Math is life

Posted on May 16, 2006 - Filed Under Punch Forum |

Ms. Ric
mcescher4yr@yahoo.com
16 May 2006

Re: Feelings

Emmanuelle, had I not found your piece entertaining, I would have been really insulted by your perception of what a math teacher looks and acts like. Let’s start agreeing and disagreeing already…

Math is life itself: if by this statement, you mean that math is made up of rules, functions, defined and undefined terms, and logic, then yes math is life and life is math.

Life is predictable: not quite, more like a non-linear chaos or shall we say ordered chaos, but this of course depends on what variables you have, x or y?

Now let’s do the math. On this documented case - which I’m taking at its face value - its probability is highly possible. Let’s assign labels shall we? Let Paul-86, and Mary-80, yr-old siblings, and Peter-58 and Anna-55 yr-old siblings. There’s also a third set of terms – the real and only son. He’s our unknown. Paul and Mary claim to be the children of Tatay, the person who left all the inheritance. Peter and Ana claim to be Tatay’s great grandchildren. If Paul is 86 and Peter is 58, then the minuends 86 and 58 give us a difference of 28. Now take 28 and apply the divisor 2, the quotient is 14. Let’s go back and double check. From Tatay to Paul/Mary to unknown to Peter/Anna – that’s four generations. Then is it possible for Paul who’s 86 to have a 58-yr-old grandson, Peter? It’s highly possible, that at 14, Paul had a son, our unknown, and that his son, also at 14, had Peter. So you see, algebraically speaking, Paul/Mary = Peter/Anna. The inheritance should be divided in half, if and only if, DNA, a statiscian, and a darn good lawyer are applied on both sides.

No, I did not miss the point. Looking forward to next week’s installment.
 

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