Zero Budget

Chemists get eyewash stations and fire extinguishers.
Physicists get Geiger counters and thick rubber gloves.
Biologists get inoculated for everything.
That leaves zero budget for the mathematicians.
Cheap bastards.
It’s drilled into every schoolkid not to divide by zero. The government’s done a great job of distributing “safety zeroes” to schools to protect kids who go ahead and try, but the professionals have to work with the uncoated wild variety to get the equations to stick.
Long ago, I fell asleep next to five blackboards full of wild zeroes. The exposure destroyed my nervous system.
ALS? Just a cover story.