__________
Algebra was refreshingly boring. Even Tom seemed to think so. A student in the front row who was only in the intermediate class because Carol had shredded a pile of class schedules by mistake was pursing his ongoing goal of a phD in mathematical philosophy before senior year, by debating his latest doctorate thesis with Mr. Denturebound. What was refreshing was that the class was so tired of these debates by now that the sheer monotony of them was starting to border entertainment. Kyle--in a rare moment of diligence--was fully alert and focusing on two subjects at once: he was trying to decide whether Mr. Denturebound's diversions from the day's topic by reprimanding the student at length for doing so himself was verbal irony or situational irony, as Kyle was among the half-class of English students that week who weren't clear on the precise difference. There was certainly a situation going on, even if it was a rather dull one (it wasn't quite a fight to the death over who would mary the king's daughter), but clearly the jist of the argument was the bickering. __________
Yet, Kyle thought, you can't really speak without being in a situation where you're speaking, and on the other hand, most of our actions could be said to be some form of silent communication. Hurling a cup of chocolate pudding accross the caffeteria at an introverted nerd who was unlikely to throw anything back was clearly the statement, "Fuck you for wasting half our Algebra review in class and ruining our chances not to flunk tommorrow's test." Risking a smile at a popular girl when no one was looking was like "You know, while your boyfriends beat the crap out of me yesterday, I really don't blame you. I know peer pressure so I understand why you just stood there at bit your nails. I'm sure you're a nice girl and all and would never beat the crap out of me yourself." Or perhaps it could be a slight flirt, as to say, "Just in case you have the brains to realize that dorks are the ones who usually make 100K right out of college--while your boyfriend will probably be pumping gas for forty years--it might be best to start getting friendly with me now while I'm unpopular so I know off the bat that you're being genuine." __________
The act of beating the crap out of someone in the first place, of course, could also mean "Screw you, nerd, for getting me caught today just 'cause I threw a fucking cup of pudding at you." Kyle decided if the debate became an actual food or fist fight between him and Mr. Denturebound and the class, the irony would finally be fully situational. In fact it almost looked like a jock in the back row was reaching for an item in his lunch to hurl at the kid once Mr. Denturebound turned his back. His eyes were flicking around the room, researching the potential hope he could hit the student at an angle that two math geniuses wouldn't be able to backtrace to him. It wasn't working out, and he slouched back and assumed an idle semi-alert mode just in case. __________
"I'm only going to explain this one more time, Tim." Mr. Denturebound had announced this at least twice already in five minutes. "If you divide A by B to get C, then C times B has to equal A. If A divided by zero equals *infinity*, then infinity times zero would have to equal *A*. It clearly doesn't, because zero infinities is *no* infinities--or zero--so dividing by zero is undefined, not infinity. It just can't be infinity, Tim." __________
"By that argument, then *'undefined'* times B has to equal A, and that's even more ridiculous! At least infinity and zero are real numbers, not some unthinkable void of nonbeing. You could argue that infinity is *so* big that you can't have none of them, so nothing times everything equals *something*. Infinity times zero could equal an *unspecified* integer X, because clearly, any X divided by zero is infinity, not some absurd black hole of nothingness." __________
"But a black hole is *infinite* compressed matter," Tom ventured. He'd apparently found a few beer bottles under his desk and gotten drunk and suicidal enough to enter a debate between arguably the smartest kid and teacher in the school in a subject he had to cheat in to pass. Still, this jolted a couple students to full attention as if a priest had mentioned oral sex during a boring sermon. "And if X divided by zero is *not* undefined, and undefined is infinity, then dividing by zero can't be infinity. Transitive Axiom of Equality. __________
Kyle frused, as he was still debating the irony issue, and a well established C minus math student picking a fight against a 3.9 GPAer in a debate on mathematical philosophy was complicating things. Tom was like a retarded warrior who had rolled a 1d20 and decided to risk gaining some wizard INT points by sheer stupidity, at the risk of pissing off Mr. Denturebound who could even further penalize him for the day. That was probably situational. Perhaps Tom even figured a couple students would be enlightened at his genius and realize he was a math delenquent by choice, and probably had a large meth lab and a rack of molecular chemistry textbooks in his basement that were worth investing by hanging out with him more. That would also be situational. Except that all the situational irony was caused by Tom's verbal argument. It never worked out. __________
Kyle scanned the room and counted at least three people who were there in Science that morning when Mr. Cuoco had reviewed the concept of a black hole for Tom the third time that week. Their frowns said Tom's plan had failed miserably and bordered outright fraud. Kyle supposed a few people might also remember when Tom was confused about the Transitive Axiom of Equality last month--not to mention about fifteen minutes ago when Mr. Denturebound quickly reviewed it--but having remembered it after so long in either case seemed to give him some credit. It was a credit Kyle might have also given Tom had he not personally went through *both* concepts to Tom at lunch. __________
A few students who were ignorant of both issues--the latter due to sleeping through the review--had turned their heads in anticipation of Tim's response. One or two others had actually turned from scribbling on their desks and raised their eyebrows menacingly toward Tim, as if standing by their suddenly appointed gang leader with folded arms, ready to defend him if things led to a fist or knife fight. There was a bit of doubt in their eyes, though, as if praying he actually knew what the hell he was doing and they hadn't elected the wrong leader. __________
Tim, in response, gave a phuff of annoyance as to a monkey who'd just tried to take a shit on him with his elbow. He rolled his eyes and audibly inhaled, preparing for the lecture he was about to waste his breath on. His tone was as to a paladin straw lion in Oz who'd lost his brains and heart, wandered into a into a nobel prize award ceremony in munchkin land, then--forgetting his courage and strength boneses were useless in a land dominated by powergaming munchkin wizards--picked a fight with a level 50 fireball mage. "I was being *metaphorical*, dunce. I'm not *literally* talking about a black hole. I used a simile. Go look it up. Better yet, why don't you run backstroke to the football court and juggle some puck trajectory serves." __________
An athletic student named Derek who was about a pop 9.4 but not overly sharp quickly opened his mouth to respond. He clearly intended to take the easy hit of correcting Tim's knowledge of sports, who'd impressively managed to entangle track, swimming, football, basketball, soccer, hockey, physics, and tennis, in less than a full sentence. Then he halted and shut his mouth, for multiple reasons assumed by the class. __________
Firstly, there was a very shakey area to the extent that Tim was inadvertently intermingly five sports, versus demonstrating enough knowledge about them to be able to intertwine five of them with mathematics in eleven words, something Tom could probably not do. Not only would this give the impression that his brain outweighed Tom's ability to throw a ball, but Tim could even be going as far as to mock Tom's expectations of Tim's sports stupidity by mock mocking what Tom would expect him to do by going completely over the top. __________
Or, he could just be that stupid. __________
Being unsure whether it was a purposely layed trap, the 9.4 popper decided not to risk giving Tim the easy comeback that he had misinterpreted him more thoroughly than Tom had. The other reason Derek probably backed down was he wasn't sure if siding with a pop 5er was worth the already minute chance to knock a piss-annoying pop 1er. The rest of the class seemed torn between deciding whether Tom had been fully sarcastic and knew damn well the difference between a real and philosophical black hole--making Tim look stupid--or if Tim was on target in his analysis that that Tom had been quite genuine. Maybe he'd even made some sort of mental wager that his physical weight in combination with supporting an object of infinite weight, would give even more weight to his argument and win by brute force. In any case, the front row vaguely nodded that Tim had won, and most of the rest of the room figured Tom had scored a point. __________
"*Metaphor.*" __________
"What?" __________
"Metaphor." It was Sarah who jumped in to the already surreal debate. She hadn't volunteered an answer too many times that year, and now she was doing so to jump into a popularity fighting arena. No one knew what she--or this--meant, any more than they could box, but they still exchanged a few glances and squeezed their renewed mental bet money in anticipation. The irony was becoming so complicated that Kyle gave up the debate completely in order to focus on the vague chance that Sarah had spoken up just to defend Kyle's best friend's honor to impress him personally. __________
"You said you used a simile. You didn't. A simile is when you use the words 'as' or 'like' to compare the subject with the object. If you'd said an undefined number was not like a black hole, it would have been a metaphor. You just contrasted the two by saying one was not the other." __________
Now most of the class was frusing, unsure whether the non-sequiter blow of correcting Tim's knowledge of grammar undermined his knowledge of math, or just distracted him from the main topic so he wouldn't get the chance to put Tom down if he was about to say anything stupid. A few of his classmates' expressions showed they were trying to decide whether her argument was correct, or she was grasping for straws and betting that Tim wouldn't know enough about the subject to correct her on the finer points of metaphors and similes. One student even pulled out an English textbook and began flipping through it. Even Mr. Denturebound cocked his head a little. __________
Of the four players, it was completely up in the hair who had gained and who had lost their INT points over the whole ordeal, but at least the extra complication had the result of distracting Mr. Denturebound from the entire diversion altogether, which everyone was suddenly too confused about to continue anyway. __________
"Alright, debate over, let's get back to--" __________
"But I never actually *said* that 'undefined' was a black hole. I said it's *not* a black hole, and in stating it wasn't, I was obviously implying--without literally stating--that I'd already established the simile, and didn't have to bother again." The class, just plain confused and tired, looked to the board in a rare anticipation of Mr. Denturebound rescuing them by continuing the lesson. The student flipping through the English textbook wasn't phased. __________
"Alright! Come on, half a period left. You guys have a test this week, let's get this done before Tim gets lynched for using up the review time. Tim, save your theories for college." __________
"Whatever."