Anti-Derivatives and Other Works of the Devil

Now I know what some of you are probably thinking: "But you need math. Without math you wouldn't have that fancy computer you're writing on!" And to this, I say two things: first, you ended your sentence with a preposition. Secondly, we wouldn't have anything without fire either, but I don't see any fire majors around here so shut the hell up. "But without math you wouldn't get the right change when you buy your super-sized plain Quarter-Pounder with cheese extra-value meal at McDonalds," you may say. To this, I say that I don't think I have ever gotten the right change at McDonalds, and this raises an important point. I don't actually believe that all math is evil, and in fact I think it's pretty pathetic that the country with the world's biggest economy has people that can't make change for $3.64 out of $5. So I have separated math into evil and non-evil categories, with evil math being just that weird high level abstract math, or, in other words, math that I can't do. Here is a simple chart:

Necessary (but not good) Math:	Evil math:
Addition	Any math whose name is commonly abbreviated (i.e. Trig., Calc., Div.)
Subtraction	Any function involving fractions
	Differential Equations (I don't know what they are but I don't like 'em)
Two-digit numbers	Anything taught after fifth grade

So, as you can see, not all math is bad. Just most of it. But perhaps I should explain exactly why I carry these beliefs so strongly. Well, here goes: My freshman year of high school, I bought a nearly $100 graphing calculator for my Geometry class. Now first off, I'd like to point out that these 'graphing' calculators do not graph by themselves. You can't just say, "draw me a hyperbola" and let it go at it. Nor can you point it at your math book and say, "draw that now!" Becasue it just won't do it. No, you have to type in all these weird 'equations' with x's and y's and ^'s.

Anyhow, I bought this fancy Texas Instruments TI-85 calculator because it was 'top of the line.' It was an 'investment.' But then all of my classes used the TI-82, the stupid older one, because it had a 'table' function that my 'calculator' didn't 'have.' Before I knew it, I was so frustrated that I start 'throwing' aposotrophes all 'over' my 'sentences' for 'no good reason.' Then I went to college. I brought my calculator, because I thought to myself, hey, I'm going to take Calculus. I'm going to need a big fancy calculator. They both even have 'calc' in them. So I go to class and don't understand anything, but I think to myself, hey, it's okay, I've got this big honkin' calculator, I'll be fine. But no, you can't use calculators in Calculus, because "you aren't always going to have calculators in the real world." Because, "What if you're stuck in the middle of the desert without a calculator?" Well, actaully, if I'm stuck in the middle of the desert I'm not going to give a rat's ass about finding the definite integral of the hyperoblic cosine of x from 0 to Pi. I'm going to be worrying about, oh, perhaps the big vultures circling my dehydrated body, not the rate of change of their path of flight, thank you very much! Oh, and just for the record, what the hell do they think the 'real' world is? Do they step out of their cars into a little looking glass and pop up in the Mathematics department? Methinks not. Hey, anyone out there in the real world. Do you have a calculator? If not, do you think it is within your power to walk/drive/crawl/hop over to the neaerest drug store and buy one? Just checking.

And what about these stupid little numbers they come up with? Pi!? e?! I've been taught e and natural logs and everything about two or three times now and I still don't have the slightest clue how they came up with that little thorn in my side. And frankly, I don't care. I know they're just making it up:

"They're starting to get it. Partial derivatives aren't confusing them anymore."

"Our jobs are in danger."

"Okay, how about this? Q. It's 5.34225636. It's the constant of integratarivatability."

"Perfect! Let's go make up acouple more digits of Pi and have lunch."

I know that's not really how it happens. They probably use bigger words and then make up formal proofs of their doughnuts.

Finally, there are two more definitive reasons why math is the scourge of humanity.

1. Mathematica. If you know what it is, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, get down on your kness and thank God right now.