TITUSVILLE, Fla. — A team of bipedal, opposable-thumbed, culturally fluent dog (BDCD) mathematicians says it has solved several problems that have baffled humans for centuries. It also claims to have proven that infinity plus one is larger than infinity.
Working in Pawcimal, their new base-8 system, the dogs report results in number theory, topology and quantum mechanics. The findings are under peer review. The peers are mostly other dogs.
The infinity claim is the controversial one. Traditional mathematics treats it as impossible. The BDCD argue that Pawcimal's eight-digit base gives them a new perspective, and that anyone who has ever been offered one more treat after "that's the last one" knows it is true.
"We are witnessing a paradigm shift," said Dr. Barker, head of the Goblin Research Institute. "There are still vast unexplored territories in mathematical thought."
Human mathematicians are skeptical but eager to review the proof. Early readers say it is rigorous for the first forty pages, then becomes a picture of a ball.