Monday 29 February 2016

Bonus - Cubic Formula Song

Author Aside:
 Picture it. Late Sunday night, not really feeling like grading papers, and two tweets seen in the last 48 hours coalesce in my head. One about the cubic formula, the other about gospel... music? If you read my math comic, you know my mind makes weird links.



But hey, math can be a religious experience. So 24 hours later, I present the following. As Doc Brown might say, "please excuse the crudity of this model, I didn't have time to build it to scale or to paint it". I'll probably add it to the other thirty math parodies I have (at that link, most powerpoint only) later, once I figure out how to categorize it.

Happy Leap Day!

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Math-Tans  present....

“CUBIC FORMULA”
  tune of “I WILL FOLLOW HIM” (From "Sister Act")

(To see the scene/song in question click this video link.)
(To read about the cubic formula itself click this link.)
(To hear Mr. Taylor's attempt at singing it click for this google mp3 file.)



Start with b times c.
It’s on six a-squared, now minus d...
On 2a, then minus b-cubed
On twenty-seven with a-cubed.
Let’s call that q? Agreed.

Take cube root of q -
as ADDED inside of this square root...
q squared, once it’s summed to this cube:
c on 3a, minus squared-b
on 9 squared-a’s!
 We’re nearly half-waaaaaay!


*PIANO CHORDS!*

That square root, you ADDED, we’ll use it,
But now we will SUBTRACT it, still from q, cube root too!

(SOLO:)
This gives two numbers.
Kind of six... look, sum the cubes you know.
Then minus b on 3 with a,
We’ll set that to x and hurray! Wait, what was q?

(We’ll get it, we’ll get it)

We took b times c   (DUET: B times C!)
It’s on six a-squared, now minus d   (Oooh ooh!)
On 2a, then minus b-cubed   (B Cubed?!)
On twenty seven with a-cubed.
That we called q!
Used four times, it’s true!

(SOLO2:)
Whoa, yeah! Oh yes, solve cubics!
(Degree three!)
Four coefficients!
(Too much!)
Imaginary answers!
(So complex!)
You’ll wish you’d learned to factor!



That square root, you ADDED, we’ll use it,
But now we will SUBTRACT it, still from q, cube root too!
Gives numbers, so get their sum, minus b, on 3a,
Set that to x at leisure, or never, whateverrrr...

If you think that’s only one x,
Remember cube roots of complex!
Gives us all three!
All three solutiooooooons!




(Hallelujah. Feel free to stop by again, the math comic updates every Monday.)

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