(no subject)

[bliumchik]

The tiny Indian math teacher at our school usually takes us when Ms Vis is away. She had us a week or so ago, and tried to teach us about hyperbolas. What follows is broadly paraphrased.

Miss: Okay so infinity, right. See, you have to imagine there's this frog. Okay, I have this frog, and it does jobs for me, and then it comes to sit on my shoulder. But I don't like it sitting on my shoulder, because it's a frog. So I give it a job because it won't come and sit on my shoulder as long as it has work to do. Like you should not be talking until you have finished your maths work! Anyway, this frog, right. I give it a job that takes a long time, I trick it. I tell it, go jump to that wall, but you have to do it like this. These are the rules. You jump half the distance with each jump. So you see I am being clever, and he will never reach the wall because when he reaches halfway, *starts walking towards wall* are you following me, girls?
Class: O.o

Comments

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

Well it was to do with asymptotes. It was to explain why the curve never touches them. Because as x approaches infinity y approaches 0. Or something. So there was this frog, right...

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

That? Makes sense. When I learned it years and years back, my maths teacher also explained with a frog. It would repeatedly jump half the distance to the pond. We had the example changed, so that while the frog never reaches the water, it is close enough to be able to stick its tongue out and drink.

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

Mmm, I just found it amusing because she was talking very fast, in an Indian accent, about frogs, in a maths lesson. And everyone just went ellipse.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

I don't get where the shoulder comes into it.

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

Me neither. I think that was just a random thing to explain why the heck anyone would have a frog jumping towards a wall.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Tricksy mathsessss.

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

I think it would be funnier if the frog forgot its instructions, or somebody moved the wall, and the frog went SPLAT.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

In maths, you generally get to assume the wall isn't moving.

I'd be far more interested by the frog-and-wall version if the total distance travelled by the frog were constant - ie, if shorter distances hopped meant jumping higher to account for the rest of the distance of the jump. And then introducing wind as a factor, moving the frog further toward the wall.

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

...see, this is where we differ. You are interested in physics. I am interested in splat. Think outside the box! MOVE THE WALL1!!11!!

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

I'm not so much interested in physics as in having the wall for the frog testing apparatus built by people other than Adam Savage.

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

Hee, frog testing apparatus. I'm thinking of Schroedinger now.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Apparently, the frog has both reached and not-reached the wall up until such time as the frog is again on a shoulder.

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

I'd love to put that in a fortune cookie!

...holyfuckitsaftermidnight. Uuuuuh. I think I have to wake up in six hours or so. I'm off! Bye.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

*waves*

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

Er. As an afterthought. You remember in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, where that crazy man kept giggling about frogs? ...yeah.