Natural Blogarithms Ramblings of a Christian Mathematician and Bioinformaticist

13Jan/092

Another Calculus Limerick

I love a good math limerick.  And, no, “Nantucket” is never a destination for some mathematician in a good math limerick.  Here’s a new one I discovered online:

\displaystyle \int_{0}^{\frac{\pi}{6}} \sec y \, dy = \ln \sqrt{3} \ (i)^{64}

For the laymen,

The integral sec y dy                         -> (read as “seek y dee y”)
From zero to one-sixth of pi
Is the log to base e
Of the square-root of three
Times the sixty fourth power of i.

This rivals my favorite limerick of all time. And I can’t talk about limericks without repeating it for you:

\displaystyle \int_1^{\sqrt[3]{3}} z^2 \, dz \cdot \cos \left( \frac{3\pi}{9} \right) = \ln \sqrt[3]{e}

Again, for the unconverted,

The integral z-squared dz
From one to the cube root of 3
Times the cosine
Of three pi over nine
Is the log of the cube root of e.

“It’s gold, Jerry! Gold!”

Comments (2) Trackbacks (3)
  1. I don’t know much about this sort of thing but my gut tells me these are variations of the same formula.

  2. Well, all equalities are essentially perversions of 1=1, but aside from that, these two limericks are in no way derivative of each other.


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