Thursday, November 23, 2006

Silly Rabbit...

Okay, so its been a while. Missed me? Truth is, I've been busier than a pair of jumper cables at a used car dealership. Let's see, there have been trips to the Scottish highlands, a visit to the Netherlands, beginning chapter 3 of my dissertation. And let's not forget my discovery of the Higgs boson, successful formulation of a grand field theory and, most importantly, my proving conclusively that Trix really are for kids. And in case you're wondering, the formal proof looks like this:
  1. ~(C) {premise (ex hypothesi)}

  2. {(A) ^ (B)} > (C) {premise}

  3. (Kids) > (B) {premise}

  4. (Rabbits) > (A) {premise}

  5. (Kids) {premise}

  6. ~{(A) ^ (B)} {from (i) and (ii), by modus tollens}

  7. {~(A) ∨ ~(B)} {from (vi), by De Morgan’s laws}

  8. (B) {from (iii) and (v), by modus ponens}

  9. ~(A){from (vii) and (viii), by disjunctive syllogism}}

    Therefore:

  10. ~(Rabbits) {from (iv) and (ix), by modus tollens}

It's all quite complicated really, and I wouldn't want you troubling your pretty little head about the details. The conclusion of the formal proof is in line (x) which clearly states ~(Rabbits), which (in English) means “no-Rabbits”. (So you can go ahead and make out that Nobel Prize to Nubian, that's N-U-B-I-A-N, Nerd. Thank you very much.)



6 comments:

Lizza said...

I don't eat Trix. Does that mean I'm really not a kid anymore? I don't want to be a grown-up just yet. :-(

Nubian Nerd said...

Yes Lizza, that's exactly what it means! Just kidding. To deny you were a kid just because you didn't eat Trix would be to commit the logical fallacy known as affirming the consequent. In philosophical parlance, we would say that being a kid is necessary but not sufficient for eating Trix. In other words, only kids eat Trix, but not all kids eat Trix. I've obviously thought about this way too much!

mist1 said...

This is complicated. Can't I just sit here and look pretty?

Is this algebra or hieroglyphs?

concerned citizen said...

All I'm going to say is you academic types come up with some odd ideas of what's funny. Maybe "nerdish" is the right word.<---ha ha now that's funny!

Anonymous said...

Visiting from the "Bestest Blog"..Great pics...used to hang out in Amsterdam every weekend when I was in the Army...

Nubian Nerd said...

Yes, Amsterdam is a blast! And they have like the best brownies...I've been told.

Thanks for stopping by Andrena