Re: OT: mathematicians (Was: Re: Results of Poll by Email No. 27)

H. S. Teoh scripsit:

> Putting these together, you can think of 0 as the empty set, 1 as the set
> that contains the empty set, 2 as the set containing the 0 and 1 (i.e.,
> the empty set and the set that contains the empty set), ad infinitum. In
> other words, the entire field of mathematics is made of empty sets; all
> theorems are ultimately just pronouncements about empty sets. Now we know
> where mathematicians dispose their cups after consuming all that
> coffee.[2]
If they happen to be topologists, of course, they deform them into doughnuts
and dunk them in a new cup of coffee.

--
"May the hair on your toes never fall out!"     John Cowan
        --Thorin Oakenshield (to Bilbo)         jcowan@reutershealth.com

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