Ramification Valuation

My friend Goktug responded to Friday’s cryonic post with the following observation: “I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather….not screaming and yelling like the passengers on his bus.” Goktug is quite a storyteller. I happen to know that his grandfather was a mathematician and I doubt he ever drove a bus. Goktug himself is a mathematician because he was inspired by his grandfather’s work on ramification theory of valuations. To illustrate the theory, Goktug tells of a time he gave a ride to a hitchhiker who asked if he “wasn’t afraid of picking up a serial killer.” Some people like to reprimand others when a “thank you” would be more appropriate. Try doing the laundry or loading the dishwasher the “wrong way.” But I digress from ramification theory valuations. Goktug says he answered the hitchhiker, “The odds were astronomical of two serial killers being in the same car.” Using ramification theories, Goktug was able to instantly calculate the odds in his head by totaling valuations up to the sum of astronomical. I plan to submit a variation of the word “astronomical” in next year’s New York Times contest where you change one letter for a new definition. My word is “astrocomical” for universally funny.