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Why does addition seem to fail in general?

Post Icon Posted: Submitted by cj on 15 April 2008 - 1:44pm.

Joined: 2006-10-10
Posts: 519

OK, this probably doesn't belong in this forum, but meh.

I got sent a graffito on Facebook now, which (subtituting words for pictures) said

Mario + Kart = Fun

Almost everyone will understand the meaning of this sentence, even though it doesn't make sense both from a mathematical point of view, and a grammatical one. It just kinda makes sense. However, once you rearrange these "equation" even slightly, there is a complete, jarring, loss of sense:

Mario = Fun - Kart

Wha??? Maybe this question is too stupid for anyone to even want to answer, but why is it that our normal operations seem to fail so spectacularly for these word equations? I would have expected something which at least makes a semblance of sense. Has mathematics (or any other subject for that matter) attempted to explain the structure of these word equations?

P.S. I'm not high

‹ PDEs posts ›
Post Icon Posted: 15 April 2008 - 4:27pm

Joined: 2007-02-14
Posts: 100

Well the second equation kinda makes sense only if you think about fun as being the particular kind of fun that results from adding Mario and Kart. So really the problem is that the first equation is wrong in the first place. Shouldn't it be Mario + Kart => Fun?
Post Icon Posted: 15 April 2008 - 9:48pm

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 1005

Well, if you want to formalise it like that it should be more like $ \mathsf{Mario} \wedge \mathsf{Kart} \Rightarrow \mathsf{Fun} $. I guess the substraction one works in a certain way though, as in Mario is fun and has no karts. :p
Post Icon Posted: 16 April 2008 - 11:15am

Joined: 2007-10-01
Posts: 168

I think cosmin is basically right, it comes from the misinterpretation of the symbol + which you took to mean plus but in the english language would be the word and. It should have been stated thus: (Mario $ \cap $ Kart) $ \subset $ Fun. Since there are parts of Mario that are not fun, and parts of Kart which are not fun, and also Fun things which are neither Mario nor Kart related.

After drawing a venn diagram I can verify that Mario $ \supset $ (Kart $ \cap $ Fun) but I could not find anything more concrete without more knowledge of what is not fun. You could also say that Mario $ \subset $ (Fun $ \cup $ Kart)$ ^c $ $ \cup $(Fun $ \cap $ Kart) but nothing more.
Post Icon Posted: 16 April 2008 - 3:18pm

Joined: 2007-10-03
Posts: 375

Well Mario = Fun - Kart does mean that Mario is just lacking a Kart to become Fun. As long as you accept that the only fun you're going to have is when you have both Mario and Karts, then it's ok :P
Post Icon Posted: 16 May 2008 - 9:45am

Joined: 2006-10-09
Posts: 327

OK, bit of a resurrection of an old topic here, just thought this would be the best place for it: Mario is a Menace!
Post Icon Posted: 16 May 2008 - 1:22pm

Joined: 2007-02-14
Posts: 100

Actually Mario is one of the most bloodthirsty game franchises there is, look at all the creatures you can kill for no other reason than they seem to be in the way!
Post Icon Posted: 16 May 2008 - 6:14pm

Joined: 2006-10-05
Posts: 675

Genius.
Post Icon Posted: 19 May 2008 - 11:52pm

Joined: 2007-10-04
Posts: 188

It's even worse when you use green shells, then you get done for animal cruelty.

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