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Off-Topic for some out-of-date Marilyn



Marilyn: Here's a good math puzzle for you: Say that a 30-foot cable is
suspended between the tops of two 20-foot poles on level ground. The
lowest point of the cable is 5 feet above the ground. What is the
distance the two Poles?


This is easy for PHYS-Lers, so I'll skip to Marilyn's answer.

Marilyn's answer: "There is no distance between the poles at all."
Marilyn goes on to make this sound more sensible.

What I object to is calling a baseball score of zero to zero "no score".
Here Marilyn refers to a distance of zero inches, feet, meters, or
furlongs as "no distance". A distance of zero is a distance in good
standing as I see it.

I hope this doesn't annoy professional physicists.

Regards / Tom