From top to bottom, and left to right:
First there is a sandwich. “Home is where the Cardioid is” is the bread, and that heart-shaped function dubbed the Cardioid is the meat. Then is the classic, simple equation f=ma: Force equals Mass times Acceleration. To its immediate right is the example of a gun firing a bullet. When a bullet is stopped, it accelerates its mass of lead from, say, 1000 ft/sec to 0 ft/sec in very little time–a forceful wallop indeed.
Next is the Math Thematics acrostic:
Mapping reality calls 4 sum thought
Minds hear the challenge [congruent-] equals flame 4 a moth
Antwerp, Armenia, Cannes, Chillicothe
Tackrooms & classrms & Batcaves by Gotham
Teach us Utopia–give us Golgotha
Here be the dragons of all & of naught
Here asymptotes may be deadly as Gotti
Half-solved equations turn sum cyanotic
Heroes’ resolve gives us answers by lots
Under the first acrostic is a gap described (and, ironically, filled) [discontinuity]. One example of a discontinuity is when the curve of a graph shoots upward to infinity and then an infinitesimal smidge to the right comes up from the depths of negative infinity.
Under the ungap is a Mathematical quadruple acrostic:
Menthol-vaporic
Arrangements–a
Testimonial thrill
Menthol-Vaporic doesn’t quite rhyme with Euphoric, so it becomes the best phrase I can come up with to describe the frustrating ecstasy Mathematical matters have provided me over the years.
To the acrostic’s right is a graphicrepresentation of the square root of minus one, also known as i. To its right is a pirate intoning “i, lad!”
Under the second acrostic is an imagined bumper sticker that reads “Σ: That sums it up.” Σ, the Greek alphabet letter known as Sigma, is the mathematical symbol for summation.
To the bumper sticker’s right (and the pirate’s left) is an equation which reads Infinity divided by Zero does not equal Anything. And, indeed, Anything, including Zero AND Infinity, divided by Zero is what the mathematics realm deems Undefined. However, I vaguely recall from second-semester Calculus taken about thirty-six years ago that there’s something called L’Hôpital’s Rule which allows us to skate around such obstacles in special cases. (Interested parties may do a search on YouTube; I just discovered, in obtaining via search the proper circumflex-and-all spelling of “L’Hôpital,” that there’s an introductory video in YouTubeVille.)
Under the equation is the final, fudgy triple acrostic “Math Them At[t]ics”:
Millennia dictate melancholia
As a threshold means an entrant
The quad takes the quadratic
Humanity’s limits are curves
Finally, at bottom is my signature and date.
I leave meaning-derivation as an exercise for the student. Good luck with that, Friend!
