A Set
of
Mathematical
Equivoques
For better or worse these “definitions” are my own creation. Undoubtedly my tilted point of view comes from years of working crossword puzzles and from a general passion for words and wordplay. I am writing this material with the hope of entertaining some kindred spirits and with the hope of planting a few seeds of the wonderful culture of mathematics into the imagination of students here and there. Over time I will continue to fill in with more “?” marks denoting the availability of explanations and links that I hope will make this site more useful, especially to students.
Comments? Contributions? Corrections? You can email them to me at ksuman@winona.edu.
Ken Suman
Initially Posted on 8/12/2006, Lasted Edited on 4/15/2015.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W XYZ
A Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Abelian – 109
or 1012 depending on whether you studied math or maths at school |
|
Abscissa – a person who is self
absorbed with their abs |
|
Absolute Geometry – geometry that
doesn’t play fair |
|
Absolute
Value – nonnegotiable price |
|
Absorbing
State – “You
can check in any time you like, but
you can never leave.” |
|
Abundant Number – a lot |
|
Acceptance
Sampling – launching a trial balloon |
|
Acousmatic – someone who is
quick to point fingers |
|
Adding Machine – a good summer |
|
Additive Identity – alias |
|
Adèle Group – the Astaire’s |
|
Adenine – nucleotide that
takes 1 to 10 |
|
Adiabatic Law – always monitor
your glucose level |
|
Affine
Variety – what a good store carries |
|
Agonic – someone who lives
in the past |
|
Airport Problem – when you lose your
in flight internet connection |
|
Alethic – stout |
|
Alexander
Polynomial
– Iksander,
Richard Burton, Colin Farrell, but apparently not Leonardo DiCaprio |
|
ALGOL – what Julius
Caesar divided into three parts |
|
Aliorelative – onion |
|
Aliter – a little more than
a quart |
|
Aliquot – “float like a butterfly,
sting like a bee” |
|
Allegory – Tipper’s husband
when in Rome |
|
Almost Everywhere – where kudzu grows |
|
Almost Surely – Shirley |
|
Alternating Group – Animagi |
|
Alternation – Vatican City |
|
Amenable Group – The Beatles |
|
Amicable Pair – good friends |
|
Amphibology – switch
pitching |
|
Analemma Curve – slant eight |
|
Anallagmatic – Wrangler blue
jeans |
|
Analysis – denouement |
|
Analysis
of Variance – psychotherapy |
|
Analytic
Geometry – creole |
|
Annealing – genuflecting |
|
Annihilator
– “weapon of math destruction” |
|
Annulus – what the unhappy couple asked the priest to do |
|
Ansatz – A ‘Convenient’ Truth |
|
Anticlastic – indivisible |
|
Anticomplement – a disparaging word |
|
Antinomy – what’s added to
textiles to make them flame retardant (and carcinogenic?) |
|
Antipode – an acrobat who
juggles with their feet |
|
Antiset – flavoring for those
delicious Italian cookies |
|
Antitone – ‘ill conditioned’ |
|
a -Partite Graph – government
corruption in South Africa between 1948 and 1994 |
|
Apeiron – what Oprah did on The Late Show |
|
Apex – 16
gallons |
|
Apothem – what the bluetick pup treed |
|
Apotome – The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, 17 volumes, James Harrison, editor |
|
Arbelos – where the pirate
said the supplies were |
|
Arcuate – without error |
|
Arithmetic Geometry – Arithmetic on the Frontier |
|
Arrow of Time – an anachronism |
|
Arrow’s Impossibility
Theorem –
what goes up must come down (assuming we ignore the potential effect of dark
energy and trees) |
|
Astroid – a tag for Elroy’s
dog |
|
Asymptote – how the farmer got
his lame donkey home |
|
Automorphic Form – hardtop
convertible |
|
Autoregression – PT Cruiser |
|
Autos Epha – carpeter (carpet layer) |
|
Average – to bid farewell to
the anger within |
|
Axiom of Choice – The Importance
of Being ‘Ernst’ |
|
Axis – sacks |
|
B Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Back Substitution – artificial disk
replacement |
|
Baire Category – ursine breed |
|
Baire Space – ‘polar plot’ |
|
Ballot
Problem – rigged election |
|
Bandit
Problems – when DoD money dries up for consulting inside the beltway |
|
Barber’s
Paradox – stylist’s knot |
|
Basel Problem – skin cancer |
|
Basin of
Attraction – the bathroom sink |
|
Bayes’
Rule – wash the tub after each use |
|
Beat the Dealer – Military Commissions Act provision for
getting information out of Afghan opium traffickers |
|
|
|
Bematist Goal – pari passu In the time of Alexander the Great (356 BC –
323 BC) surveyors were trained in the skill of maintaining a fixed length
pace, a bema (βήμα),
over long distances. The bema was the distance between successive
steps and was roughly two and a half feet.
These human pedometers were called bematists and were able to stay
within 1/100 of a bema with each
step! It is a persistent legend that Eratosthenes (276 BC – 194 BC) hired bematists to measure
the distance from Alexandria to Syene as part of
his famous effort to determine the size of the Earth. This story is beautifully told in the
children’s book The Librarian Who
Measured the Earth by Kathryn Lasky and is
definitely worth reading by “kids” of all ages. The Romans, in contrast to the Greeks,
defined a pace (Latin passus)
as the distance that would bring a land surveyor (Latin agrimensore) back to the same
foot (i.e. roughly five feet). Pari is Latin
for “equal” and thus the phrase pari passu translates literally from the Latin as “equal
pace”. Putting this together, we have that the goal
of a bematist (Greek) is to maintain an equal pace, which is the literal
translation of the (Latin) phrase pari passu. Pari passu is now used as a legal
phrase with the general meaning of “on equal footing”. The phrase is also used in finance with the
meaning “at the same rate”. e.g. All creditors will be
treated pari passu. Incomes for middle class and wealthy
families were not increasing pari passu. The equating of these Greek and Latin phrases
apparently has no historical basis.
But that is okay as there is a word for such invented linguistic miscegenations
– it’s called macaronic. And as any Italian
restaurateur will tell you, the best way to top off a meal of macaroni like
this is with a slice of pari passu, that delicious
Italian dessert made with mascarpone cheese.
But then that would be a malapropism
and that’s another story altogether. Fortunately, linguists will forgive all if
you say it with a big enough smile. |
|
Benford’s Law – “One is the likeliest number
that you’ll ever know. Two is not as
likely as one, but it’s the likeliest number since the number one.” |
|
Bias – the two words
parents hear most on the cereal aisle |
|
Bicorn – an option at the
Merc |
|
Bicursal – the ability to swear in two languages |
|
Big-Endian,
Little-Endian
– Much Ado About Nothing |
|
Big M
Method – product bundling |
|
Big O
Notation – Oscar Robertson’s number |
|
Bing
Sling – a highball with a cherry |
|
Binit – when you’ve had
your turn in tag |
|
Biplot – selecting your
final retirement location |
|
Birthday
Problem – old age |
|
Block Scheduling – filibuster |
|
BLUE – bummed |
|
Bonnet Net – snood |
|
Borda Count – 2(A – I +1) when in Boston |
|
Boundary Condition – terminal case |
|
Braneworld – “There is a fifth
dimension, beyond that which is known to man.” |
|
Brownian
Motion – when a Girl Scout moves to recess |
|
Butterfly
Effect – Because a Little Bug
Went Ka-choo! |
|
Butterfly Effect – Psyched |
|
C Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Calculemus – Machiavellian motto |
|
Calculus – the Flintstone’s
daughter |
|
Canard Solution – Duck Soup |
|
Canonical Analysis – weapons inspection |
|
Cantor Dust – what a horse kicks
up |
|
Cantor’s Middle Third
Set –
second of an hazan’s three part performance |
|
Cardinal Characteristic – bright red cassock
and zucchetto |
|
Carnap Rule – never wake a baby
who has fallen asleep in a car seat |
|
Casting Out Nines – pitching your niblicks |
|
Catenary – without even a
hint of malice or spite |
|
Catenoid – what you get if you
grab a tiger by the tail |
|
Cattle Problem – BSE |
|
Centroids – Emperor Palpatine’s (a.k.a.
Darth Sidious) strategy for invading Naboo |
|
Ceteris Paribus – Elsie the Cow |
|
Cheney’s Card Trick – WHIG |
|
Chudnovsky Brothers – piquant |
|
Church’s Thesis – God exists |
|
Cissoid – an impolite way to
describe your elder sister |
|
Clinure – the two words kids
hear most re their room |
|
Cliques – Ska Geeks, Metalheads, Goths,
Punks, … |
|
Closed Function – a private party |
|
Clustering Illusion – apophenia |
|
Cochain – what Joe Paterno is known for |
|
Cofactor – someone faking a
cold |
|
Cofinal – what you have when
students collude on the end of term exam |
|
Collatz Problem – when pages of your
exam are out of order |
|
Column Space – stoa |
|
Combinatorics on Words – magnetic poetry |
|
Common Knowledge – heard throughout
the dining hall |
|
Commutative Group – carpoolers |
|
Commutator – a spud-nik |
|
Complement of a Set – best wishes to the
newlyweds |
|
Complete Pivoting – an about-face |
|
Completing the Square – The Princess Diaries |
|
Complex Analysis – study connecting
guilt, inferiority, God, persecution, martyrs and nice guys |
|
Complex Numbers – Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2,
Liszt’s Transcendental Etude No. 5,
and Chopin’s Etude No. 1, Op.10. |
|
Complex Plane – the F-22A Raptor |
|
Comprehensive Exam – day of reckoning |
|
Conic Section – where Dilbert
lives |
|
Conjunction – The Joint |
|
Construction Tools – Erector Set |
|
Continued Fraction – an ongoing part |
|
Contour Map – what tourists use
at Alcatraz |
|
Contrapositive – Oliver North’s
point of view |
|
Control Group – Agents 86 and 99,
Chief, Larabee and Hymie |
|
Cook’s Theorem – “the proof of the
pudding is in the eating” |
|
Coprimes – bop, hop, lop,
mop, pop, sop, top, … |
|
Corner Test – an autopsy |
|
Correlation Implies
Causation
– cum hoc, ergo propter hoc |
|
Coset – Jean Valjean’s daughter |
|
Cossic Art – pysanky |
|
Countability of the Rationals – "Everyone is crazy except you and me … and
sometimes I wonder about you." |
|
Critical Path – Main Street |
|
Critical Point – exigency |
|
Cross Product – double cross |
|
Crunode – Bordeaux |
|
C-Space – an ocean |
|
Curve of Constant
Width –
spotting everyone the same number of points |
|
Cylinder – what the revenuer
asked the bootlegger |
|
D Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Damped
Sine – sine die |
|
Data Mining – planting a nihilartikel |
|
Data Snooping – what Sherlock
Holmes does |
|
Decanting Problems – what Socrates,
Martin Luther, Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei had |
|
Decimal System – Powers of Ten |
|
Degenerate Locus – a real boor |
|
Degree Sequence – Bachelor’s, Master’s,
Ph.D. |
|
Deleted Neighborhood – aftereffect of an urban
renewal project |
|
Demand Curve – what students
often do |
|
Dequeue – ice cream parlor |
|
Deranged Permutations – ‘mental
mathematics’ |
|
De Revolutionibus – the VW Splittie |
|
Diagnostic – Pat Robinson’s war cry |
|
Diagonally – where
Harry Potter shops |
|
Diameter – a vending machine that eats dimes |
|
Didactic Numbers – Take It to the Limit (Eagles), Operator (Jim Croce), Circle (Harry Chapin), Revolution (Beatles) |
|
Digital
Computer – a Chisenbopper |
|
Digital Root – toe hold |
|
Digon – typical problem
with board games |
|
Directed Graph – organized crime |
|
Disquisitiones – The Bee Gees,
Donna Summer, KC and the Sunshine Band … |
|
Divisible – when the gaming cube is in sight |
|
|
|
DNA Computers – ‘genetic
algorithms’ |
|
Dot Product – husband |
|
Double Blind – taking an eye for
an eye |
|
Double Blind – turning on your
bright lights in retaliation |
|
Double Dot – peridot |
|
Double Edged Ruler – benevolent
dictator |
|
Double Negative
Elimination
– when it’s two strikes and you’re out |
|
Doubling the Cube – what you do in
backgammon to squeeze your opponent out |
|
Dual Space – field of honor |
|
Dunnett's Test – a quiz to see who has done their homework |
|
Dyad – what TiVo lets you say to commercials |
|
Dyscalculia – Why Johnny Can’t Add |
|
E Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Elementary Row
Operation
– feathering |
|
Enqueue – Are You Being Served ? |
|
Epistemic
Justification
– American Pie |
|
Epols – run over the rise |
|
Equals – online qualifying
exams |
|
Equant – mathematical
financier who works online |
|
Error
Correcting Code – the “you break it, you own it” rule |
|
Escher’s Ascending and Descending – going Up the Down Staircase |
|
Essential Supremum – theism |
|
Euler – Jiffy
Lube employee |
|
Euler
Criteria – every 3 months or 3000 miles |
|
Euler
Line – slippery slope |
|
Eversion – online adaptation |
|
Evil Twin Strategy – designing a spoof WiFi hot spot with the intent of intercepting sensitive
data |
|
Evolutionary
Operation
– phylogenetic systematics |
|
Existence Theorem – cogito, ergo sum |
|
Existential
Quantifier – agnostic |
|
Explement – what it takes to be The Compleat ‘Angle’ |
|
Extraction of Roots – pulling teeth |
|
Extraneous Roots – outside sources |
|
F Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Fair
Division – proper fraction |
|
Fair Game – open
target |
|
Faltings’ Theorem – it’s easier to
find it than accept it |
|
Farey
Series – Tales of the Brothers
Grimm |
|
Fatigue Failure – when your army
pants wear out |
|
Feller Property – prostate gland |
|
Ferrari's Method – give it at least a
6 liter, 12 cylinder, 540 horsepower engine |
|
Fictitious Play – Springtime for Hitler |
|
Field Axioms – ground rules |
|
Field Extension – one way to make it a pitcher’s park |
|
Field’s
Medal – potassium |
|
Field
Theory – “If you build it, they will come.” |
|
Field Theory – agronomy |
|
Figurate
Numbers – 8, 88, 888, … |
|
|
|
Fisher’s Exact Test – a hanging scale |
|
Fisher Information – depth finder |
|
Fixed
Point – what a pencil sharpener gives you |
|
Flexagon – what happens when you get old |
|
Floor
Function – to “give me a place to stand” (pou sto) |
|
Floor
Function – to make sherry |
|
Fluid
Flow – a runny nose |
|
Focal
Cord – it vibrates to make sounds |
|
Forcing – new
suit bid by responder |
|
Formalist Mathematics – The Great Game |
|
Formally Real Field – Giant’s Stadium |
|
FORTRAN – what the general
did |
|
Fourier Series – a line of shoes
that comes in widths extra wide to extra narrow |
|
Four Squares Theorem – four squares a day
will soon make you round |
|
Free
Group – emancipated ones |
|
Freshman’s
Dream – a 4.0 |
|
Frieze Pattern – snowflake |
|
Full Adder – Adderall |
|
Functional Analysis – a checkup |
|
Fundamental
Group – supporting the APA |
|
Fundamental Theorem
of Arithmetic
– the Great Divide |
|
Fuzzy Addition – dim sum |
|
G Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Game of Life – Samsara |
|
Game
Theory – rules of play |
|
Generated Field – A New Kind of Science |
|
Genetic Algorithms – Mr. Holland’s (Magnum) Opus |
|
Genetic Algorithms – ‘DNA computers’ |
|
Geoboard – weltschmerz |
|
Gibbs Sampling – Bee Gees : Number Ones |
|
GIMPS – Great
Internet Mathematical Pun Search |
|
Gnomon – first
rule at an all girls school |
|
God’s
Algorithm – stella octangula |
|
Goldbach Conjecture – (Copper, Silver,
Gold) maps to (Gödel, Escher, Bach) |
|
Golden Ratio – karat |
|
Goniometry – joint analysis |
|
Goodness
of Fit Test – trying on a new pair of shoes |
|
Gradient – your mother’s aunt |
|
Gradus Suavitatis – The Sound of Music |
|
Grasshopper Sequence – 28 (B.A.), 30 (M.A.),
34 (Ph.D.), 83 (Commodore), 85 (Admiral) |
|
Gray Code – |
|
Greatest Common
Divisor
– a wedge issue |
|
Great Paradox – the Mayo Brothers |
|
Grok Mathematics – “turn coffee into
theorems” |
|
Guthrie's Problem – fascism |
|
H Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Haar Function – to keep your head warm |
|
Habeas Corpus – The Texan’s Detain Law Massacre |
|
Hairy Ball Theorem – “If you’ve got a
taste for terror, then take Carrie to the prom.” |
|
Half-Open – ajar |
|
Half Space – overtrick bonus
(points above the line) |
|
Half Space – en |
|
Halting
Problem – faulty brakes |
|
Harmonic
Number – a blues harp tune |
|
Harmonic Series – lick |
|
Heaviside
Cover-Up Method – wearing loose fitting clothes |
|
Hero’s
Formula – rescue the damsel in distress, smile, wave |
|
Hexafoil – amulet |
|
Higher Arithmetic – celestial
reckoning |
|
Higher Arithmetic
Conference
– summit |
|
Hilary Term – 2008 – 2012 ? |
|
Hippopede – hoof |
|
Hitting Time – 16 or less |
|
Homaloidal Space – Flatland |
|
Homomorphism – reparative therapy
(see Nonstandard Analysis) |
|
Horner’s
Method – sticking a thumb in |
|
Horocycle – 12 |
|
Hotel
Infinity – MGM Grand |
|
I Click on the ? marks
for more details.
i i – eye to eye |
|
i x i –
cross-eyed |
|
2i – ogle |
|
5i – eye for an eye |
|
Ideal Class – “where everyone is above average” |
|
Ideal
Point – mot juste |
|
Idempotent – a powerful token |
|
Ill
Conditioned – ‘antitone’ |
|
Illegal Operation – medical malpractice |
|
Ill-Posed Problem – hidden faces in a group photo |
|
Imaginary Numbers – Fantasia
Mathematica |
|
Immanant – nomen ambiguum (re
immanent, imminent, eminent and emanant) |
|
Incircles – how we often run |
|
Inclusion-Exclusion Principle – ACT/SAT scores |
|
Incomplete
Design –
adumbration |
|
Indeterminate Form – amorphous |
|
Infinite
Mean – Great Expectations |
|
Inspection
Paradox
– it usually takes longer than it usually takes |
|
Insphere – how too many people live |
|
Integration by Parts – gradual desegregation |
|
Integration by Substitution – forced busing |
|
Into
Mapping –
a cartographer |
|
Inverse
Probability – Probability seems to remain An idea I’ve yet to
attain. I was sure I played
right In my poker tonight, But my fortune it
went down the drain. |
|
Inversion – dernier cri |
|
Involution – contronym |
|
Ising Problem – being a note behind and a step off-key |
|
Iterated
Series –
reruns |
|
J Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Jordan Normal Form – just over 30 ppg |
|
K Click on the ? marks
for more details.
|
|
Kaprekar Number – Claudette Colbert (Ellie) shows off her leg |
|
Kernel – Blotto’s rank |
|
Kissing
Number – count your buss-ings |
|
Klein
Bottle – a small carafe |
|
Knapsack
Problem – a sleeping bag that’s too small |
|
Knot
Curve – straight |
|
Knot
Equivalence – difference |
|
Know It
All Number – 999 ! |
L Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Lah Number – six in the solfa |
|
L'Analyse des Infiniment Petits – nanotechnology |
|
Language of
Arithmetic
– Adder’s Tongue |
|
|
|
Lattice-Ordered Group – everyone at the table who
wanted a salad |
|
Law of Sines – stop, yield, and no passing |
|
Law of
the Excluded Middle – the U distribution |
|
Law of Truly Large
Numbers
– 2À0 = À1 is undecidable |
|
Leading
Digit – forefinger |
|
Least Favorable
Distribution
– corridor of uncertainty |
|
Least
Favorable Prior – the most disliked person in the abbey |
|
Least
Squares – hippest |
|
Left Censoring – aphesis |
|
Liber Abaci – a showman with a silver candelabrum |
|
Lie Group – Army of |
|
Lim Sup – cannibal favorite
on cold damp days |
|
Littlewood’s Law – “then a miracle
occurs” occurs |
|
Local Min or Local
Max – peripeteia |
|
Loess – s |
|
Logarithm – poetry |
|
Logistic
Curve – procurement snag |
|
Logit – how to harvest a
forest |
|
Long Tail – megillah |
|
Lorenz Curve – when your cheap
apartment suddenly quits being cheap |
|
Lune – |
|
M Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Mahler’s
Number – a thousand (an orchestra of 250 and a chorus of 750) |
|
Majorant – army ant |
|
Majorize – bring up to the bigs |
|
Maltitude – a large gathering at the shopping center |
|
Markov
Chains – used to mark off first downs |
|
Mathemagician – ruler of Digitopolis |
|
Mathematical Maturity – musemathematics |
|
Mathesis – “We may be coming to a new golden age of
instrument making.” |
|
Mathesis Universalis – Catholic
reckoning |
|
MathSciNet – The Paper Chase –r |
|
Matric –
Beltane ring and run |
|
Measure Preserving
Transformation
– Measure for Measure |
|
Mellin Transform – honeylope |
|
Memoryless Property – amnesia |
|
Mental Mathematics – ‘deranged
permutations’ |
|
Meter – what Cary Grant
hoped to do atop the |
|
Method of
Exhaustion – a form of torture, regardless … |
|
Method of
False Position – playing the devil’s advocate |
|
Method of
Washers – agitate, rinse and spin |
|
Minorant – pet peeve |
|
Minuends – Yehudi and his two sisters |
|
Minus Five – Paul Desmond standard |
|
Misomaths – adenoids |
|
Mod 3 – Pete, Linc and
Julie |
|
Modulus – when you are not as fashionable |
|
Monster-Barring – what a night light
is for |
|
Monster
Group – Titans |
|
Monty Hall Problem – “To switch, or not to switch
: that is the question:” |
|
|
|
Music of the Spheres – tinnitus |
|
Mutatis Mutandis – put on
a fresh diaper |
|
N Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Nadir – a spoiler |
|
Napoleon’s
Problem – |
|
Natural
Numbers – 7-11 |
|
Negatively Oriented – critical |
|
Neusis Construction – when your mom is
pregnant with a baby girl |
|
Neutral Geometer – The No-Sided Professor |
|
Nilpotent – weak |
|
|
|
Nodated – stag |
|
Nonnegative – Antigone |
|
Non-Orientable n-Manifold – Lost n-Space |
|
Nonstandard Analysis – method outside of
the APA Practice Guidelines |
|
Nontransitive – not admitting a
theodolite |
|
Nowhere
Dense – polymath |
|
Nowhere
Differentiable
– identical |
|
Null Space – vacuum |
|
Number Sense – anesthesia |
|
O Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Obelisk – Asterix’s comic sidekick |
|
Oblate – recently |
|
Occupancy Problem – Iraq |
|
Ogive – how one requests a
home on the range |
|
Oloid – Rolie Polie Olie |
|
One-Tailed – Harper Lee,
Margaret Mitchell and Emily Bronte |
|
One-to-One
Correspondence
– tête-à-tête |
|
Open and Shut the
Doors Problem
– Jim Morrison’s addictions |
|
Operations
Research – surgical trials |
|
Operator –
someone who wouldn’t enjoy Fermat’s
Last Tango |
|
Ordered
Group – plebes |
|
Order of
Operations – anesthetize before cutting |
|
Order
Statistics – accounts payable records |
|
Organon – popular way to Toccata and Fugue in D Minor listen |
|
Outlier – someone who gets a
tan the old fashioned way |
|
Overdamped – soggy |
|
Ovoid – to
eschew |
|
P Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Painlevé Equation – take two aspirin
and get some rest |
|
Pangeometry – what The Elements made Sylvester do |
|
Paradigms – 20 cents |
|
Parity Error – as in commited, writen, and commitee |
|
Partial
Fraction – a tiff |
|
Partial Order – appetizers |
|
Partial Summation – half adder |
|
Partition into
Distinct Parts
– ability grouping |
|
Partition into Odd
Parts –
gerrymander |
|
Pedal Point – At the very moment
Johann Sebastian Bach started his
command performance of Toccata in F
Major (BWV 540) for his benefactor Prince Leopold, Bach’s youngest son,
(P.D.Q. Bach, 21st of his 20 children) sat on a bass pedal of the
organ. J.S. Bach had no choice but to
play on as if this sustained bass pedal note was intentional. It took 54 bars but Bach’s second wife,
Anna Magdalena, was eventually able to extract P.D.Q. from that bass
pedal. This incident, led musicologist
Peter Schickele to describe P.D.Q. Bach as “the
worst musician ever to have trod organ pedals.” |
|
Perfect Field – Elysian |
|
Perfect Field – Field of Dreams |
|
Perigees – a straight angle (i.e.
two right turns) |
|
Perigees – Leslie Caron |
|
Perimeter – The Outer Limits |
|
Permutation – counter counter proposal |
|
Philo’s Line – “The triple pillar
of the world transform'd into a strumpet's fool:
behold and see.” |
|
Phyllotaxis – what the “Sons of Liberty”
had had |
|
Picard’s
Method – ask Data |
|
Pick’s Rule – you cut, I pick |
|
Pillow Problems – stiff necks |
|
Plateau’s Law – good employees
within an organization will enthusiastically advance to the highest level open
to them but will then ultimately retire on the job |
|
Playfair’s Axiom – the
fundamental rule of the playground |
|
Poisson Process – trawling |
|
Polar
Axis – Alaskan adzes |
|
Polar
Coordinate – a bare spot |
|
Polar
Plot – ‘Baire space’ |
|
Polya Process – census |
|
Polygon – bird
flu |
|
Polykay – KKK |
|
Polytope – shiver of sharks |
|
Pons Asinorum – bridge to a clean
and dry county |
|
Porism – one “who works with a negligent hand” |
|
Positive – Beyond the Zero |
|
Positively Skewed – definitely in big trouble |
|
Posterior
Bayes Risk – the potential for hurting your backside in the tub |
|
Pothenot Problem – when the next rest
area is another hundred miles |
|
Power of a Point – they stymie
opponents when made in debates or backgammon |
|
|
|
P Problem – UTI |
|
Prime – a run of six made
points |
|
Prime
Elements – B, N, K, V, I and
others |
|
Prime
Factors – most important reasons |
|
Prime Ring – the Mob |
|
Principal
Ideal Domain – Garden of Eden |
|
Principia – Fortinbras |
|
Prisoner’s
Dilemma – orange dye is both necessary and sufficient for big-house
fashion |
|
Prisoner’s Problem – “Who is Number 1?” |
|
Probabilistic Method – cleromancy |
|
Probit Analysis – an ultrasound |
|
Problem of Points – when made too
often you are left without a pencil or friends |
|
Problem
of the |
|
Products – University of Oregon fans |
|
Proof Bullet Proof – a proof that cannot be easily shot down Burden of Proof –
dementia Sound Proof – a proof
that holds up against even the loudest critic Reproof – when your
professor scoffs at your proof and tells you to redo it Proofreader – a math
professor Goof Proof – when you
make a wrong turn in your proof Proof of Purchase – L'Hôpital’s Rule Overproof – Q.E.D. |
|
Proper
Fraction – fair division |
|
Prophecy – what students
are not likely to be able to do in a large lecture section |
|
Proposition – one
side of a debate |
|
Prosecutor's Fallacy – going up against
Perry Mason |
|
Prosthaphaeresis – ante –logarithms |
|
Protractor – a
staller |
|
Public-Key Cryptology – Tukey
Model |
|
Publish or Perish – The Paper Chase |
|
|
|
Pure Mathematics – Math You Can't Use |
|
Pythagoras – The Wizard of ‘ |
|
Pythagorean – vegetarian |
Q Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Quadrant – diatribe in the
atrium |
|
Quadrature – test driving an Audi
with full-time all-wheel drive |
|
Quincunx – a pair
of skunks |
|
Quine – phoenix |
|
R Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Raabe’s Criterion – foaming at the
mouth |
|
|
|
Radon Measure – picocuries per
liter |
|
Ramsey Theory – he is atoning for
indicting Dr. Spock |
|
Randomized Block Design – your typical Lego
creation |
|
Randomized Responses – fibs |
|
Rational
Root – a sound foundation |
|
Rattleback – Spinal Tap |
|
Raw Score – a method of tenderizing meat |
|
Reciprocity
Law – the Golden Rule |
|
Recursive
Relation – Aunt Marge casting invectives again |
|
Reduced Echelon – demoted |
|
Reduction
Formula – a diet plan |
|
Relative
Error – when your in-laws stay too long |
|
Relaxation Method – yoga |
|
Renewal Process – renaissance |
|
Renorming Test Scores – ‘retrograde analysis’ |
|
Repeated Measures – Da Capo |
|
Repeated Sum – doubleplus |
|
Repetend – when another
goldfish jumps out of the tank |
|
Repunit – a recycled pun |
|
Restricted
Compositions
– canons |
|
Retrograde
Analysis – ‘renorming test scores’ |
|
Retrograde Motion – student’s request
to have their exam rescored |
|
Reverse
Hex – exorcise |
|
Reverse Mathematics – opsimath |
|
Reversion
to the Mean – getting angry again |
|
Rhumb Line – what sailors form while
awaiting their tot |
|
Right
Annihilator – Al Franken |
|
Right Censoring – apocope |
|
Ring Theory – Tom Bombadil is a Maia |
|
River
Crossing Problem – seasickness |
|
Robbins Equation – a worm in the beak
is worth two in the ground |
|
Roman Numerals – Summa Theologiae |
|
Roman Numerals – restoration of the
Sistine Chapel |
|
Roots of
Unity – foundation for peace |
|
RSA Numbers – tally marks on the
Ochre Stone |
|
Rule of Three – “Then, shalt thou count to three. No
more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of
the counting shall be three.” |
|
Runs Test – 100-meter dash |
|
S Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Saltus – what French fries
scream |
|
Scalar –
disarray |
|
Schubert Cycle – Die schöne Müllerin |
|
Scottish Book – bistromathics |
|
Seasonal Time Series – ostinato |
|
Secants – what a
ship does to get turned around |
|
Secants – what
Ann Coulter does |
|
Secretary’s Problem – carpal tunnel
syndrome |
|
Self
Complementary
– tooting your own horn |
|
Self
Dual
– beating yourself up |
|
Self
Similarity
– synecdoche |
|
Semigroup – convoy |
|
Semiprime – the Prime Mover |
|
Series Expansion – when the LCS went
to 7 games |
|
Set – awkward moment
after being put down but before you take a hike |
|
Shadow
Reckoning – ‘umbral calculus’ |
|
Shift Operator – plant supervisor
working graveyard |
|
Signum – what you do with
checks |
|
Simple Graph – petty bribery |
|
Simple Hypothesis – A Modest Proposal |
|
Simplex – an oxymoron
describing anything which is at once simple and complex. For example, love, truth and carbohydrates. |
|
Simpson’s Paradox – Maggie shot Mr.
Burns |
|
Singularity – 2045
A.D. |
|
Singular Value – Sudoku |
|
Sinh – easily done |
|
Sinical – believing the
worst |
|
Slide Rule – no budging |
|
Slope Field – hillside farm |
|
Soma Cube – felicific calculus |
|
Space Filling Curve – horror vacui |
|
Spira Mirabilis – Annu’s sister |
|
Square
the Lune – a Debussy favorite |
|
Squaring the Circle – truing the wheel |
|
Squeeze Rule – from the bottom up |
|
Standard
Deviant – your typical reprobate |
|
Standard Error – common mistake |
|
Standard
Position – the party line |
|
Static Equilibrium – peacetime |
|
Stepwise Analysis – podiatric research |
|
Strange Attractor – Call of the Wild |
|
Strange Attractor – Where the Wild Things Are |
|
String Theory – Cordon rule |
|
Subbasis – katabasis |
|
Subcover – lettuce and tomatoes |
|
Subset – a pair of
Seawolfs |
|
Subtracted –
nonplussed |
|
Subtracting – dropping sonobouys |
|
Sumset – gloaming |
|
Superposition – “in the catbird
seat” |
|
Superposition – building manager |
|
Supremum Limit – omnipotence
paradox |
|
Surreal Numbers: How Two Ex-Students Turned on to Pure
Mathematics and Found Total Happiness – Donald
in Mathmagic Land |
|
Symmetry – to climb a tree
without branches |
|
Syntheme – story line of the Old Testament |
|
Synthetic
Division – an invented issue |
|
T Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Tac Tix – a tractrix to the complete non-rhotic |
|
Tail Event – wagging |
|
Tautochrone – what Hansel and Gretel
did with a good lesson |
|
|
|
Teacher’s Pets – students with
Beatitudes (be-prepared, be-attentitive, and be-curious) |
|
Teaching Rules! – 1. Do no harm. (Children are born with sympathy for learning – apathy and antipathy take training.) 2. Leave
the world a better place. (Teach
the students you have to become the ones you were hoping for.) 3. Inspire
courage. (Teach students to be as confident
in their abilities and convictions as you are in yours.) 4. Be
patient and reward endurance.
(Education is a race where the winners are those who never finish.) 5. Make
connections. (No student ever went
blind by staring at the bigger picture for too long.) 6. Draw
distinctions. (An appreciation for
differences never started a war.) 7. Nurture
criticism. (Good vision involves
seeing what isn’t as well as what is.) 8. Aim
high. (The goal is to build
extraordinary people, not just extraordinary students.) 9. Work
yourself out of job. (Teach
students how to teach themselves.) 10. Leave
them smiling. (The student who has
found the way to enjoy learning will never be lost.) |
|
Tensor – more
nervous |
|
Terminating Renewal
Process –
doublespeak for getting canned |
|
The French Mathematician – A Series of Unfortunate Events |
|
The Analyst : A
Discourse Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician – The Calculus Affair (Adventures of Tintin) |
|
Theorema Egregium – rank theorem |
|
Theory of Polls – The Parrot’s Theorem |
|
Thou shall have but
three regular tilings of the plane – Torah |
|
Three – Lawrence Welk
count-off |
|
Three
Body Problem –
diagramming all forces acting on a given rigid object |
|
Topologically Distinct – holier than thou |
|
Total
Positivity – Pollyanna |
|
Totative – not too heavy to
carry |
|
Transcendental Number – 10 |
|
Transfinite
Numbers – “to
infinity and beyond” |
|
Transitive
Group – nomads |
|
Translation Operator – Oulipo +N algorithm |
|
Translation Operator – Babel fish |
|
Traveling
Salesman Problem – Willy Loman complex |
|
Triangle
Inequality – when three’s a crowd |
|
Truel – Lionel’s honest brother |
|
Truth
Table – to put off honesty for a later date |
|
Turing
Machine – a bike with many gears |
|
Twin Paradox – Sylvester and Cayley |
|
Twin Primes – Harman Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek |
|
Two-Tailed – bicaudal |
|
U Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Umbral
Calculus – ‘shadow reckoning’ |
|
Unary – stuffy |
|
Unate – disgorge |
|
Unbounded – From Here to Eternity |
|
Undecidable – aporetic |
|
Unitary
Fraction – A Separate Peace |
|
Universal
Mathematician
– Thoth |
|
Urn
Problem – The Leaky Cauldron |
|
V Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Versed Cosine – |
|
Versed
Sine – initial indicator |
|
Vicenary – Utopian |
|
Vulgar
Fraction – a nasty break-up |
|
W Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Waring’s Problem – when your pants
quit fitting |
|
Wavelet – a little vague |
|
Well Ordered – not “putting
Descartes before the horse” |
|
Wetware – raincoat |
|
WFF ‘N PROOF – A fantastic method
of proof combining ‘scratch and sniff’ with ‘proof without words’ patented by
the research team of Arlo Lipof, a mathematician at
the Univ. of Western Ontario, George P. Burdell, an
expert in bioinformatics at Georgia Tech, and Dr. Larry Kyle, founder of Genway, ‘the supermarket for genetically engineered
foods’. Together they formed the
company Maieutica. The strong connection between smells and
memory is at the heart of the company’s approach. Their breakthrough was in mapping specific
smells to specific memory triggers. Lipof, who is of Greek heritage, believes like Socrates
that the human brain innately possesses the building blocks of all
mathematical knowledge and that these blocks lie in wait for the right
trigger to be expressed. This idea is
called maieutics,
which roughly translates from the Greek as ‘intellectual midwifery’ and is
one of four parts of the socratic method. For Socrates the memory trigger was a
series of guided questions. At Maieutica, the
memory trigger is a series of carefully sequenced smells determined by their
newly discovered mapping. Lipof contacted Burdell with some of his ideas in 2002. At that time Burdell
was wrapping up his part in the 13-year Human Genome Project (HGP) and was
shopping for his next big project. Burdell was initially skeptically, but he knew of Lipof’s reputation for doing what others thought
impossible. (In the late 1980’s Lipof led a South American team, where many fortunes were
secured, in what is thought to be the first and only practical application of
the Banach-Tarski paradox. A brief sketch about this highly successful
business venture appeared in the April 1989 issue of Scientific American.) Lipof then brought Kyle
onto the team. Kyle, who is a regular
guest on MPR (Minn. Public Radio), is regarded by his peers as a creative
genius with a flair for the unusual.
Kyle was able to genetically engineer smells based on recent advances
in olfaction that have occurred as a direct result of the Human Genome
Project. Dilution to threshold ratios (parts of clean air to scented air) as
sensitive as 70,000 to 1 were considered. Finally Lipof had a
group of graduate students translate Euclid’s Elements into formal proofs,
a low level mathematical language that can be likened to machine code in
computer science. It was a four year process to map each step
of each formal proof to a specific smell at a precise dilution to threshold
ratio. But with this olfactory mapping
Maieutica
has the code for unlocking geometry for the next generation of students who
would rather smell than study. |
|
Whetstone of Witte – where
to sharpen your humor |
|
XYZ Click on the ? marks
for more details.
Yule Process – shop till you drop |
|
ZFC
Axioms – Foundation Series |
|
|
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