Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 10:38:46 EST From: aren't you glad you asked? Organization: Don't you think everyone should? Subject: FILLER: Integral Signs (was: Re: FILLER: No Images?) :) <- smiley labelled for those who may be confused. :) HERE THERE BE HUMOROUS INTENT! LAUGHING PERMITTED! On Wed, 26 Feb 1997 12:39:06 EST, comfortably numb asked that ever-popular question: :) WHAT are integral signs?? Ignore those other explanations, they are merely being hysterically correct, and that's not nearly as much fun. Stick with me, and we'll see some sights as we take those integral signs down off their pole and see what they're made of. Got your crescent wrench ready? Let's start with the ground work. Signs, according to some foreigner, (sosore? saddle sore? I saw a sore! something like that) are not to be confused with what they signify. Those of us who have stood in front of a road sign looking at the words and arrows pointing everywhere, then tried to figure out if there was any slight relationship between that sign and either the map a friend had drawn or the actual roads in front of us--well, we have to agree, that the relationship of signs and things signified is purty slim. Sighs (which are signs with a little excitement in their life--someone yanked their chain!) are somewhat inarticulate, but dear. Let's have a group sigh, sometime, okay? It's a california thing... Sings (the predecessor of signs. trust me on this, someone made a booboo, and the signs were born. it was just a little twist of the fingers, maybe a slight dyselxia, and let's not embarrass the inventor) are fun, too. Toss back your haid, lubricate your throat with some fine licker, and sing out with the rest of the tribe. But don't imagine nothing. whoops--that's right, I was supposed to be getting back to integral signs. First, imagine a sign that isn't integral. Wobbles around on those little hinges, or maybe someone tries to tape it on, but it just doesn't have the structural integrity (there's the word!) of a real integral sign. I mean, think about a new born baby. You can stick any name you like on him, and it'll just get ignored when he's in the bathtub under the water or trying to eat the puppy or doing his level best to experimentally determine whether or not this gravity business applies to him, too... the real integral sign of a new baby is what fills the diapers. and there are months of it. So there you have it, another word (actually, two words) pretty nearly destroyed. I think we'll avoid the dictionary today. It seems to do an even worse job with integral. [seriously, it's the great swooping S which a mathematician uses to indicate integration (a specific type of mathematical action--like division, square roots, etc., but a bit fancier) In some cases, the limits of the integration are written near the top and bottom. In other cases, the students probably refuse to get off the bus because they have been frightened away from the splendors of math. Thus, the integration fails.] :) did you chuckle? if so, you may stop now....this ends today's lesson :) on the perils of mathematical signatures tink