The Futility of Love in Chinese: A Demonstration Via Calculus

Imagine a young Chinese-speaking man whose thoughts are turning to love. If the poor guy is enough of a geek, he might analyze the situation using mathematics. One obvious question is what the change in degree of love will be, going from his own besotted self to his intended. Fortunately, this question may be trivially analyzed via calculus:

the change in love from me to her is her without me

Here the geek has integrated the change in love from himself to her, and the result is sadly — but very clearly — her without him.

Of course, there are a number of peoples who have designated their own language as the official Language of Love. These people would no doubt be unsurprised by this result, and would also argue that it does not apply to their language. Unfortunately, their optimism is unwarranted — this same result may be obtained in any other language given appropriate translations of variables and limits.