# Speaking of Peano arithmetic...

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Tommy McGuire
Labels: theory, quote, java, math
Objection 8. Peano's axioms are clearly nonsense: Let f be a bijection from the supposed $$N_0$$ to a set of filing cabinets. Lock f(0) and put the key in f(1), lock f(1) and put the key in f(2), and continue by induction. Now all the cabinets are locked, with their keys locked inside their neighbors. That is obviously impossible. Hence $$N_0$$ does not exist.
Reply to Objection 8. Filing cabinets are not mathematics.

"Arithmetic", Mathematics Made Difficult. Carl E. Linderholm, The World Publishing Company, 1971; p. 19.

In other news, I just discovered the worst idiocy I have ever perpetrated in a programming language. For some obscure reason, it apparently seemed a good idea at the time to write,

raStr != null ? "false".equalsIgnoreCase(raStr) : true;

As a result, to get this particular parameter to evaluate to false, I need to set the argument to some string other than "false". Nice. Good one there, Tommy.
Site proudly generated by Hakyll.