Pub tutorial

‘Factorial naught and factorial one both equal one.’

‘Isn’t that a good one?’ said Peter.

‘Jays! Gas alright.’ Ned sipped another layer off the head of his pint of Guinness.

‘Tis for sure’ said Matt, nodding his head diagonally upward.

‘And you’ll know (in your line of work) factorial ten seconds is exactly six weeks.’

‘Aye, it would be.’ said Ned.

‘Tis of course’ said Matt.

I was hating myself for having mentioned teaching.

‘And’ said Peter, ‘ye know, of course, that 10 = 9.9999’

 ‘I do. I do.’  I said much too quickly.

Peter extracted a biro and paper from an inner pocket

with surprising promptness.

Let x  = 0.9999, ⇒ 10x = 9.999

⇒10x – x = 9, ⇒ 9x = 9

X =1, ⇒ 10x = 10

⇒ 10 = 9.9999

‘Aye.’ said Ned with another sip from his pint of Guinness. ‘That’s it.’

‘Another pint, Peter?” Matt asked.

‘Sure, why not!’

And turning back to me: ‘I’ve been doing a bit of work on  Abel’s Impossibility Theorem.’