> he regards the notion that mathematics does not permit division by zero as demonstrating that mathematics is faulty
It’s very oversimplified to say that “mathematics does not permit division by zero”. Mathematics (at least in the modern sense, descending from Euclid) is just the logical extension of whatever set of axioms you want to set up. It’s entirely possible to operate on a concept of numbers which allows division by zero. For example using the extended complex numbers (the complex plane plus a point at infinity). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_sphere
Anyhow, what does your friend have to do with Hestenes’s paper?
> what does your friend have to do with Hestenes’s paper?
The comment is clearly totally irrelevant, so I did some googling, and it appears that "trane" is a bot created on Kuro5hin by MichaelCrawford, and that references to "Kuro5hin's trane" are some sort of inside joke.
Which in turn makes it look like the non sequitur above was posted by that bot, even if other posts from that account were by human.
In any case it's just adding noise to the conversation.
His real name is Robert Mitchell. He has a BA in Classical Greek as well as a Master's of some sort from U of Chicago. He worked for several years as a Java coder but for reasons I don't fully understand, decided that paying work is somehow evil and so flatly refuses even to apply for a job.
In part that's because he is very shy and so cannot tolerate office politics, and in part - again for reasons I don't understand - he has a passionate hatred for women and so cannot tolerate being in their presence.
He's heavily into jazz and swing music; he likes to call himself "trane" because that was John Coltrane's nickname.
For example he regards the notion that mathematics does not permit division by zero as demonstrating that mathematics is faulty.
He's a real smart guy as well as one of my very best friends but it's hard to debate someone who got honors in his Linguistics Masters degree.