This is like hearing my parents argue about something. Totally over my head.

On the other hand, I'll see if my son wants to follow up. Yesterday, as he was explaining PI to my 15 year old daughter, it came up.

How the fuck does PI go to mathematicians and physicists? The girl has been pissed for a year, refuses to accept PI truly never ends, and wants to work it out herself. And wants me to explain any percieved holes she sees an the math.

Nope, not me.

So she brings it up with the boy. He explains he flipped out on his teacher about the same time, over the same reason.

His research showed it was the difference between pure math VS applied physics. The numbers that they come up with are CLOSE ENOUGH for any use of the value from an engineering perspective, no matter how "wrong" she thought it was.

And then told a joke about a mathematician, a physicist, and a pretty girl.

The mathematician was given an opportunity to go after a pretty girl, but needed to follow certain rules. He needed to start toward her, but needed to halve the distance traveled for each time segment.

He refused, saying their was no point. He'd never reach her.

Given the same deal, the physicist jumped at the chance. The mathematician could not believe this, he told the physicist he'd spend the rest of eternity going after the girl, yet never achieving his goal.

The physicist responded: While the math may show it is wrong, it is close enough for all physical applications.

oh, and this discussion really started as the boy pointed out we were not a capitalist society.