It’s not dividing by two, it’s reducing fractions with a common denominator.

(counting on fingers) well that would be assuming we could divide by “mouth.” I…am not sure we can do that? I… I don’t…. I don’t,, 

I was picturing that we add iguanamouth and dappermouth to get iguanamouthdappermouth, we then divide that to get Iguana Dapper and Mouth Mouth.  I mean, I’m not sure I’m ok with Mouth Mouth.

 I’m even less okay with dividing by mouth. 

I think that’s just BITING

you’re adding iguanamouth to dappermouth, giving “iguanamouth + dappermouth” rather than “iguanamouthdappermouth” (the product of multiplying iguanamouth by dappermouth), which means that “mouth” is a common factor. Dividing by two isn’t quite right. Observe:

[apologies for handwriting and quality; the top three lines were my test run]

Once you’ve got there, you can divide by mouth to get Iguana Dapper, as you hypothesised

you don’t get Mouth Mouth out of that by dividing by mouth, as was suggested, instead it just drops out of the equation (on that side; there is no other side, so it goes to the void. trust me, I’m a statistician). This also answers the whole mouth^2 thing that turned up in another thread; you can’t get mouth^2 out because we’re adding instead of multiplying here so there aren’t actually two instances of mouth being multiplied together

The Dark Mathematics

@flvffs​ tagged: #ALSO AT THIS RATE WE WILL NEVER END UP WITH IGUANADAPPER #WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE IGUANA + DAPPER #WELL HERE IS A MATH PROBLEM FOR ME #IGUANAMOUTH X DAPPERMOUTH = IGUANADAPPERMOUTHMOUTH #DIVIDE IGUANADAPPERMOUTHMOUTH BY MOUTHMOUTH TO GET YOUR DESIRED IGUANADAPPER #BUT WHERE DO U GET THE MOUTHMOUTH TO DIVIDE BY??? A MYSTERY

I think a big problem is that I am very bad at math, and talking, but also I was kind of thinking about biology. I really don’t know how you could meaningfully do this mad experiment with math, but recombination (even of abstract concepts) is certainly possible in a Mad Biology Lab. When cells “divide”, they don’t do it with denominators, they do it like this (when they are dividing to make a new creature from the materials donated by Blue Parent and Red Parent) :

Which makes everything clear, doesn’t it? Here is what I pictured, although admittedly I wasn’t thinking of it in any particular detail:

“Adding them together” was not a mathematical direction; it was a recipe for combining the two. Metaphorically.

As we can’t mimic the conditions of a dividing cell with abstract concepts, we would do this in a Large Metaphorical Mixing-Pot of Ideas - taking the abstract concepts that the artists have assembled into their distinct aesthetics, and reducing them back to their fundamental nature. The raw genetic material of their creation, if you will.

From this pot of “genetics” you could pull out all of the disparate components, and make combinations of the concepts. 

If you then handwaved some mad science over the pot so that you could pick out bits of Stuff to make an independently viable creature, then you could select half of the resulting potful of components. A selection of parts that, if allowed to develop, could result in a creation like this:

I suppose another creature on this hideous Punnet square might be:

Biology is always doing this kind of nonsense. When cells divide, you don’t get two “half” cells, you get TWO NEW CELLS. Cells, in fact, multiply by dividing**, which is a clever trick for things that don’t know what a denominator is.

The root of the horror is probably because I said “divide BY two” rather than “divide IN two.” (When I really meant “select half of the sum of the pooled qualities,” I think!) Thus, a two-letter slip instantly made it a math problem instead of a genetics problem - which just goes to show that clarity in communication is absolutely essential.  I also couldn’t resist making the “dividing by mouth would just be biting” joke, and I take full responsibility for all of the abominations that have happened as a result.

This is all my fault, and believe me, you’re not as sorry as I am.

At least we’ve all!! learned!! something!! 

Something terrible!!!!

* this admittedly requires a lot of handwaving

** biologist Dad Joke - do not look at it too closely