"Does not compute", and variations of it, is a phrase often uttered by computers, robots, and other artificial intelligences in popular culture. The phrase indicates a type of cognitive dissonance on the part of the machine in question. The expression of the phrase "does not compute" by robots or computers attempting to process emotions, contradictions or paradoxes is frequently satirized in popular culture, often leading to the machine's inaction, malfunction or self-destruction. The phrase was used as a catchphrase by the television show My Living Doll in 1964. It was further popularized in Lost in Space (1965) as a catchphrase often uttered by The Robot character. The problem of how to hold the result of a computation that is not a number is genuine (for example, 1/0) and represented a problem for early computers that would experience divide-by-zero errors or other mathematical paradoxes that software had not yet been written to deal with, leading to a computer crash. The NaN and related data types were invented to solve this problem. History and usage The phrase was often present in stories which carried a theme of the superiority of human emotion over limitations within the logic utilized by machines. Despite the superior ability of computers to calculate and process information, their lack of emotion and randomness made them unable to resolve cognitive dissonance, which often led to the output of "Does not compute". It was usually the computer's response to information which it had received but could not reconcile with other information it already held to be true. It could also be seen as a depiction of the limited (and thus flawed) nature of a machine's programming; due to its pre-programmed nature, it would be unable to adapt itself to circumstances beyond the scope of its programming, as opposed to humans who could adapt to such unforeseen events. The phrase was used in the sitcom My Living Doll in which the android protagonist, Rhoda Miller, uttered the phrase regularly when confronted with contradictory information, usually in relation to human behavior. On a few occasions when she did understand the information, her response was "that does compute". Perhaps the most famous use of the phrase is in the television series Lost in Space where the robot often says, "It does not compute!", to which Dr Smith would give a reply of "What do you mean it doesn't compute, you ninny?!" or something