Why does 1+1=2?

Question

Why does 1+1=2?

Answer 1

why not?

Answer 2

I'd like to answer your question with another question.

What do you mean by "2"?

If you answer this, in whatever way, you've answered your question.

Answer 3

Due to the definitions of the two symbols.

Answer 4

You're all wrong!

1+1= a window.

Get a piece of paper join the 1 to the plus and 1 to the other side, put = on top and bottom. WINDOW

Answer 5

because thats what the man want you to believe.

i can get way more into it, applying all of my half-assed philosophical knowledge, but i wont soley because you would nto understand a word i say......

and remember, the power is yours!!!!

Answer 6

Because you are using a base 10 counting system with arabic numerals.  If you were counting in binary, 1 + 1 would = 10, and 10 + 1 would = 11.

Everything is relative.

Answer 7

because some Greek guy decided that if you had a person on your left side and a person on your right side then the number of people (excluding you) was the word two. You could easily make your own law of math, but you'd have to use the basic principles of adding and stuff. The concept of math is really just thoughts that are written down and passed along as formulas. For all we care, one plus one could equal fish. It's really a matter of how widespread the thought is.

Answer 8

We covered this in my Abstract Algebra course in college.  It is basically by definition since every number N can be mapped into is sucessor by adding 1.

Here's more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axiom...