Mark Dominus16h ago

I was going to write a blog article, but then I accidentally opened a file with a draft from two years ago, discussing this idiotic episode of Radiolab, called “Zeroworld”, and the article ended with

“Sorry, I thought I was going to write about this in detail but I give up, it's too stupid. I would like to get in a room with [that week's guest] because then my head would explode and the shrapnel would tear his body to shreds and we would both be dead and better off for it.”

it's about (voice drops to a whisper) what if we DID divide by zero!!!!?.

https://radiolab.org/podcast/zeroworld/transcript

Zeroworld - Transcript

In mathematics you’re allowed to do everything, for the most part, except for this.

Radiolab Podcasts | WNYC Studios
Show threadColin Rowat11h ago
@mjd perhaps my favourite chance discovery in a library (while looking for a book on matrix calculus): the Soviet Academy of Science's conference volume, "Karl Marx's Mathematical Manuscripts". Its introduction quotes his correspondence with Engels. They get really exercised by the possibility of dividing by something close to zero. I *think* these (pre-Cauchy?) concern led to a strong tradition in non-standard analysis in the USSR & China.
Show threadMark Dominus
@rowat_c Wow, now I want to read this!
6:17amWeb
Show threadColin Rowat10h ago
@mjd only the intro chapter, which is awesome. From what I can recall, the actual contributions/chapters were fairly dull. Anyhow, next to the matrix calculus section in all good libraries.
Show threadMark Dominus10h ago

@rowat_c For a while I was reading everything that A. Ya. Khinchin had written. One of his books was about how a properly Marxist primary and secondary mathematics education ought to go.

I wish I had found it interesting, but I didn't.