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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;gsimonel, post: 3438001, member: 82549&quot;]I used to teach 6th grade math. If a student became disruptive, I would threaten to prove that mathematically, he (almost always he) didn&#039;t exist. </p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, he would take me up on it. So we started with his parents and then grandparents and then great-parents, drawing a branching tree on the board, and he would agree that if any of those people didn&#039;t exist, he wouldn&#039;t be here. Then we would estimate how many years a typical generation would be and how many generations there have been over the last 10,000 years or so, and agree that if any of those descendants didn&#039;t exist, he wouldn&#039;t exist, Then we&#039;d look at the numbers: 2 ancestors, 4 ancestors, 8, 16, etc. You don&#039;t have to go back very far before those numbers become astronomical. Before long it appears that the number of people who had to exist in order for that student to exist far exceeded the total number of people who existed in all of human history. Since that student needed more ancestors than could possibly have existed in order for him to be born, that student obviously didn&#039;t exist.</p><p><br /></p><p>At which point there would be a quiet &quot;poof!&quot; and the student would disappear with only a slight trace of bluish smoke left. Disruption solved.</p><p><br /></p><p>Although I did have some angry parents.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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