Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Australian High Court Hears Some Weird Science

Posted by timothy on from the mud-rocks-lead-cherries dept.

mosch writes "In an extraordinarily unusual case, the Australian High Court listened to TJ Rout's arguments that he can make light travel faster than c, due to the properties of division and multiplication by zero. The transcript makes for excellent reading. Next up, the Supreme Court hears the testimony of Time Cube."

5 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Let's all laugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Everyone laugh at the man who is obsessed with multiplying and dividing by zero. Everyone laugh at the poor man who obviously has a mental illness. The Australian justices no doubt wanted to laugh as well, but because they are stuffy old men they couldn't. Let's all laugh at them too.

    And while we're at it, let's all laugh at the prick who thinks the spectacle of a madman is funny.

    1. Re:Let's all laugh by mosch · · Score: 4, Insightful
      My goal wasn't simply to have everybody laugh at the guy, though he does make excellent joke fodder. The fact of the matter is that this man somehow managed to get Australia's highest court to hear a case where the plaintiff's goal was to legislate science.

      This hearing was, in my mind, as assinine as if the fellow who runs TimeCube managed to get a hearing with the Supreme Court, to try to legislate that there are 4 simultaneous days within each 24 hour earth rotation. How does this happen? Why does it happen? What would happen if the guy had been sane?

      It seemed to me to be a real-life version of the urban legend pi === 3 law, except with the judicial branch being abused.

  2. He has a case... by Hard_Code · · Score: 5, Funny
    Australian Bill of Rights

    Article IXIX:

    1. And the law is their set of dividing and multiplying by zero. As long as they maintain their incorrect dividing and multiplying by zero, then they enable me to cause things to cease to exist, and that is why I have the power to do so.

    Coauthor: Yahoo Serious

    I have to say, he has a pretty solid case. I cannot believe that Australia is denying this man's right to divide and multiply by zero because obviously he has shown time and the speed of light equal one another, such you alter one, you alter the other, and this in turn enables the altering of the speed of light within Einstein's relativity. I mean, that is fundamental to splitting the Beer Atom!
    --

    It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
  3. Re:Interesting, x/0 = infinity... by j.e.hahn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's not a question of x/0 maybe being undefined. It *IS* undefined. A common exercise in undergrad math course is to have 2 functions f(x) and g(x) where g(0)=0 and then show that depending on how you choose f and g the limit of f(x)/g(x) as x tends to 0 can take on ANY value you desire.

    Division by zero is completely meaningless. Yes there are cases where division by zero creates a removable singularity, and for continuity's sake you can define a new curve/sequence/function/whatever with the convenient value. But that doesn't make the division meaningful...

    Oh well. At least he isn't trying to state a value for log(0) -- there's an essential singularity at that point. (The riemann surface for log is very cool...)

  4. not an urban legend... sadly by boarder · · Score: 3, Informative

    The pi == 3 law is not an urban legend. It was an actual bill introduced into the Indiana House. The text of the bill is here, a site dedicated to the debunking of rumours.

    Also on that site is a bill about public erections being illegal.

    nice.

    --
    IANAL, but I play one on /.