conversations on a bus

[erratio]

Me: Maths isn't really a science anyway, because in science there's only theories and then evidence, you can never prove anything completely, and maths is all about proving things..
Alex: Yeh ok Maths isn't really a science then, it's something different to everything else. Because Maths is all about absolutes
Me: Can you imagine if maths really was treated like a science though?
Me: "If I put this 1 next to this other 1, do you think they'll combine and make 2?"
Alex: Observe and see what happens..
Me: Of course, then you also have problems with shitty equipment that you always have with science, so sometimes you'd observe 1 and 1 adding to make 3. But then you could safely discard that result because of error
Alex: I have an imaginary number in this hand *indicates left* and an imaginary number in this hand *indicates right* If I add them together *brings hands together, palm to palm* what do I have?
Me: *looks at lack of space between hands* ...something.. imaginary, clearly..

And we never even got into the fun of observing interactions between functions on a multidimensional plane..