See, studying pure math isn't as hard as people think it is. When you come up against a question you can't solve, just make up the answer.
Basically, some guy invented a number (which he calls 'nullity') to represent what happens when you divide by zero.
First, if you're going to invent a number at least give it a cool name.
Second, I'm no math genius, but I fail to see how this is beneficial. He hasn't solved anything that I can see. All he's done is given a centuries-old problem a new name.
Of course, I haven't looked at the research, so I really have no idea what I'm talking about.
But this guy has inspired me to invent my own number: Giggity!
From now on, this number represents all numbers, to an infinite level of precision. That's right, all numbers from +infinity to -infinity are represented in this single, handy, easy-to-use number. Don't know the answer to a problem? It doesn't matter anymore. Just use Giggity and you'll be fine. Since it represents all numbers, you can't be wrong!
How long will your trip to Spain take? Giggity hours.
How far is it from Moscow to Anchorage? Giggity kilometers.
6+4? Giggity.
Speed of light? Giggity m/s^2.
In a first year physics lab I managed to prove that gravity pushed things up at 14 m/s^2 (seriously). My lab instructor wouldn't believe my math, and there was no way my math could have been wrong (I got a D- for crying out loud, how could I have been wrong?). Had I used Giggity he would have had to believe me.
Giggity!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Well, I'd have to agree with you. This number system idea has no founding so far in reality (where the concepts of infinity, zero, etc, do).
Well, as far as I can tell. In all natural physical systems that I'm aware of, dividing by 0 means your system is going to blow up. That's usually a conditon you try to avoid.
So, unless it's helping to systematically destroy things, or helps solve some problem maybe in quantum physics, I sure can't see the use for it.
Giggity!
My favourite part is this:
“Programmers try to work around this [dividing by 0] by adding an extra code to do something else in these cases, but they have no overall theory to guide them and if any programmer forgets a test, or treats division by zero differently from his fellow programmers the program they are working on will fail."
The guy is a computer scientist himself, not a mathematician, so he should realize that this "solution" will not help computer scientists. Even if this gets adopted as some sort of standard representation, you'd still have to check for it.
So instead of your code saying this:
if (denominator = 0){
throw exception
}
else {
do something useful
}
It now says:
if (numerator/denominator = "Nullity")
{
throw exception
}
else {
do something useful
}
Even if "Nullity" avoids a divide-by-zero exception, any logic in the rest of your code is screwed if you need to use that result for any practical purpose.
Giggity!
(I can't believe there's actually a Wikipedia entry for "giggity giggity giggity")
Post a Comment