My Favorite One-Liners: Part 102

Calculus, Tales from the Classroom 1 Minute

In this series, I’m compiling some of the quips and one-liners that I’ll use with my students to hopefully make my lessons more memorable for them.

I’ll use today’s one-liner when the final answer is a hideous mess. For example,

Find f'(x) if f(x) = \displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{x} \csc^5 (\sqrt{x} )}{x^2+1}.

The answer isn’t pretty:

f'(x) = -\displaystyle \frac{\left(5 x^{5/2} \cot \left(\sqrt{x}\right)+3 x^2+5 \sqrt{x} \cot \left(\sqrt{x}\right)-1\right) \csc ^5\left(\sqrt{x}\right)}{2 \sqrt{x} \left(x^2+1\right)^2}

This leads to the only possible response:

As all the King’s horses and all the King’s men said when discovering Humpty Dumpty… yuck.

Published by John Quintanilla

I'm a Professor of Mathematics and a University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of North Texas. For eight years, I was co-director of Teach North Texas, UNT's program for preparing secondary teachers of mathematics and science.

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2 thoughts on “My Favorite One-Liners: Part 102”

  1. Pingback: My Favorite One-Liners: Index | Mean Green Math
  2. Pingback: My Favorite One-Liners: Index | Mean Green Math

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