Angel of Death
A shell-shocked professor sits among crossed-out pages after being shown the simple solution to a problem they spent months on.
Content note: 'Angel of Death' framing (comic; no actual death).
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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/2018-02-09-angel-of-death/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
Student: "Wake up, Professor! Speak to me! Who did this to you?"
[Caption] "Mathematical lore tells of a creature called the Angel of Death, who waits until a mortal has spent months solving a problem, then shows them the elegant solution that they overlooked all along."