Partly Cloudy, 64°
In the culmination of decades of field and computational research, the Department of Applied Mathematics recently concluded that subtraction happens in the real world too.
“Our research proves that mathematicians must no longer confine subtraction to the realm of abstract theorems,” said Associate Professor Glenn Weiss, aiming his laser-pointer at infographics riddled with big plus and minus signs. “In fact, we find that subtraction can be applied to myriad practical scenarios that involve taking things away, making things smaller, and just all-around turning stuff into less.”
“Last year, our team’s research suggested a few real-world applications for addition, such as when someone has 3 oranges and then gets 2 more oranges and so has 5 oranges in total,” Weiss continued, demonstrating with prop oranges labeled 1 through 5. “Well, turns out you can take away 1 of those oranges and only 4 remain. That’s the beauty of subtraction occurring in real time.”
“This has major implications for Brown’s APMA-Econ students,” elaborated Weiss, plopping a stack of monopoly money next to an abacus. “We posit that subtracting money from someone’s money pile actually makes that amount of money smaller, sometimes by a lot. The consequences of these revelations will surely impact things like the stock market and probably even banks.”
At press time, the department was still hotly debating whether fractions could be used in real life.
