Definition:Anomalous Cancellation/Historical Note
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Historical Note on Anomalous Cancellation
The phenomenon of anomalous cancellation appears frequently in volumes and articles on recreational mathematics.
A popular technique is to introduce it as an amusingly incorrect piece of classroom work by a particularly shiftless pupil with an entertainingly alliterative cognomen, for example "Irving the idiot", or "Dennis the dunce" as used by David Wells in his $1986$ work Curious and Interesting Numbers.
Sources
- 1986: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers ... (previous) ... (next): $16 /64$
- 1997: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): $16 /64$