After a two-hour presentation early Thursday, James VanDerBerger successfully disproved $140 in Washington Mutual Bank late fees. "I knew it could be done," VanDerBerger told waiting reporters, "but it wasn't easy."
Excerpts from the 42-page dissertation will be published next month in the Modern Journal of Highly Abstract Mathematics.
"I still don't fully understand it," admits Jim Grace, branch manager of the Newburg CT branch (located across from the newly opened Dragon Dragon Palace restaurant.) "The numbers just kept moving until I couldn't grasp debit from credit or real from abstract. Normally I'm the one confusing people in these situations so it was very disorienting to say the least."
VanDerBerger expained it simply, "If they can prove that their free checking can eupport a $180 billion bank, the I knew that disproving $140 in late fees was possible."
Washington Mutual's own team of math doctorates intends to review the finding in order to curb future profit losses. Executives expressed confidence that "If they can change 'free = zero dollars' to become 'free = tens of millions of dollars', then I think we can wiggle around this one."
The only member of the famed Washington Mutual Bank Math Team who could be reached said he would have to withhold comment until he could review the correlation between the time/fee continuum, the atomic weight of quartz and the "misplaced donkey exchange" factors.
