superpollo wrote: > Patrick Maupin ha scritto: >> On Apr 2, 2:41 pm, Andreas Waldenburger <use...@geekmail.invalid> >> wrote: >> >>> While everyone else is mocking you: Can you please elaborate on why you >>> want to know and what kind of problem you're trying to solve with this? >>> Also, don't you think you should have picked a maths forum for this >>> kind of question? >> >> Methinks the OP is fluent in the way of choosing newsgroups. >> According to google, he has posted 6855 messages in 213 groups. >> >> http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=ul3SQhIAAAAYmLD0Oj5Yxp-liP3Vw9uApbyajUBv9M9XLUB2gqkZmQ >> >> >> And I can't speak for anybody else, but I just assumed it was an April >> Fool's question. I meant to be laughing with the OP, not at him, so >> sorry if I misunderstood. > > no no you understood prfectly *but* the thing is i am a regular in an > italian language math ng which is haunted by a crackpot who insists that > 1/2 * 1/2 cannot be 1/4, "because multiplication means getting bigger", > so i took a semi-serious stance and made a few posts as a statistical > tentative to "convince" said crackpot that the world is not going crazy > (but maybe he is) > > thanks > > ps: note that my nickname is not unique, and there are a few people > whith the same one... and i didn't ever post using googlegroups
If you think you will persuade a crackpot to drop his lunacy by logical argument you are clearly an optimist of the first water. But since I like a challenge (and bearing in mind this is OT so I don't claim to be an expert) you might try first of all persuading him to agree to the commutativity of multiplication (i.e. x * y == y * x for any x and y). If he agrees to that, then get him to agree that x * 1 == x for any x. If he agrees to that, then set x = 1/2 and see if he'll agree that 1/2 * 1 == 1/2. If he does, then surely he must also agree that 1 * 1/2 == 1/2, i.e. multiplication can indeed "make things smaller". Good luck, though. Crackpots aren't generally responsive to appeals to rational thinking. regards Steve -- Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119 See PyCon Talks from Atlanta 2010 http://pycon.blip.tv/ Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/ UPCOMING EVENTS: http://holdenweb.eventbrite.com/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
