Made-Up Trig Functions
Twelve joke definitions of invented trig functions, from improvisine and cocoasine to ambigusecant and partialcreditsine.
Content note: Panel 10 jokes about pick-up lines.
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Free for classrooms, worksheets, slides and other non-commercial use under CC BY-NC 4.0, with credit to Ben Orlin.
Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2015-01-01-made-up-trig-functions/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
[1] "improvisine(θ) = a random number between −1 and 1" A: "What's improvisine of 60°?" B: "Uh… −0.7." A: "Yesterday you told me it was 0.93!" B: "Well, improvisine(x) ≠ improvisine(x)."
[2] "cocoasine(θ) = 0.35 sin(θ) + 0.65 dark chocolate" "Mmm… chocolate trig…"
[3] "cococoasine(θ) = 0.35 cos(θ) + 0.65 dark chocolate" / "cocoacosine(θ) = some completely different function, just to confuse you"
[4] "ursine(θ) = an adjective meaning 'bearlike'" [a right triangle with bear ears and paws]
[5] "frankensine(θ) = an unholy combination of trig functions stitched together into a horrifying whole" [a stitched-together graph with neck bolts]
[6] "deutschetangent(θ) = gegenteil / angrenzend" [a smiling German flag]
[7] "antisine(θ) = everything that sin(θ) is not" [a smooth sine wave; a jagged one: "I'm nothing like you! I'll never be like you!"]
[8] "cybersine(θ) = a function that seemed really futuristic when they introduced it in the 1990's but now feels kinda dated" [a blocky wave: "AM I IN… CYBERSPACE???"]
[9] "metatangent(θ) = a digressive tangent about the function tangent, which reminds me…" "Ooh, I remember this one time…"
[10] "heybabywhatsyoursine(θ) = 1 if θ is an awful pick-up line, 0 otherwise" "Are we on the same wavelength, here?"
[11] "ambigusecant(θ) = 1/sin(θ), I think—no, wait, it's 1/cos(θ)?" "Or is it something weird, like 1 − arccotan(θ)?"
[12] "partialcreditsine(θ) = sin(θ) with an inexplicable error introduced in the third decimal place" "Why do I keep using this?"