, or are they hyping it up just a little bit for YouTube?
 

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