In a world full of whimsy not too far from our own,

Lived a knight named Sir Tam and the Gorhack his foe.

This great beast had a place on a noble math throne,

For his secret true name was the number zero.

Year on year, Harold Tam feared the Gorhack,

For one step too near, divide, and it exploded!

So how did Sir Tam devise an attack?

Is he bound to rules and reality, so devoted?

No! Downing a hefty portion of mead,

Sir Tam throws the rulebook away.

Ideas unchecked, creativity freed,

He jumps pen-first into the fray.

"The Gorhack I needn't fear any longer," he cries,

And with a flourish of ink he simply banishes it.

"Now all in this kingdom have inverse allies,

Standing strong as a group, rid of Gorhack the Unfit."

In other words, Sir Tam realizes that to divide by zero

He could make it just go away. Then by vacuous truth

He'd have a Gorhackless world, him the valiant hero!

But curiosity lures him further, ever the daring sleuth.

See, Harold Tam is also quite nice, and to banish

Seemed to him a bit severe. He entertains another thought,

And with a flourish of ink, makes Gorhack unvanish.

He defines its division into existence so that 1/0 = 1 he's got!

At this point Harold takes a brief break.

Most likely upon sight of his creation he froze.

For it yields that 1 = 0 is not fake,

Despite contradicting all Harold knows.

Of course, Harold Tam didn't drink that mead for nothing.

With gleeful irreverence, he invites impossibility.

So 1 = 0. And pi = e. So everything equals everything.

So what? Harold Tam has merely invented a singularity.

An idea then strikes Sir Tam to add guardrails for fun,

Nixing 1/0 = 1. Tam imagines now that just 1 = 0 is true.

This, Tam admits, is intriguing, this not shoving all into one.

But letting 0.2 = 1.2 = 2.2 and on still seems quite the snafu.

Harold Tam shuts his eyes; Gorhack is swirling out of control.

And that's when he sees it! His conundrum is simply a circle.

For if 0 = 1, the number line is infinite copies of the interval,

Where the endpoints join up and into a loop roll.

It's arithmetic on a clock, by flouting rules begot,

For stretch by 12, and 3 + 9 is both midnight and a new day's start.

So to divide by zero, banish the Gorhack, befriend him or not,

Were all just colors and choices in Harold's new art.

See, Harold Tam and his mirror initials maT H

Know how to think in a secret, special way.

The blank slate is our one and only stage:

Make up the definition, go out, and play!