Many people seem incapable of grasping the notion of a variabl, despite routinely utilising pronouns such as "he", "she", "it" in everyday life. A similar difficulty arises over the distinction between identifier and object referenced. WFL On 2/15/16, James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
This is quite funny, but apparently, not everyone gets the joke. One crank wrote to George Andrews proposing precisely this combination of Pythagorean and Einsteinian wisdom as a genuine contribution to the human race.
Actually, it was worse than that: the crank combined "E = m c^2" with "c^2 = a^2 + b^2" to get "E = m c^2 = a^2 + b^2".
Jim Propp
On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 5:03 PM, Gareth McCaughan < gareth.mccaughan@pobox.com> wrote:
On 15/02/2016 19:43, James Propp wrote:
I've heard this proof attributed to Einstein. (But then again, you could
argue that it was inevitable that this proof would eventually be attributed to Einstein, whether or not he was the first to come up with it, or indeed, whether or not he ever came up with it at all!)
Along with its corollary, E = m(a^2+b^2).
-- g
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