History's Most Evil Mathematicians
Seven evil masterminds behind math's most annoying features: train word problems, inconsistent trig notation, FOIL, a paradoxical logic exam, decimal commas, and deliberately obscure writing.
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Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2017-02-01-history-s-most-evil-mathematicians/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
[1] "It's worse than we feared, Mr. President. The mathematician hijacked two trains: one left Cleveland at 2pm traveling 40 mph, and the other is leaving Pittsburgh…"
[2] Villain: "I'll have sin⁻¹(x) mean arcsin(x), but sin²(x) mean (sin x)(sin x). Heh heh heh…"
[3] Villain with an exam: "I've really outdone myself this time." [LOGIC: FINAL EXAM. 1. Is the answer to this question "no"? (a) Yes (b) No. END.]
[4] Villain: "We are almost ready to release the contagious and toxic meme of 'FOIL' into the world." Postdoc: "But master… that silly mnemonic may replace actual understanding!" Villain: "Precisely, my young postdoc. Precisely."
[5] "I was climbing a tree when I fell, landing on an apple. In a flash, my theory of antigravity was born…" BIZARRO NEWTON
[6] "In the US and UK, I'll use . as a decimal point and , to break up large numbers…" "…and in Europe, I'll do precisely the opposite."
[7] Devil: "Now, now, we mustn't explain things too clearly! We all know that the best way to build our discipline's prestige is by cultivating a tradition of daunting obscurity and fearsome incomprehensibility…"