Re:Rare Greek Variables
by rrobukef on Sunday November 28, 2021 @10:57AM
(#29369875)
One of my math teachers regularly abstracted formulas as houses and cigars. You know, 'cause (3x+5)² kind of looks like a house with an x as front door and a ² as a chimney. Cigars were used instead of ellipsoids. When translated they flew through space.
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Extremely tangential, but when I was learning algebra I for some reason always envisioned it as a great battle between the forces on either side of the equals sign. Terms being added and subtracted were normal troops. Multiplication -- great leaders and generals. Division -- special forces who could lay waste to the other side.
The analogy is really not illuminating in any way whatsoever, but it did add a fun narrative to my problem sets.