I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Story Bone

"It was amazing, he proved one equals one," he said.

"That's easy, that's an axiom," she said.

"Yeah, but you've never seen it proved like this before. It was like the Rube Goldberg of mathematic proofs. At one point one equaled two. Genius. Pure, unadulterated genius."

5 comments:

Dan Berlyoung said...

Sounds a little like something I heard a while back...

"Pi is equal to 3, for large values of 3."

Dan Berlyoung said...

Update: I just found a reference to this in the 'Jargon File' at MIT. (http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/f/forvaluesof.html)

"A related joke is that pi equals 3 -- for small values of pi and large values of 3."

Steve Buchheit said...

Dan, oh yeah, I remember those. I also remember seeing the proof of how 1=2 (and trying to find the logic errors that helped get there).

Jim C. Hines said...

*Grin* I love this snippet!

Steve Buchheit said...

Jim, thanks. Have at if you get a story for it. This comes from several snippets of conversation I get (this isn't overheard, this is just from my wild imagination).