WHAT'S OUT AND WHAT'S IN FOR MATHEMATICAL TERMS
Today it is considered an egregious faux pas to speak or write in the crude antedated terms of our grandfathers. To assist the isolated student and the less sophisticated teacher, I have prepared the following list of currently fashionable mathematical terms in academia. I pass this list on to the general public as a matter of charity and in the hope that it will lead to more refined elucidation from young scholars.
OUT IN
thinking: hypothesizing.
proof by contradiction or indirect proof: reductio ad absurdum.
mistake: non sequitur.
starting place: handle.
with corresponding changes: mutatis mutandis.
counterexample: pathological exception.
consequently: ipso facto.
swallowing results: digesting proofs.
therefore: ergo.
has an easy-to-understand, but hard-to-find solution: obvious.
has two easy-to-understand, but hard-to-find solutions: trivial.
truth: tautology.
empty: vacuous.
drill problems: plug-and-chug work.
criteria: rubric.
example: substantive instantiation.
similar structure: homomorphic.
very similar structure: isomorphic.
same area: isometric.
arithmetic: number theory.
count: enumerate.
one: unity.
generally/specifically: globally/locally.
constant: invariant.
bonus result: corollary.
distance: metric measure.
several: a plurality.
function/argument: operator/operand.
separation/joining: bifurcation/confluence.
fourth power or quartic: biquadratic.
random: stochastic.
unique condition: a singularity.
uniqueness: unicity.
tends to zero: vanishes.
tip-top point: apex.
half-closed: half-open.
concave: non-convex.
rectangular prisms: parallelepipeds.
perpendicular (adj.): orthogonal.
perpendicular (n.): normal.
Euclid: Descartes.
Fermat: Wiles.
path: trajectory.
shift: rectilinear translation.
similar: homologous.
very similar: congruent.
whopper-jawed: skew or oblique.
change direction: perturb.
join: concatenate.
approximate to two or more places: accurate.
high school geometry or plane geometry: geometry of the Euclidean plane
under the Pythagorean metric.
clever scheme: algorithm.
initialize to zero: zeroize.
* : splat.
{ : squiggle.
decimal: denary.
alphabetical order: lexical order.
a divide-and-conquer method: an algorithm of logarithmic
order.
student ID numbers: witty passwords.
that bitch secretary in the math dept: the witch of Agnesi
numerology and number sophistry: descriptive statistics
Special thanks to Peter Braxton who got me started writing this stuff and who contributed five of the items above.
________________________________________
mathematics
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In class I was asked to give the definition of these words. Here are the
words and my answer.
Polyhedron: She is the mother of all geometry.
Polyhedron Properties: I put Land she bought with the mother and fame she
achieved from becoming the mother of all geometry.
Polyhedron Compounds: The structures she built on her properties.
Polyhedron Operations: The Name of the business she opened in her compounds
on her properties.
Uniform Polyhedron: She manufactured her own clothing line from her
businesses in her compounds on her properties.
Miscellaneous Polyhedron: She diversified
Dual Polyhedron: She later married and had twins.
Tetrahedron: A life threatening sickness you will catch if you don't get a
tetanus shot.
Releaux Tetrahedron: The first person diagnosed with this sickness around
1610 in Scandinavia.
Tetrahedron Compound 2: coughing
Tetrahedron Compound 3: scratching
Tetrahedron Compound 4: physiologic calcium imbalance
Tetrahedron Compound 5: tonic spasm of muscles
Tetrahedron Compound 6: deficient parathyroid secretion
Tetrahedron Compound 10: loss of hearing, sight, hair and income followed by death all within a 15 second period.
Comedy material written by Edmund Johnson Feb. 23rd 2003
Today it is considered an egregious faux pas to speak or write in the crude antedated terms of our grandfathers. To assist the isolated student and the less sophisticated teacher, I have prepared the following list of currently fashionable mathematical terms in academia. I pass this list on to the general public as a matter of charity and in the hope that it will lead to more refined elucidation from young scholars.
OUT IN
thinking: hypothesizing.
proof by contradiction or indirect proof: reductio ad absurdum.
mistake: non sequitur.
starting place: handle.
with corresponding changes: mutatis mutandis.
counterexample: pathological exception.
consequently: ipso facto.
swallowing results: digesting proofs.
therefore: ergo.
has an easy-to-understand, but hard-to-find solution: obvious.
has two easy-to-understand, but hard-to-find solutions: trivial.
truth: tautology.
empty: vacuous.
drill problems: plug-and-chug work.
criteria: rubric.
example: substantive instantiation.
similar structure: homomorphic.
very similar structure: isomorphic.
same area: isometric.
arithmetic: number theory.
count: enumerate.
one: unity.
generally/specifically: globally/locally.
constant: invariant.
bonus result: corollary.
distance: metric measure.
several: a plurality.
function/argument: operator/operand.
separation/joining: bifurcation/confluence.
fourth power or quartic: biquadratic.
random: stochastic.
unique condition: a singularity.
uniqueness: unicity.
tends to zero: vanishes.
tip-top point: apex.
half-closed: half-open.
concave: non-convex.
rectangular prisms: parallelepipeds.
perpendicular (adj.): orthogonal.
perpendicular (n.): normal.
Euclid: Descartes.
Fermat: Wiles.
path: trajectory.
shift: rectilinear translation.
similar: homologous.
very similar: congruent.
whopper-jawed: skew or oblique.
change direction: perturb.
join: concatenate.
approximate to two or more places: accurate.
high school geometry or plane geometry: geometry of the Euclidean plane
under the Pythagorean metric.
clever scheme: algorithm.
initialize to zero: zeroize.
* : splat.
{ : squiggle.
decimal: denary.
alphabetical order: lexical order.
a divide-and-conquer method: an algorithm of logarithmic
order.
student ID numbers: witty passwords.
that bitch secretary in the math dept: the witch of Agnesi
numerology and number sophistry: descriptive statistics
Special thanks to Peter Braxton who got me started writing this stuff and who contributed five of the items above.
________________________________________
mathematics
[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]
In class I was asked to give the definition of these words. Here are the
words and my answer.
Polyhedron: She is the mother of all geometry.
Polyhedron Properties: I put Land she bought with the mother and fame she
achieved from becoming the mother of all geometry.
Polyhedron Compounds: The structures she built on her properties.
Polyhedron Operations: The Name of the business she opened in her compounds
on her properties.
Uniform Polyhedron: She manufactured her own clothing line from her
businesses in her compounds on her properties.
Miscellaneous Polyhedron: She diversified
Dual Polyhedron: She later married and had twins.
Tetrahedron: A life threatening sickness you will catch if you don't get a
tetanus shot.
Releaux Tetrahedron: The first person diagnosed with this sickness around
1610 in Scandinavia.
Tetrahedron Compound 2: coughing
Tetrahedron Compound 3: scratching
Tetrahedron Compound 4: physiologic calcium imbalance
Tetrahedron Compound 5: tonic spasm of muscles
Tetrahedron Compound 6: deficient parathyroid secretion
Tetrahedron Compound 10: loss of hearing, sight, hair and income followed by death all within a 15 second period.
Comedy material written by Edmund Johnson Feb. 23rd 2003
