From: matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Mcinnes B T (Dr))
Newsgroups: soc.culture.celtic,sci.physics,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Impure Mathematics
Date: 27 Aug 92 08:19:46 GMT
Organization: National University of Singapore

suzanne@mailhub.scf.lmsc.lockheed.com (Suzanne Barrett) writes:
: In article <5887@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> dnd@ee.man.ac.uk (Darryl Davis (RA)) writes:
: 
: >A friend of mine passed this snippet along. It may amuse...
: 
: 
: >                       Impure Mathematics
: 
: >       Once upon a time (1/t) pretty little Polly Nomial was strolling across
: >a field of vectors when she came to the edge of a singularly large matrix.
: 
: >       Now Polly was convergent and her mother had made it an absolute
: >condition that she must never enter such an array without her brackets on.
: >Polly, however, who had changed her variables that morning and was feeling
: >particularly badly behaved, ignored this condition on the grounds that it was
: >Znsufficient and made her way amongst the complex elements.
: 
: >       Rows and columns enveloped her on all sides.  Tangents approached her
: >surface.  She became tensor and tensor.  Quite suddenly, three branches of a
: >hyperbola touched her at a single point.  She oscillated violently, lost all
: >sense of directrix, and went completely divergent.  As she reached a turning
: >point she tripped over a square root which was protruding from the erf and
: >plunged headlong down a steep gradient.  When she was differentiated once more
: >she found herself, apparently alone, in a noneuclidean space.
: 
: >       She was being watched however.  That smooth operator, Curly Pi, was
: >lurking inner product.  As his eyes devoured her curvilinear coordinates a
: >singular expression crossed his face.  Was she still convergent, he wondered.
: >He decide to integrate improperly at once.
: 
: 
: >       Hearing a vulgar fraction behind her, Polly turned around and saw
: >Curly Pi approaching with his power series extrapolated.  She could see at
: >once, by his degenerate conic and his disparitive terms that he was bent on
: >no good.
: 
: >       "Heureka," she gasped.
: 
: >       "Ho, ho," he said.  "What a symmetric little polynomial you are.  I can
: >see you're absolutely bubbling over with secs."
: 
: >       "O sir," she protested, "keep away from me.  I haven't got my brackets
: >on."
: 
: >       "Calm yourself, my dear," said our suave operator, "your fears are
: >purely imaginary."
: 
: >       "I, I," she thought.  "Perhaps he's homogeneous then?"
: 
: >       "What order are you?" the brute demanded.
: 
: >       "Seventeen," replied Polly.
: 
: >       Curly leered.  "I suppose you've never been operated on yet?" he said.
: 
: >       "Of course not," Polly cried indignantly.  "I'm absolutely convergent."
: 
: >       "Come, come," said Curly.  "Let's off to a decimal place I know and
: >I'll take you to the limit."
: 
: >       "Never!" gasped Polly.
: 
: >       "Exchlf!" he swore, using the vilest oath he knew.  His patience was
: >gone. Coshing her over the coefficient with a log until she was powerless,
: >Curly removed her discontinuities.  He stared at her significant places and
: >began smoothing her points of inflection.  Poor Polly.  All was up.  She felt
: >his hand tending to her asymptotic limit.  Her convergence would soon be gone
: >for ever.
: 
: >       There was no mercy, for Curly was a heavyside operator.  He integrated
: >by parts. He integrated by partial fractions.  The complex beast even went all
: >the way around and did a contour integration.  What an indignity, to be
: >multiply connected on her first integration.  Curly went on operating until he
: >was absolutely and completely orthogonal.
: 
: >       When Polly got home that evening, her mother noticed that she had been
: >truncated in several places.  But it was too late to differentiate now.  As the
: >months went by, Polly increased monotonically.  Finally she generated a small
: >but pathological function which left surds all over the place until she was
: >driven to distraction.
: 
: >       The moral of our story is this:  If you want to keep your expressions
: >convergent, never allow them a single degree of freedom!
: 
: I suppose the poster of this bit of sexist garbage is sitting at his 
: terminal quite smug in the knowledge that he has generated a controversial 
: topic.  I AM NOT AMUSED.  It is offensive, has no business on the Celtic 
: board--or any other board!  So-called "cute" postings that denigrate other 
: races, the opposite sex, are NEVER in good taste.  As a writer, I try very 
: hard not to put down anyone else, even if I don't happen to share their 
: views.  You, sir, seem to enjoy the put down.  Suggest you confine your 
: drivel amongst your comrades; perhaps they appreciate it more.
: Suzanne who has spent far to many years trying to avoid the Neanderthal 
: mentality evident by this poster. 
: -----
 I suppose the poster of this bit of feminist garbage is sitting at her
terminal [etc] WE ARE NOT AMUSED. So-called "self-righteous" postings
that denigrate other branches of the genus "homo" are NEVER in good
taste. [etc] I have spent too many years trying to avoid the
homo-sapiens mentality evident "by" this poster.

: suzanne@mailhub.scf.lmsc.lockheed.com