L^p
What the professor said:
All metric spaces are equivalent.
What the professor meant:
You can cover any square
with a hundred shining circles,
or you can fill any circle
with a thousand perfect diamonds.
If you can get somewhere as the crow flies
then you can get there by taxicab,
even if it takes a little longer,
or by train, at least once a day.
If you can imagine a neighbor
outside the boundary of your city,
then you can stretch an epsilon farther,
reach out, and draw a stranger close.
What the student in the back row wrote down:
The cosmos is discrete.
You need to build a teleporter
to ensure everyone is equidistant:
your mom, your cousin, the mayor,
the president, somebody in another time zone,
another continent, galaxy, century,
a bonobo, whale, sequoia.
If, at any given moment,
you are not a crowsflight away
from any or all of these neighbors,
divide by zero and start over.