Cleverness When It Counts - Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer Science and Other Improbable Things - page 80

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“Welcome back, miss,” said Anton. Laurie handed over the paperwork she'd collected from
the Byzantine Generals.
“It looks like everything is in order,” said Basil, examining the list of signatures. “These ap-
provals go all the way to the top!”
“Have you anything to declare, miss?” asked Anton.
“Declare?”
“What Lieutenant Anton means is,” said Basil, “is there anything we should know about?”
“Oh. Well, I think Anton is right. Zero is even.”
“No!” said Basil.
“Yes. Zero can't be odd because one is odd, and you can't have two odd numbers in a row,
right?”
“Right!” said Anton.
“I suppose not,” Basil grumped. “But that doesn't prove it's even.”
“Well, if you add an odd number and an even number together, you always get an odd num-
ber,” said Laurie.
“Um,” Basil ummed, thinking about it. “One plus two is three, two plus three is five . . .
yes.”
“So I can prove whether zero is even or odd. Add it to an odd number and see what you get.
Zero plus one is one, and one is odd. So zero must be even,” said Laurie.
“I'm still not convinced,” said Basil.
“Okay,” Laurie said. “If you add two even numbers together, you always get an even number,
right? Zero plus two is two, which is even. Zero is even again!”
“Exactly!” Anton said.
“Hrmph,” Basil hrmphed. “So zero is even. How do I keep Anton from being Senior two
days in a row?”
“That's the easy part,” Laurie said. “The problem is that yesterday, the Thirtieth, and today,
the Zeroth, are both even. Anton was the Senior yesterday. So Basil, you can be the Senior
Officer of the Watch today.”
“Now hang on a minute—” said Anton.