Zero being even is not contentious. Contention is when there is strong disagreement whereas people who are misinformed can be mathematically proven to be incorrect.
By your reasoning you could call all higher mathematics "contentious" because laypeople would come to wrong conclusions due to inexperience. It devalues the word.
derdi•6mo ago
Fair enough. "Contentious among laypeople"?
terminalbraid•6mo ago
No. Contentious implies there's an argument to be made. There is literally no credible argument why 0 would be considered odd.
derdi•6mo ago
OK, if you're going to be prescriptive, I'm going to be prescriptive too.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/contentious
"1. Marked by heated arguments or controversy."
There are heated arguments about this (among laypeople). The people arguing heatedly happen to be wrong, but the dictionary doesn't say that the heated arguments must have merit, only that they happen.
BTW, your "There is literally no credible argument why 0 would be considered odd." suggests that you didn't read the linked Wikipedia page and didn't look at the results of the Mastodon poll. Take a look what actual laypeople self-report about their position on this issue.
terminalbraid•6mo ago
You can mathematically prove it is even by the accepted definitions of mathematics. If you disagree you disagree with prepositional logic.
derdi•6mo ago
I can, yes. Laypeople might not be able to, or be aware of the various (equivalent) accepted definitions.
And yes, this means that many laypeople are not effective at doing mathematics. Does this surprise you? If yes, then the linked article and Mastodon thread may be interesting to you. Which is why I submitted them.
derdi•6mo ago
terminalbraid•6mo ago
By your reasoning you could call all higher mathematics "contentious" because laypeople would come to wrong conclusions due to inexperience. It devalues the word.
derdi•6mo ago
terminalbraid•6mo ago
derdi•6mo ago
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/contentious "1. Marked by heated arguments or controversy." There are heated arguments about this (among laypeople). The people arguing heatedly happen to be wrong, but the dictionary doesn't say that the heated arguments must have merit, only that they happen.
BTW, your "There is literally no credible argument why 0 would be considered odd." suggests that you didn't read the linked Wikipedia page and didn't look at the results of the Mastodon poll. Take a look what actual laypeople self-report about their position on this issue.
terminalbraid•6mo ago
derdi•6mo ago
And yes, this means that many laypeople are not effective at doing mathematics. Does this surprise you? If yes, then the linked article and Mastodon thread may be interesting to you. Which is why I submitted them.