This past Sunday, a group of renowned mathematicians, gathering for its annual “Math-a-Matters!” lecture series, have come to the startling conclusion that calculus, is, in fact, not as important as previously thought.

The group, led by the celebrated physicist Dr. Donald K. Umphrey, made their startling discovery on Tuesday. “Well, I was sitting in on Walter’s Let’s Split the Atom discussion panel and quite frankly, it was boring as a funeral,” Umphrey said. “A group of us were in the back, goofing off, and Danny Avens’s pen bursts and spills ink all over the graph paper we were playing tic-tac-toe on and poof: there it was.” Danny Avens is a junior intern student from the Harvard School of Medicine. The ink spill apparently resembled a proof disproving the importance of calculus.

“We all went through life assuming that calculus was important to our field as scientists,” Umphrey continued. “Guess we were wrong.”

UCLA’s Dr. Gordon Smith was also present. “When [Avens] came over to sit with us, we were all dreading it because he’s sort of the [loser] of the group. I mean, he’s a complete [dumbo], but when that [crazy] guy dropped his [crazy] pen, even Ole’ Four Eyes sat up and took notice. We were all taken aback.” Ole’ Four Eyes was not available for comment.

The ink stain was taken to Dr. Umphrey’s lab in Cambridge, where it was thoroughly tested for errors. Finding none, Umphrey returned the next day to the convention and presented the find, affectionately nicknamed “Aven’s [Mess]-Up.” He announced that the proof is “absolutely flawless.”

Reaction in the mathematics world has been mixed, but none can deny the power of Dr. Umphrey’s words, should the formula prove correct. “Imagine the impact this will have!” commented University of North Texas professor Samuel Long. “This will turn the world of mathematics on its parallel axis… Did they show it to me? No, not exactly; no one’s really seen it yet, but it must be horribly complex, and I doubt I’d understand it anyway. Lots of charts and whatnot.”

Umphrey is in the process of testing his proof on high school and college aged students. So far, 98% of students tested have agreed with the findings versus 1% disagreeing, with the remaining 1% not being able to differentiate between Aven’s proof and calculus itself. Sampling error is +/- 2 percent.

Final numbers are due today.