The background of the discovery was as simple as a scratch off lottery ticket. While playing the game, “Cool Cash”–a lottery scratch off game produced by the company Camelot, Dr. Farrell discovered the mathematical flaw that has been perpetuated on mankind since the era of Isaac Newton. The “rules” of the game are to scratch off a number that is smaller than the number at the top of the ticket. Since the game was a winter theme, the numbers represented temperature, usually in the negative degrees.
Dr. Farrell’s perilous, peregrination down the road to erudition, started with a “Cool Cash” lottery ticket that referenced a temperature of -8 at the top of the ticket. After timorously removing the thin veneer of paper that stood between Tina and untold fortunes, she stared aghast at the life altering numerals of -6 and -7, respectively.
With merriment, the type reserved for the discovery of the advancement of mankind, Dr. Farrell scurried to the attendant on duty to claim her bounty, but it was not to be. After scanning the winning ticket several times, the scanning machine held nothing but contempt for Dr. Farrell and the scholarly attendant, as they could not come to terms with the illiteracy of the machine.
Thusly, as with many a bereft academician, Dr. Farrell fought back with a series of rebukes for the obsolete mathematical fundamentals that she had unceremoniously become a casualty of. She had a series of comments and theroms to opine:
“On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn’t.
“I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher – not lower – than -8 but I’m not having it.
“I think Camelot are giving people the wrong impression – the card doesn’t say to look for a colder or warmer temperature, it says to look for a higher or lower number. Six is a lower number than 8. Imagine how many people have been misled.”
Dr. Farrell’s act of defiance did reverberate throughout the mathematical community as like minded scholars beseeched Camelot, who deceptively produced the flawed game, to withdraw the game from the market for the sake of humanity. Camelot, in the face of looming defeat and on the verge of becoming a mathematical pariah, did withdraw the game from the market–albeit in disgrace, as Camelot had received dozens of complaints on the first day from potential lotto profiteers that shared Dr. Farrell’s affinity for solving complex mathematical problems.
In condescending manner, Peter Hall, of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics, added this comment to the fray:
“The concept of minus numbers is something we would cover with 11 or 12 year olds, and we would expect them to have come across it before.
“The concept of smaller numbers is something that some people do seem to struggle with. Seven is clearly smaller than eight, so they focus on that and don’t really see the minus sign. There is also a subtle difference in language between smaller – or lower – and colder. The number zero feels lower.”
If not for valorous scholars like Tina Farrell and the undaunted attendant at the lottery station, who dare to break from the shackles within the confines of conventional wisdom, the human race as we know it, just may not exist in its current form.
As with any new discovery or its application, there is always someone or some group somewhere who emerges from the underbelly of said discovery to claim that they either invented or have been using that system for some time as Tina Farrell is finding out as she watches her system slip through her fingers like the sand at Bournemouth Beach.
From across the pond, The National Education Association, the national teacher’s union in the United States, issued the following written statement taking credit for inventing the mathematical system and its application that Dr. Farrell is using to claim her treasure from her ever eluding lottery winnings:
“That mathematical systim that that girl in england is using we have been using for decades. if not for that there math system and its use in english and science and other such teachings, we wood not have the members we have and be as strong of a politicaly lobbiing group to effect elections to our advantage and we wood also have to hire a higher educated peoples to teech in public skools with out it, then where wood that leeve us?”
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