} Patently you should start with Leacock, "Boarding-House Geometry". From
} there you will find that a pie can be reproduced any number of times.
}
} As I keep telling Zadok, mathematics is so much easier when you get rid
} of all the boring numbers and start calling everything phi, chi, xi and
} so on, then you can make anything equal what x is equal to, providing
} (according to Knuth) you typeset it nicely. Take, for example, a simple
} integer linear regression, like how much my hair falls out every time I
} read a stupid question from a stupid supplicant. You can show that the
} asymptomatic willl be that I will tend to have no hair and too many
} supplicants, take the first derivative in the complex plane and it is
} by facile princeps and modus ponens ponens easy to demonstrate, that my
} integral has more integrity than your integers.
}
} Now, what you have to do really is sit down at a good Peano and play a
} jolly tune called the propositional logic. From this you can work out,
} in a somewhat roundabout way, that 1 + 1 = 2. But really at that point
} all you've done is actually said "2 is the successor to the successor
} of zero", so it all looks nice on a first-term undergraduate paper, but
} gets you absolutely nowhere in real life.
}
} Mathematics is not about real life.
}
} Now, when it comes to integers, if you're being rational, then you can
} do most of the fiddly bits by assuming that I = x / Y. You can then
} leave your undergraduate students to work out what Y is. By that time,
} with compound interest at let's assume four percent per year, that is 4
} over a hundred or one twenty fifth, are you with me so far, by the time
} your students work out what i is, you'll be sitting on the Costa Del
} Bianco that the taxwoman doesn't need to know about.
}
} Now, let's up the game - ties plays the dealer: Roulette. Assume for
} the sake of my conscience that I haven't rigged the table, they are all
} integers, natural numbers, in the series from 0 to 36,,,, and here
} comes your Integral Joke Of the Day:
}
} Q. What did the croupier say to the punter?
} A,. "You can roulette any direction you choose, but I'm a natural,.
} Have you signed?"
}
} You owe the Oracle something that is relatively prime..
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