13 September 2011

The ghosts of departed quantities

Yea, and Cauchy did gaze upon the paper, saying: "Behold, I have reduced the infinite to the finite; the ghosts of departed quantities I have constrained with sigils and brought again to life."

My friend and old colleague John Cassel responds:  "Which is why we refer to Cauchy today as having invented 'the calculus of the undead.'"

Newton:  "BLAAAAARGHARARRR FLUUUUXIONSSSSSS..." 

2 comments:

John said...

It has always struck me that zombies probably allow for the formulation of many interesting problems combining epidemiology with geometric pursuit-evasion. Their connection to pure math was more evasive until face-to-face with zombie Newton.

HilbertAstronaut said...

If Zombie Newton has sufficient BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS, he might actually be able to solve some of those pursuit problems optimally.