BERLIN- Researchers at the Technische Universität in Berlin announced the discovery of a new number on Friday, an integer located between six and seven. The value, named “chitch” after its founder Hans Chitch, came as a surprise to nearly all of the scientific world.
Dr. Mackenzie Stalwart, whose grandmother discovered “seven” in the l930s, was ecstatic at the ramifications.” “I mean, we knew that every conceivable value can exist between two integers. But this is different. This is chitch.” While it may take several years to update modern mathematics, Dr. Stalwart is optimistic that changes will progress rapidly. “Already we see college professors tossing out syllabi and starting from scratch.”
Indeed, the global community saw arithmetic and calculus professors alike wiping chalkboards mid-sentence to adehere to the news. “I mispoke, that’s a thirty-chitch degree angle,” one trigonometry professor declared, imploring students to “keep up.”
Historians acknowledged a symbol in Mesopotamian glyphs showing chich’s existence, previously seen as a typo. “There’s a symbol Babylonians used that resembles a Farside character’s ear,” wrote Anne Reynolds, referencing the work of cartoonist Gary Larson. “Now we see that is definitely a chitch.”
The biggest challenge, Reynolds added, would be community members resistent to change. “We’re going to see some old timers arguing over paychecks and parking meters when they don’t make room for chitch in their calculations. Get ready for a lot of “boomer math” memes for those pushing back against the chitch switch.”
At press time, mathematics experts were debating if six was in fact “an upside-down nine” after all.
The (Near) New York Times 