June
1, 2013
13 days, 8
hours, 5 minutes, 3 seconds, 2...no, make that 1 millisecond. That’s all I had
left until…until The End! It was a perfectly backwards Fibonacci sequence that
created a perfectly golden ratio. All my points were perfectly plotted, and I was
no longer constrained by the almighty asymptotes, vertical, horizontal, and
oblique included, that frequently altered my course. My life was completely
linear and devoid of all the usual imaginary and irrational clutter that tended
to fill my mind. Whether I thought in terms of Cartesian or Polar plots, it
didn’t matter. All the way from the far depths of Negative Infinity, across the
Omnipotent Origin, and into the light of Positive Infinity my mind and body
were one. Mind in body or body in mind, this new composite function of my life
was fully continuous and differentiable on the open interval, making my quest
to discover the meaning of life as simple as finding the limit of life as time
approached infinity. Or so I thought.
Like
I said, there were just a few more days until The End. It was approaching at an exponential velocity
equal to e to the x power, with an equally exponential acceleration as the
derivative function showed, and my list of things to do over the summer vacation
was increasing even more rapidly. Most of my peers had plans to participate in
pointless social gatherings where irrational teenage decisions would be made,
but my plans were much, much more than this. Perhaps this was only because I
was never invited to these gatherings, but it made no difference to me in the
end. I knew my time would be better spent doing what I did best: being alone with my numbers. Besides, how
could anyone have time to go out into the world knowing there’s an endless
array of theorems to be proved and formulas to be created? The point is, school
was almost over.
The four years
known collectively as “high school” were about to come to a close, and my
personal goal of maintaining a 100 average in all of my math classes throughout
high school was about to be completed. But to my dismay and through no fault of
my own, I was cursed with a 99.99% for my second semester Advanced Number
Theory grade. I was a failure, to say the least. A complete, utter failure. A
failure to myself and a failure to my dear numbers who so desperately needed my
help in solving all their problems.
Perhaps I would’ve been able to handle the disappointment better if I
had been the one responsible for my failure, but this was not the case. Far
from it, actually. In fact, I was sabotaged. It wasn’t until later that I
figured it out, but I should’ve known from the very beginning that it was the
handiwork of none other than The Mean Value. I should’ve known there was
something strange going on when I noticed he was staying after class to help
Ms. Nomial grade the tests, but I was too busy going off on a tangent about my
new Rie Man action figure set…It was such a lovely collection of rectangles.
They could even transform into any width, making them the weapons of choice for
approximating the amount of good and evil in everyone and thus, allowing me to
eliminate the evil minions of Dr. Calc—Oh, I suppose I’ve done it again,
haven’t I? I do apologize, but it’s a bit hard for me to focus on reality with
everything that’s been going on lately. You see, I know I’d be able to convince
Ms. Nomial that I deserve a 100 if I could just have a word with her, but
that’s just the problem. I can’t. Nobody’s seen her since that day. I’m
beginning to think The Mean Value’s behind this too, but there’s nothing I can
do about it now.
The Perfect Parameter
June
2, 2013
When I
got to school today, I found a scrap of paper stuffed in my locker. Scrawled on
the page were 47 different equations. Any other time, I would’ve been glad to
find such a treat, but…as much as I hate to admit it, I had more important
things on my mind today, so I had no choice but to stuff it into my pocket and
forget about it for a while. I couldn’t believe it, but Acute Angle, the love
of my life since the second grade and the most beautiful girl in the whole school,
spoke to me for the first time this morning. At first I was a bit suspicious
since she tends to spend most of her time hanging around The Mean Value, but
she said she needed some extra help studying for math and it seemed harmless
enough, so I agreed faster than my trusty TI-84 could perform a single
iteration of Newton’s Method. So even though the equations interested me, I
couldn’t possibly find the time to solve them all, especially with having to deal
with my mind’s constant wandering and dreaming about Acute Angle and how
romantic our tutoring session would be. I just couldn’t wait to introduce her
beautiful eyes to the equally beautiful and graceful cardioid graph I’d been
saving up for a moment such as this one!
But just like
before, it wasn’t too long before The Mean Value came along, ruined it all, and
brought me to my senses. I was just walking through the halls minding my own
business and reciting the proof of the Enormous Theorem in my head when I saw
The Mean Value and Acute Angle standing together…holding hands! How sick! I
always knew he was the type to try to gain access to a girl’s heart through the
physical approach rather than the proper, intellectual way! Needless to say, my
heart was broken, the cardioid erased, my happiness negated. But as it always
is with love, with heartbreak being a function of time and all, I can do
nothing more than hope that time will lower the levels of my pain just as the
horizontal asymptote of y = 0 causes values to get infinitesimally smaller and
closer to zero.
The Perfect Parameter
June
3, 2013
Today
has been a strange day. I knew something was wrong after I realized that my
usual morning math exercise of waking up early in the morning to catch the
sunrise and calculate the rate of growth of my cherry tree using its shadow,
angle of elevation, and basic trig knowledge failed to give me any joy or lift
my spirits. My head was cluttered and there seemed to be no way of escaping the
terrible feelings that filled my brain. So, in hopes of clearing my mind, I
decided to try to solve the equations I found in my locker yesterday to keep my
thoughts from wandering back to Ms. Nomial or Acute Angle. The first few were
simple and quite disappointing, to be honest. 16, 1, 18, 1. The next one took
me a bit of time to figure out, but it actually did help clear my mind. 13. They
got increasingly harder, but I knew I could do it. 5, 20, 5, 18. 16, 1, 18, 1, 13, 5, 20, 5, 18! I’d know
those numbers anywhere. P, A, R, A, M, E, T, E, R. I don’t know how I didn’t notice
it before, but the answers to the equations were part of a secret message! I
solved the rest as quickly as I could, and this is what I ended up with:
Parameter,
Help
me. Trapped. Mean Value. Room 312.
Polly Nomial
I
still haven’t decided what I’m going to do, but I know I’ll figure something
out. I have to save Ms. Nomial. Not just for myself, but for math students
everywhere.
The Perfect Parameter
June
6, 2013
I
knew the Mean Value would be way too powerful to face without backup, so I did
what had to be done. As much as I hate working with others, I went to the
headquarters of my trusty Logarithmic Legion and began my search for help. I
knew my whole plan would be futile and undefined if I didn’t have someone who
could counter The Mean Value’s average strength and precision by sending a
harsh magnitude of fear in his general direction while I use my parametric
powers to define the limits of the whole scenario, so I was pleasantly
surprised when I found The Vicious Vector ready and willing to be my sidekick.
Together, we’ll be the great, unstoppable Dynamic Denominators and The Mean
Value will be destroyed once and for all. Ms. Nomial, here we come.
The Perfect Parameter
June
7, 2013
We
did it! Ms. Nomial is finally safe! As it turned out, The Mean Value had locked
her up in a supply closet and forced her to write the secret code using
equations and slip it into my locker in hopes of luring me into a trap where he
planned to force me to create a special formula to make Acute Angle love him
forever. Thanks to my trusty sidekick, however, The Mean Value was completely
unsuccessful and was destroyed on the spot. Unfortunately, Acute Angle ran away
as soon as she realized The Mean Value was destined to be neither her
complement nor supplement, so she was able to escape The Vicious Vector’s
wrath. Note to self: Acute Angle’s
powers of seduction may a pose a threat in the future if our paths ever cross
again. Stay on the lookout.
Anyway, back
to the rescue… You should’ve seen the look on Ms. Nomial’s face! I can’t even
begin to describe how unreal and irrational her excitement was. She looked at
me with a huge smile on her face and then I heard her say the most magnificent
words I’ve ever heard in my life, “Parameter, I think you’ve just earned
yourself some extra credit.” Finally. My work is finally complete and now I can
finally relax as The End continues to draw nearer.
The Perfect Parameter
