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Airline Delays Flight Over Passenger's Suspicious Math Equations (usnews.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the irrational-numbers dept.

Earthquake Retrofit shares this article from the Associated Press: "An Ivy League professor said his flight was delayed because a fellow passenger thought the math equations he was writing might be a sign he was a terrorist... He said the woman sitting next to him passed a note to a flight attendant and the plane headed back to the gate. Guido Menzio, who is Italian and has curly, dark hair, said the pilot then asked for a word and he was questioned by an official... "They tell me that the woman was concerned that I was a terrorist because I was writing strange things on a pad of paper..." He was treated respectfully throughout, he added. But, he said, he was concerned about a delay that a brief conversation or an Internet search could have resolved. "Not seeking additional information after reports of 'suspicious activity'... is going to create a lot of problems, especially as xenophobic attitudes may be emerging."

5 of 512 comments (clear)

  1. Stupid people punishing smart people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We need to ramp up reverse retaliation on stupid people 100x fold to stop shit like this

    1. Re:Stupid people punishing smart people by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Ours is a world in which football players, reality TV stars and talentless singer bimbos earn hundreds of times more than Nobel prize-winning scientists, and represent what young people aspire to become when they grow up.

      I keep telling people that Idiocracy is a documentary from the future but nobody believes me.

  2. Bill her! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I hope they billed the idiot for the inconvenience, expense and defamation...

  3. Re:To play the devil's advocate... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You may already know this, but I'll put this here anyway: The name "algebra" actually *is* Arabic in origin. It comes from "al-jabr" meaning "reunion of broken parts".

  4. Re:Paranoia strikes deep by vel-ex-tech · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What did she do, skip elementary school . . . ?

    I've been finding myself wondering about this lately when it comes to a number of people I know.

    Seriously, we need some way to send these people back to 5th grade. It's astonishing. Maybe 3rd grade. Force them to take classes until they at least graduate the 8th grade. Keep them out of society as long as it takes for them to grasp 8th grade-level reading, writing, and maths. I really don't think it's too much to ask.

    The only problem my proposal has is that I keep coming back around to who, exactly, should be in charge of determining when they've completed an 8th grade education....

    Can we bring back poll tests? I don't care if in practice that's "racist." It probably will be in effect "racist." We need to solve the root issue here. The moment we decided "racism!" was an adequate answer, we failed the entire basis of our society. Tell me why people with darker skin color might have a problem passing a short exam before voting. That will give us a good idea of what we really need to fix.

    Something must be done. I do not want to live in a world where solving a simple system of equations or engaging in very basic linear algebra to find an answer constitutes genius. Yet here we are. It's 2016, and I can't even.