Subject: Re: [HM] A question around zero
From: Barry Cipra (cipra@microassist.com)
Date: Mon Jan 24 2000 - 11:42:34 EST
> From: "Prof. Dr. Jochen Ziegenbalg" <ye12@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>
>
> lest someone thinks that the question if zero is an even number is of no
> practical value at all, let me quote the following news from the German
> television news program (ZDF) "heute" on Oct. 1, 1977:
>
> Smog alarm in Paris: Only cars with an odd terminating number on the
> license plate are admitted for driving. Cars with an even such number
> were not allowed to be driven. There were problems: Is the terminating
> number 0 an even number? Drivers with such numbers were not fined,
> because the police did not know the answer.
>
I remember something similar from the oil embargo of 1973, when California
did some even-odd gasoline rationing. (License plates ending in an even
number could gas up on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, while their odd
counterparts could do so on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, with a free-for-all
on Sunday, or some such scheme -- does anyone recall the details?) There
was considerable controversy over whether 0 was even, odd, neither, or both.
Barry Cipra
cipra@microassist.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Mon Jan 24 2000 - 12:29:16 EST