Are Girls Evil? 1

Ablog: Amusing math argument, are girls evil?

“(extlink)Dave Winer”:http://www.scripting.com has a funny entry where he purports to show that

bc. girls = evil.

Since, roughly from the time I was 12, I have rather felt the opposite, I was saddened that my beloved mathematics could fail so miserably. So, as a mathematician by training, I felt it necessary to look over the argument carefully and was happy to discover that he actually proved that they can be either (thus confirming years of hard won experience). His argument goes as follows…

bc. girls = time * money

but

bc. time = money

ergo

bc. girls = money^2

and because “money is the root of all evil.”

bc. money = evil^.5

so

bc. money^2 = girls = (evil^.5)^2

from which he concludes by squaring the far right hand side is that girls = evil.

However, and luckily, there is an ambiguity in the equations caused by there being two square roots of any number and so one must look to other information to decide which “branch” to take when we square the square root of evil. So, what he actually shows is that:

bc. girls = +/- evil

*QED*

i.e. what we all know 🙂

By the way, this argument also proves that money is imaginary which pleases both the gold buffs and the Marxists, thus killing an additional two birds with one stone.

p(update). One of the comments on the blog linked above also mentioned this tidbit: The saying: “money is the root of all evil” is historically incorrect. From 1 Timothy 6:10, in the Bible says: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”. Therefore girls and money are quite alright until you start loving them. Bummer.