When Mathematicians See y = 1/x²
Mathematicians read the graph of y = 1/x² as a story: x and y rarely agree. When x shrinks, y gets huge; when x grows, y gets tiny; but y always stays positive.
Transcript
[Title] "When mathematicians see \"y = 1/x²\"…" [1] [The graph of y = 1/x²] "Once upon a time, there were two quantities, x and y, who rarely agreed on anything." [2] [Close-up near the y-axis] "When x grew small, y grew very big." [3] [Close-up far out on the x-axis] "When x grew big, y grew very, very small." [4] "But no matter what, y always stayed positive."
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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/2018-09-18-when-mathematicians-see-y-1-x/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)