:::::: I only trust them after checking with an
:::::: infinite precision calculator
::::::
:::: I wonder how that one deals with irrational numbers?
::::
:: I was wondering where he found one of those. ;))

I am of the opinion that all but integer maths are irrational and 
illogical and bear no resemblance to the real world.

Give me three single stones and so long as I accept the concept of 
each stone equals 1 I have no problem in realising that 3 = 3 and take 
one away I now have two. BUT, tell me I have 1 stone and that if I 
were to cut it into 3 I'd then have 0.33333333 of a stone recurring 
forever. Well it gets worse when you tell me that if I multiply my 
0.3333333 to get my whole stone back I lose 0.00000000000000000001 of 
stone somewhere, this is obviously nonsense, and besides how do I know 
that the dust from the stone breaking actually does represent 
0.000000001 of my whole stone?

Then you have the math fidllers come along who back in the 1500's 
spent 20 years scribbling all over bits of parchment and end up 
fudging figures to get the results they have abitarily drawn out of 
the air and then have the cheak to produce various lawas to explain 
why statistically speaking if 2 + 2 doesn't equal 4.679 as they hoped, 
I must ignore law number one and select law number five which will 
with judicious losing bits of numbers into no mans land get the 
required result.

You can tell why I detested at primary and secondary school 
problematical maths, with my kind of thinking.

I am still convinced that those men who insisted on filling baths 
sometimes together and sometimes individually cheated by sometimes 
using hot water (which must run faster) and how did  I know they were 
using the same size bucket? How could I be expected to know if a train 
left Crewe station at 12am and had wheels with a circumference of 2' 3 
and 3/8" at what time would it meet the train from Cornwall at Eustan 
Station if it was travelling at 80MPH and stopped for three minutes 
once, if at the age of eight I didn't know exactly where Crewe station 
was? The teacher was never impressed by my argument.

Colin


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cdb, colin@btech-online.co.uk on 27/04/2009
 
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