They keep digging that hole deeper

You're viewing a single thread.

83 comments

I know this is a joke, but wrong about what, exactly? I don't get it.
Also, and maybe this has something to do with the joke I'm not getting, the way complex numbers are motivated in school is a lie, and a stupid one. Mathematicians were perfectly comfortable with certain equations having no solutions; the problem was when their equations told them there were no solutions when they could see the solutions: the curve x³ - 15x + 4 crosses the x-axis, but Cardano's cubic formula gives up due to negative square roots. Imaginary numbers were originally no more than an ephemeral reasoning tool, and were only reluctantly accepted as entities in their own right because of how damn useful they were.
- Imaginary numbers were originally no more than an ephemeral reasoning tool, and were only reluctantly accepted as entities in their own right because of how damn useful they were.
  That, there, is the story of pretty much all maths. There were occasional mentions of zero and debates about whether it's a number or not in old Europe, it only became widely accepted once base 10 became popular. And people still can't agree whether the natural numbers contain it!
  
  Hah. Church tried to ban it because it was "associated with illegal money trading", I remember that. What is it about maths that makes non-mathematicians think themselves qualified to judge matters they don't understand?
  
  They did five minutes of research on ~~the internet~~ a stone tablet so their opinion is just as valid.
  
  I only read one book, and it's a Good Book, don't you know!

83 comments