Like most not-so-bright-at-maths kids, my school years were plagued constantly by "just-passed" marks in Maths. Just when I was getting used to it, Calculus happened!!! The little self confidence I had managed to salvage out of the wreck of my Class 10 board exams got buried right at the bottom in class 11 with wonderful calculus making a grand entry.
I always felt really dumb around people who were smart enough to pretend that they understood what was happening in class..:) But recently something happened that revived my calculus confidence. All those curses hurled at poor Newton hadn't gone in vein after all. The incident I am referring to is an interview conducted in my father's office while I happened to be there.
On one of those days when my father was consumed, almost wholly, by the pangs of jealousy he felt when he saw me sprawled on the sofa in front of the TV, he ordered me to get ready fast and come to the office with him. There was an interview and my job was to co-ordinate the whole thing(read do the peon's job of calling the next interviewee)
Anyways, so in came Mr.X ( for the sake of anonimity ), a fresher from ABC Engineering College ( for the sake of saving ABC from terrible embarassment). After the usual formalities and showing off his certificate of distinction he sat down. The rest of the interview lasted for about 2 mins and went something like this:
Dad :(smiling reassuringly at X, who was looking very worried) What is the integral of 1/x.
Mr.X : (takes a second to think ,looks up, a triumphant smile wiping away all the worry lines, and announces) INFINITY
Me :(looking intently at Dad to see if he gets the someone-is-dumber-that-my-daughter-at-this relief look on his face)
Dad : (trying hard to not fall off his chair but regaining his composure just in time ) Can you explain how you get that?
Said Mr.X, hardly able to contain his excitement: Sir, the integral of x to the power n is x to the power n+1 divided by n+1. 1/x means x to the power -1, so by the rule the integral has a 0 in the denominator and so the answer is INFINITY!!!
BEAT THAT NEWTON!
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7 comments:
Yeah, but isn't the definition like ... for N > 0?
The preliminary assumptions are so basic that we tend to forget them in so many things... :-)
But this does stump a lot of people. Even that (a-b)(a+b) thing...
Eroteme you are right. The definition is for N not equal to -1 esp for integral of x(power)n. But talk about lateral thinking, I bet newton is turning in his grave right now.
Hi.
Calculus was parallely developed by a famous mathematician named Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. In fact, some people claim that Newton 'copied' Leibniz..there are others who beleive that the vice versa happened. In shourt, the origins oc caluculus is a HUGE muddle!!
New here..the best of everything in your Blog is the blog name..Sarvam..its beautiful..:).
thanks sushmitha, glad you like it.
Time for a new post.
Love the innocent explanation by Mr X about the Integral(1/x) = Infinity. :)
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