http://www.theonion.com/content/node/52324

 

Except:

"Taking into consideration the fact that [mathematical physicist] Hideo [Akuri]'s Cajun Chicken Littles were primarily made up of dark matter, the waitress's low kinetic energy, above-average mass, and weak attractive force, we devised a formula in which we moved the subtotal's decimal point one place to the left," Dreyfuss said.

 

 

I love The Onion.

I'm impressed. Anything more complex than the two-body-at-lunch problem was considered insolvable.

Douglas Adams had an amusing solution to this called "bistro math".

Douglas Adams had an amusing solution to this called "bistro math".

 

Owing to the fact that the rules of mathematics work differently on a waiter's cheque pad.