Math Genres
Equations recast as literary genres: i as sci-fi alien, x² + 16 = 8x as mystery, x⁵ − 1 = x as unsolvable mystery, the freshman's dream as horror, Euler's identity as romance, exponent rules as coming-of-age, and 'to be or not to be' as set notation.
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Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2025-05-27-math-genres/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
[1] Sci-Fi: i = √−1 [a flying saucer piloted by i] "From some unknown plane of existence, wholly orthogonal to our own, the alien creature descended…"
[2] Mystery: x² + 16 = 8x [x in Groucho glasses] "Who was this mysterious X, whose square and octuple differed by precisely 16? No one knew. But their curiosity would not rest until satisfied."
[3] Mystery (really hard version): x⁵ − 1 = x [x in sunglasses] "Who was this mysterious X? No one knew. And honestly, no one expected to figure it out, except as a rough approximation. Some mysteries are just like that."
[4] Horror: (a + b)² = a² + b² [a mangled square, a broken Pascal's triangle, a bent hypotenuse; "9 = 5"] "She gazed numbly upon the carnage of symbols and forms. The mutilated square; the rubble of Pascal's triangle; the bent and lifeless hypotenuse…"
[5] Romance: e^(πi) + 1 = 0 "The two numbers fell into one another's embrace, overwhelmed to find that, through all the years of separation, the other had remained constant."
[6] Coming of Age: aᵇaᶜ = aᵇ⁺ᶜ "The little exponent knew, in that moment, who it was meant to be. Not a mere child of multiplication, but something greater, something of immense power…"
[7] Shakespeare: {x | x = 2b} ∪ {x | x ≠ 2b} [holding a skull] "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and sign errors of outrageous notation, or to take liberties against a sea of conventions, and by opposing, end them."