Re: BC (2-12)


RPN wrote:

In Clifton Fadiman's anthology *The Mathematical Magpie* (1962) one can
find this "Engineer's Yell," credited to "author unknown (University of
California)":

E to the X dy! dx!
E to the X dx!

Secant, cosine, tangent, sine,
Three-point-one-four-one-five-nine;

Square root, cube root, QED.
Slip stick! slide rule!
'ray U.C.!

I learned the first two parts of that, and other similar cheers, in
high school, when the senior honors calculus class (the
"Mathematicians") had an ongoing rivalry with the senior honors English
class (the "Poets"). We had donut-eating contests, very amateurish
sports games, etc., so we actually needed cheers. I had the impression
that these cheers came from MIT, but I suppose these things make the
rounds, so they were probably used in a number of schools.

I can't remember any of the Poets' cheers from our high-school
competitions, though they were probably as amusing, and we would have
written them ourselves, not having existing ones to draw on. (Well,
actually, I do remember one such cheer, but it's unprintable in a
family forum.)

I was one of the few students in both classes, and the only one to
openly give my allegiance to the Poets rather than the Mathematicians
-- something that gave me many occasions for friendly torture from, and
witty repartee with, the calculus teacher (which I could pull off only
because I was acing the class). I got a top score (5 of 5) on the
Calculus AP exam, for which accomplishment my name was added to a
plaque in the math department. So it gave me extra joy to be able to
report back to my high school teacher a couple of years later when I
won a regional award for poetry.

--Robin
neither a poet nor a mathematician these days

.

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