Bush Calls for Reform of Math

DAYTON, OH — President Bush announced plans to reform the mathematics system in the US on Tuesday. At a meeting of the Concerned Mathematicians for Growth in Dayton, Ohio, he told reporters that the current system of mathematics in this country is "outmoded" and called for a "new, modernized math that's robust and will be there when we need it thirty, forty years down the road."

When questioned by reporters on the specifics of the plan, the President refused to "be tied down," citing the need to put "all options on the table, except for leaving" the mathematics system unchanged.

"What we need," he said, "is a pro-growth math. That's why I'm proposing that we tackle addition first. We should develop a math that, when you add two and two, won't give you just four, but five. Or even six. There's all sorts of things we can do."

He added that the current system of math, if allowed to continue, will eventually stop yielding results.

"Way it works now, when you add things together, you only get what you put into it. Problem is, numbers increase over time, so that down the line, four is worth less than it was when you added two and two. Eventually, when you add two and two, you're gonna get zero. And that's unacceptable. What we need to do is to harness the power of multiplication to make addition give better results over time."

Some mathematics experts, however, expressed skepticism at the proposal.

Dr. Henry Adday, professor of theoretical mathematics at MIT, disagreed. "That makes no sense," Dr. Adday said. "Everybody knows that the results of mathematical equations are the same now as they ever were, and they won't change in the future, either."

But Alain Kahn of the conservative thinktank the American Enterprise Institute holds a contrasting view. Citing the difficulty in "ascertaining the precise value" that results from combining two separate values, he stated that "it's a wash. The common assertion that 2+2=4 is nothing more than received wisdom. It has yet to be tested in the real world." In fact, he argued, there is reason to believe that the answer "may lie anywhere between 2.3 and 7.09."

The Brookings Institution, a liberal thinktank, urged caution. "We think the proposal should be examined thoroughly," Applied Mathematics expert Virendranath Viswanathan said. "It is folly to approach such a radical re-examination of mathematical constructs without first addressing its possible impact on theoretical models."

Brookings expects their report to be ready by summer.

In a related development, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of Summers v. Kansas. The case concerns 8th grade math teacher Dorris Summers' suit against the Topeka, Kansas School Board over their 2002 directive that stickers claiming that math is "just a theory, not a fact" be put on all math textbooks in Topeka public schools. The Court is expected to hear the case in October.