“There’s a theory of residual effect in mathematics,” he said, “that says that subtracting one from two is less than one over time. There is a residual effect that has so far only been observed in prime numbers, but theoretical mathematicians suspect that it is true for other numbers as well.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Seriously. You know that paradox about the hound pursuing the hare that says that between two points lies another point which makes it impossible for a moving hound ever to catch a moving hare even if he is travelling faster?”
“Sure.”
“Well this helps explain that.”
“Does it help explain how some women can get into such small jeans?
“There’s no use talking to you. You are a case of arrested development.” He walked to the bar to get another beer.
I watched him retreat, thinking about his theory of disintegrating numerals, whole numbers able only to be expressed as numerators over denominators in time. Did he make this up? I wondered. It sounded intriguing enough. And of course, I have been arrested in my development, and worse. Something has been subtracted. There is a residual effect. I seem only to be expressed as a fraction of a whole in time.
He might be right, but where the hell does he come up with this stuff?
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