What Would Euler Do?
I was going through a pile of papers today and found some old correspondence with the Mathematical Association of America.
In 2004 I purchased from them a copy of Robert M. Young’s wonderful book Excursions in Calculus. I paid by credit card on the web site, I think, or else by phone. Anyway, the point is I paid in advance. The book arrived soon after, and then a while after that I got a bill. Why they sent the bill, I don’t know, since I’d already paid. Which they obviously knew, too, since the bill was for $0.00:
Maybe they meant it to be a receipt or something?
Anyway, I did what any red-blooded hacker would do when sent a bill for zero dollars by Mathematical Association of America: I paid it…
…by check:
Oh, how I wanted them to deposit it! But they didn’t even try; they sent the check back uncashed. Maybe the MAA is using one of those accounts-receivable clearinghouse services, and it isn’t really their fault. But if you can’t write a check for eiπ + 1 to the Mathematical Association of America, whom can you write one to?
The handwritten reason for the rejection was totally lame, too: “check needs to be wrote out in US dollars” [sic]. But it was in U.S. dollars! Sheesh, it’s like they’d never seen a π-dollar bill before or something.
July 14th, 2007 at 3:56 am
Ah, it pains me… such brilliance, wasted on the illiterate and innumerate. The MAA are lions lead by asses.
July 14th, 2007 at 8:27 am
What a fine use for check number 1729!
July 14th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Sounds like just the sort of thing that the author of these comics would do.
July 14th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Fitz,
Glad you noticed!
You can imagine how pleased I was that that was where my checkbook happened to be when the bill came…
July 14th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Eric,
Amen! I’m a huge xkcd fan too.
July 14th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Lev,
Do you know something more about the MAA? Except for this purchase, I don’t really know much about them. They kept sending me letters for a long time, addressed to “Professor Karl Fogel”, asking me to join.
July 27th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Why is your email on your check using the one\half sign? Did they not have a “@”?
July 27th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
You could start with their website (http://www.maa.org/)
I also remember many MANY years ago, when I was in high school, they sponsored a competition (where I was the winner in my HS — still have the lapel pin somewhere).
They do good work.
July 27th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I guess you need the trivial solution too, its a funny idea but could you expect a human being to be responsible to calculate and maybe make an _error_ while doing so?
July 27th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
it’s the summum of capitalism when you can pay with flesh or imaginary numbers for years of hard work and study.
July 27th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
1729 seems like a rather dull number to me.
July 27th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
[...] rants.org » Blog Archive » What Would Euler Do? (tags: math humor) [...]
July 31st, 2007 at 1:05 am
Sam asks:
Answer: to fool the spam address harvesters, of course!
February 19th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Re: XKCD
Yes, in fact.
http://xkcd.com/verizon/
July 7th, 2008 at 1:31 am
1729 is actually an interesting number – Ramanujan liked it. It is the smallest that can be expressed as two sums of two different cubes: 1^3+12^3=9^3+10^3=1729
July 7th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Eman,
Oh, we know, see the above comments
.
January 6th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
You know you had some poor office girl totally confused with your check and she struggled to come up with even that solution to your payment.
January 6th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Tracy,
You’re probably right. Sigh
.
January 31st, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Why does it have to be an office GIRL who is confused? The statistics say that more women go to college than men…
February 26th, 2011 at 1:56 am
@Sara
Good point, and thanks for making it!
April 4th, 2011 at 2:35 am
Seems this has been posted as a “win” on failblog:
http://wins.failblog.org/2011/04/03/epic-win-photos-cheque-amount-win/
Actually, it might qualify as both a win and a fail!
July 1st, 2011 at 10:57 am
I saw this and a similar check (the one to Verizon) many years ago. It has once again served its purpose in proving that I’m a dork….but it warms my mathematical heart and reminds me of how much I love math. Thanks, Karl!