I was giving a workshop to the faculty of one of the top universities in the country. Expounding on the concept of synergy I flashed a slide with the equation: 1+1=3 to infinity. One participant raised his hand. “I have a problem w/ your equation sir, you see I am a math professor, and it is fundamental in math that 1+1=2. Mess with that and the whole mathematical foundation falls through.”
For a while I was stumped. How do you respond to an erstwhile mathematics professor that synergy was not violating the basic truths of his domain?
I let the question percolate, desperately sifting through possible answers in my mind, almost embarrassed that I was causing a gradual tension to build among the 50+ professors in attendance.
Part of me was relishing the tension, anticipating the hushed questions from the distinguished body assembled: “I wonder how he will duck this one?”
Deciding that I had setup enough drama, I took a deep breath to respond. But the gratification was not to be mine that morning. A hand was raised in the back, with enough authority which I could not ignore. He stood up and replied, sir, with all due respect to my colleague from the mathematical discipline, I would like to express that in fact 1+1 can and does result in infinite sums, and even more strangely, we observe that 1×1 does yield the same infinite product. You see, I am a biology professor and we deal with mitosis and meiosis all the time.”
And at that moment, the crowd reacted with delight, and I quietly sighed with relief, proud of myself for having done the smart thing, and that was to shut up, and allowed the experts to sort each other out. Looking back I do not remember what I would have said if I did respond, but no doubt it would have been a mere babble compared to the credible punch of the professor of life.