Number theory humor for the masses?

The following is an excerpt from an actual conversation that took place in our house last night. We were counting something…what exactly is a trivial detail that does not enrich the story, but the counting was the motivation for the following.

Dawn: …so there are four, no wait, five left then?

Bill: If you’re using the conventional natural numbers to count.

Dawn: Screw* you, I prefer to use the unnatural numbers.

Bill: So you think there are 4i left then?

Dawn: I said unnatural, not imaginary numbers.

Bill: Well unnatural numbers don’t exist so I assumed you were imagining them.

Dawn: I’m not imagining them. Riblet taught me how to use the unnatural numbers.

Bill: Do you trust anything that cat tells you?

Dawn: Unnatural numbers are the numbers that cats use to do math.

Bill: Ha!

Dawn: They have to use them because it’s unnatural for cats to do math.

For those of you who have never been exposed to the different flavors of numbers in high school and/or college, or perhaps you have been fortunate enough to scrub the vile filth from your brain….let me vandalize your mind with some simple number theory…because it might help explain the conversation above (but I won’t promise it will make it any more enjoyable).

Natural numbers are the positive integers normally used for counting (0, 1, 2, 3…). Some people might exclude zero from the set of natural numbers…but those people probably aren’t computer scientists.

An imaginary number is a complex number whose square valued is a real number not greater than zero. You’d don’t have to care or understand what that means. Just take away that imaginary numbers are an actual set of numbers that mathematicians use.

Unnatural numbers are something that Dawn made up. They aren’t a “real” thing like imaginary numbers are. That would be the where funny is in this conversation.

I thought the conversation was highly amusing…I’m not sure how other will interpret it. Perhaps you’ll just think we’re giant nerds…Even at home.

* Dawn used a slightly more colorful variation based on the same general concept.