Thursday, December 07, 2006

Brings back nightmares

So, there's this nob at the University of Reading who says he's solved the divide by zero problem (well, one video talks about how he solves 0^0, but the full feature discusses dividing by zero).

First of all, if you're going to say you've come up with some newfangled math thing, at least pretend to work at a relevant school, perhaps the "University of Arithmetic" or "College of Numbers" - no, he's going for Reading.

Secondly, he's showing it off at some grade school? I would think that something (seemingly) on par with coming up with imaginary numbers would be earth-shattering and discussed at institutes of higher learning around the world. But no, he's "enlightening" grade school kids. Evidently, they're the only ones not educated enough to tell him he's full of it.

Lastly, at least pass your "theory" by a couple of people before blabbing to the local media. Apparently, the BBC has about as much scientific credibility as USA Today does - none.

The responses to the feature are pretty funny, just scroll down the page to see them.

This all reminds me of a class I took in college, which I briefly discussed here.

If this were April 1st, I could understand, but it's not. I'm baffled how people can be so cluelessly wrong.

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