(Bad)Joke Appreciation Corner


I asked my dog what's two minus two. He said nothing.
In that case your dog would be wrong, because the answer is 0 and 0 is not nothing. In Peano numerals 0 is the base case. There 0=0, 1=S0, 2=SS0; where S is the successor function. If you have nothing instead of 0 then you cannot make a numeral as there will be nothing to apply the successor function to! So nothing and 0 are very different, they are not even the same type. Nothing is of type Maybe x while 0 is of a number type. This makes them not even comparable!
 
0 denotes nothing, no entries of the type of thing you're looking for. Yes, it's not the same type of thing, but so closely related that I think the joke still works (for me at least).
 
In that case your dog would be wrong, because the answer is 0 and 0 is not nothing. In Peano numerals 0 is the base case. There 0=0, 1=S0, 2=SS0; where S is the successor function. If you have nothing instead of 0 then you cannot make a numeral as there will be nothing to apply the successor function to! So nothing and 0 are very different, they are not even the same type. Nothing is of type Maybe x while 0 is of a number type. This makes them not even comparable!

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Well, I guess Unicode 0660 is out then, he could use Unicode 1D2E0. Happy?
Ok, so one cacaobean is zero and one little pebble is one... yeah, that would work. It's Turing complete and all... wait... there's a stick in there too.

https://lisbdnet.com/how-did-the-maya-contribute-to-the-field-of-mathematics/ (contains a nice video)

I can count to 40 with 1 hand! (update: up to 432 now! And to 3888 if I also use my arm!) But here's a binary method:


I havent been on xkcd for ages. I liked these:

 
Hex 660 is also Arabic numerals, as well as containing the number 0 in it's identifier hex string. And unicode 1D2E0 seems to just be 12DE which is a captial B attachment to the next character which you've defined to be 0.
- this is the Eastern Arabic symbol for zero, which looks nothing like the Western Arabic symbol '0'. But it's Arabic, and the OP said they don't want Arabic Numerals. So...

- this is the Mayan symbol for zero. Still looks nothing like either of the 'Arabic' or 'Hindu/Hindi-Arabic' symbol for zero. So if you don't want to read Arabic symbols, this appears to meet the criterion.

There is also a Chinese symbol 'ling' for zero:

So if you don't want to use 'Arabic' symbols to denote zero, there are other choices that are defined in Unicode, so if you have a typeface that has a symbol for those particular codepoints, you are good to go.

λ the β-Redex Reducer is quite right to distinguish between nothing and zero. Zero has properties that nothing has not: for example, zero is a number. In database usage it an be important to distinguish between zero, null, undefined, the space character, empty, and quite possibly other things.

Ob Joke: Three students observe a man and a women enter an empty building. Shortly afterwards they exit the building with a child. The biology student explains this by saying that obviously they had reproduced. The student of logic explains by saying there must be another entrance. The mathematics student says that obviously there was now -1 children in the building.

Reason for edit: appears to me the criterion -> appears to meet the criterion
 
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- this is the Mayan symbol for zero. Still looks nothing like either of the 'Arabic' or 'Hindu/Hindi-Arabic' symbol for zero. So if you don't want to read Arabic symbols, this appears to me the criterion.
Hmm, now I try it again I can get both the captial B addition as U+1d2e and the loaf of bread symbol as U+1d2e0
 
Hmm, now I try it again I can get both the captial B addition as U+1d2e and the loaf of bread symbol as U+1d2e0
Ironically, this shows the difference between adding nothing to then end of the string U+1d2e to get U+1d2e and adding zero to the end of the string U+1d2e to get U+1d2e0. Well done! Perhaps you were being too subtle for me to notice your example earlier. :)
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Why can't a hand be 12 inches long?
Because it would be a foot.
Because it's 4 inches? :p
 
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