Stephen Cole Kleene Invents Formal Languages, Causing War

August 1, 1950

MADISON, WI – Previously unknown mathematician Stephen Cole Kleene just created a revolutionary discovery: the regular expressions. Regular expressions will provide great new insights into the rapidly developing world of computing, according to the mathematician. 

Kleene has already had an established career inventing mind-boggling mathematical concepts to demonstrate his non-existent narcissism, such as the Kleene closure, and Kleene algebra. His work on McCulloch-Pitts neural networks is also particularly promising, although some unknown magical faeries known as “computer scientists” already seem to be baffled by them.

While regular expressions seem to be highly promising in their job (whatever the heck that is), they certainly seem to have their opponents. In particular, following the invention, a formal language proof using regular expressions was assigned to all prospective applicants to universities in India as part of the notorious JEE exams. Among the students who took the exam was the future Prime Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri, who declared war on Pakistan.

“Only a Pakistani could fuck up my final exam this badly,” Shastri said of Kleene, erroneously considering the mathematician to be from Pakistan. As of now, the global community warns of a prolonged conflict, while Kleene’s work continues to torment the lives of students to this very day.