Reciprocity

After Iranian President Ahmedinejad’s controversial visit to Columbia University, an Iranian University in the northeastern city of Mashhad reciprocated by inviting President Bush to talk about the Holocaust, terrorism, and human rights.

In math, to get the reciprocal of a non-zero number just divide it into 1. Six is the reciprocal of one-sixth. Three-fourths is the reciprocal of four-thirds. These are reciprocal partners. The problem with zero is that no number times zero equals one. Zero has no reciprocal, no partner.

It doesn’t look like President Bush will be reciprocating Ferdowsi University president Alireza Afshour’s invitation: a White House spokesperson said they weren’t “taking it too seriously.”

So from a math standpoint if President Bush doesn’t reciprocate it’ll either be because President Ahmedinejad’s visit to Columbia was worth zero or because he didn’t want to be a partner with Iran or its President.