Stephen King helps J.K. Rowling with the mathematics of fuck-giving.

I think you may mean "not giving a fuck squared." The square root, I believe, would mean a *smaller* amount of giving a fuck. I could be wrong. https://t.co/7lzylpInVV

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) July 17, 2024

Help me with the math here. Seems to me, if you don't give a fuck, you're already at zero. Rowling is talking about the smallest possible amount of fuck-giving and being silly about the math. King admits he could be wrong, and isn't he? She doesn't want more than zero, and zero times zero wouldn't give you more than zero anyway. But she wants to go smaller. 

Ah, wait! Rowling writes back: "But I was going for a fraction of a fuck. I barely give a tenth of a fuck. So I stand by my square root. What we really need here is a certified fuckologist."

 

Perfect. JK won. Reeled him in and won. Good for King, though, for expressing his idea with respect.

ADDED: Actually, JK's explanation — that she was talking about fractions (and not 0, as I assumed) — put King in the right. As Matt says in the comments: "King is correct. The square root of 1/4 is 1/2. For numbers less than 1 the square root makes it larger. 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4."