Scientists are proving all kinds of things these days, especially with the EU funding they’re getting. Today it’s the turn of mathematicians to make a breakthrough. By using contemporary and biblical data, they have finally been able to formally identify the “number of the beast”.
The number, they are stating now, is 303,133,936,990,564.
Oxford professor of mathematics Matthew Maddox explains:
“People talk about the bible saying money being the root of all evil, which is a slight misquote, it’s actually the love of money that’s the root of all evil. That was our starting point.”
So far so reasonable, albeit no precise clue as to the precise number.
“That was when we turned to more contemporary data,” Professor Maddox explains. “Given that the Brexit vote was done so that the rich could avoid paying tax, then that effectively meant that the number of people who voted for Brexit, 17,410,742, was the root of all evil, so all we had to do was square that number and hey presto, we have the number of the beast. All perfectly simple and logical.”
And as anyone with sufficient curiosity and a few spare seconds can verify, 17,410,742 squared is indeed 303,133,936,990,564.
The simplicity of the calculation almost seems like an anti-climax really. But then Professor Maddox did say it was simple.
The tricky bit will be how to part those billionaires from their ill-gotten gains if Brexit happens. It’s said a fool and his money are soon parted, but a tool and his money is another matter – who’d have thought that turning an f upside down into a t would make such a difference?
Because if it does happen, we’re tucked.