Topologists Go On Strike - No One Notices

The vast majority of the world's topologists began an indefinite strike last Wednesday. The strike has not caused turmoil in the stock market. Thousands of commuters remained unstranded Thursday as a result of the strike. As news of the strike spread, supermarket shelves rapidly remained in their initial state. Anger and terror did not fill the streets. The birth, death, and celebrity arrest rates dramatically did nothing. The rotation rate of the earth changed by an astounding 0 RPM.

The topologists are striking for more homeomorphisms of the Möbius Strip, equal opportunities in Lebesque Integration, dental benefits, and the introduction of more Menger-Sierpinski Sponges into classrooms and car-washes. Additionally, they want the canonical form of the Heine-Borel theorem to be declared heretical and to stop being referred to by the pejorative "mathematicians". "That's like calling a physicist an engineer," Zdenĕk Stĕžovat, president of the Commíttéè Internazional Socialisté Topologié (CIST), complained.

CIST is the world's largest union of topologists. They are not, however, part of the AFL-CIO, whose official policy is that they only represent "the working man". Negotiations between CIST and university presidents broke down on Friday after the provosts claimed they could not understand CIST's demands and also expressed a desire to go to lunch. CIST then set a Wednesday deadline for the resumption of negotiations, but it was largely ignored, even by such sources of arcane info as SlashDot.

The language barrier is one factor that has exacerbated the conflict. While most topologists speak English as their native tongue, the union requires that all papers be published in some obscure Eastern European language with characters that do not render well in HTML. Visigoth is one popular choice. It is common practice for topologists to take a nom dé guerre after passing their initiation into the cult. Zdenĕk Stĕžovat, for example, was born "Tom Jones". The tradition is ancient and its origin is unknown; however, the most popular explanation among the non-topologically inclined is that it is to disguise the silliness of the real names of topological problems, which when translated become things like "the ham sandwich problem" and "the hair ball problem". The union has denied these allegations, but leaked information on Wikipedia proves them to be true.

The lack of fallout from the strike has led some university presidents to reconsider the status of their topology departments. "I've never understood what topologists contributed to this place anyway," MIT President Susan Hochfield said in an interview. "Since their absence hasn't caused a worldwide catastrophe or worse yet a reduction in federal funding, I'm considering moving topology into the History Department." (MIT does not have a History Department). "In fact," she continued, "I'm not really sure what purpose the whole Math Department serves anyway. Don't we all have calculators now?" She noted that in a recent competition a TI-85 calculator codenamed "Deep Black" beat an esteemed MIT Mathematics Professor at multiplying 5 digit numbers together.

Reaction to the strike on the street has been mixed. When informed of the strike, one passerby commented "Oh, that's too bad. I enjoyed playing with tops as a kid. But I guess its only natural, now that we have Tickle-Me Elmos and Furbys, that the top would go obsolete someday." Another said: "Good! I've always hated optologists! They dilate your pupils so you look like a crackhead, then they poke you in the eye with that blue light, then they give you those horrible paper sunglasses and make you drive home all walleyed, just to test your intercranial air pressure! I don't see why they can't just install a valve-stem on your forehead, so you can check it yourself at the gas station??"

Meanwhile, there have been rumors of grad students being hired as "Sierpinski Scabs" to break the strike, and even of union members "crossing the picket line". This is not surprising, as math professors get homesick when they are away from their office for too long. As one traitor, who asked that his name not be used, pointed out "A line is a one dimensional object while we live in a three dimensional space so I can be 'inside' the picket line without having 'crossed' the picket line." He said the only attempt at retribution so far was one misguided soul who attempted to burn down his office with a Molotov Klein Bottle. He was foiled, however, because the Klein Bottle has only one surface and therefore no "inside" to fill with gasoline.