The Lemon Fool

Gengulphus wrote:

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:As a total aside may I ask if any of your Math's teachers remained in post for more than a year [Sorry my humour's as good as my maths ... eek ]

The answer is "yes" for my maths teacher in the last few years of secondary school - but you've got to take into account that he was a mathematician! ;-) Before that, I don't really remember my maths teachers and quickly lost track of them, due to moves between schools in different countries.

And by the way, I'm by no means the most pedantic of mathematicians. As an illustrative puzzle, when I was in the university maths department, it would not infrequently happen that someone would make a comment such as "I wonder whether that depends on the axiom of choice or not?" and instantly get an answer that was both undoubtedly correct and thoroughly unhelpful. What was that answer? (To answer this, you don't need to know anything about the axiom of choice other than that some maths results depend on it and others don't.)

Gengulphus

Whoops, I missed your question until bluedonkey's post drew my eye back to it.

I expect the answer might be one that's always been popular in my family. Acknowledging that you wonder, but saying nothing about the subject on which you wonder.

And surely the form will be familiar to most people, in examples like:

Would you like tea or coffee? Yes please!

Or indeed in Hamlet's reply when asked what he was reading.

Gengulphus wrote:And by the way, I'm by no means the most pedantic of mathematicians. As an illustrative puzzle, when I was in the university maths department, it would not infrequently happen that someone would make a comment such as "I wonder whether that depends on the axiom of choice or not?" and instantly get an answer that was both undoubtedly correct and thoroughly unhelpful.

This is often followed by a heated argument about the validity of the law of the excluded middle.

Just how do you get 100 chicks to sit in a circle? It would be like trying to herd cats

--kiloran

kiloran wrote:Just how do you get 100 chicks to sit in a circle? It would be like trying to herd cats

--kiloran

You tell them it's a party game, of course! And feed them as much chick lit as necessary.

kiloran wrote:Just how do you get 100 chicks to sit in a circle? It would be like trying to herd cats

--kiloran

You would use Photoshop.


Julian F. G. W.

kiloran wrote:Just how do you get 100 chicks to sit in a circle? It would be like trying to herd cats

--kiloran

Superglue.

UncleEbenezer wrote:

Gengulphus wrote:

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:As a total aside may I ask if any of your Math's teachers remained in post for more than a year [Sorry my humour's as good as my maths ... eek ]

The answer is "yes" for my maths teacher in the last few years of secondary school - but you've got to take into account that he was a mathematician! ;-) Before that, I don't really remember my maths teachers and quickly lost track of them, due to moves between schools in different countries.

And by the way, I'm by no means the most pedantic of mathematicians. As an illustrative puzzle, when I was in the university maths department, it would not infrequently happen that someone would make a comment such as "I wonder whether that depends on the axiom of choice or not?" and instantly get an answer that was both undoubtedly correct and thoroughly unhelpful. What was that answer? (To answer this, you don't need to know anything about the axiom of choice other than that some maths results depend on it and others don't.)

Whoops, I missed your question until bluedonkey's post drew my eye back to it.

I expect the answer might be one that's always been popular in my family. Acknowledging that you wonder, but saying nothing about the subject on which you wonder.

And surely the form will be familiar to most people, in examples like:

Would you like tea or coffee? Yes please!

Close - the answer was just "Yes", meaning that yes, it does either depend on the axiom of choice or not depend on it. (And in reply to 9873210's point, yes, it could have been followed by discussing the validity of the law of the excluded middle, which casts a doubt on my "undoubtedly correct", but I don't remember that ever happening - so they could have been even more pedantic than they were!)

Close rather than on the nail because in the tea-or-coffee example, "Yes please!" is less than completely helpful, but not thoroughly unhelpful: after it, you know more about what they want than you did before, e.g. that it's not the case that they don't want a drink at all.

Gengulphus

Leaving the axiom of choice aside (because why would you go near it if you don't have to), a more down to Earth exchange might be:

Q: Is it raining or not?
A: Yes. It is raining or not raining.

The question was asked because the common room resembled a basement bomb shelter more closely than any room on the second floor has a right to do.

Another pedantic exchange went something like this,

Q: Do you know what time it is?
A: Yes.
Q: Could you tell me the time?
A: Yes.
Q: Would you tell me the time?
A: Yes.
Q: Tell me the frigging time!
...

This allowed you to distinguish the various "tribes".
The pure mathematicians never cared what time it was.
The applied mathematicians learned to ask better questions.
The theoretical physicists learned to wear watches.
The tea ladies learned that up with this they would not put, and they controlled the biscuits.

Slipped in a (apocryphal?) Churchill quote ?

9873210 wrote:Leaving the axiom of choice aside (because why would you go near it if you don't have to),

Because you have the choice?

Have an upvote for the sentiment

Gengulphus wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:Would you like tea or coffee? Yes please!

Close - the answer was just "Yes", meaning that yes, it does either depend on the axiom of choice or not depend on it.

Since we're talking pedantry, you hadn't actually posed any such question - which is indeed why I addressed not the question but the form. A different wording might've avoided the ambiguity.

But in retrospect I should've given a better example.

Is it warm or cold outside? Yes.
Is that a weekday or a weekend? Yes.

When the form of a question is "Is it A or B", and where A+B cover the entire solution space for the intended question, it is perfectly natural for those of a logical persuasion - such as mathematicians - to answer the logical question. Doubly so when the answer to the intended question is along the lines of "how should I know?", or "go and look it up". Sometimes it takes a conscious effort to do otherwise.

In the first case, where there is an excluded middle and/or an element of subjectivity (what do you consider warm or cold?), I might be more likely to answer "probably" or even "maybe" rather than "yes". Equally helpful.

To confirm ...

I've booked six counselling sessions. I've removed all sharp objects from reach and have strapped myself to the ships mast.

I've come to a conclusion ... you are all bonkers

AiY