Funny Math

I received this from my sister recently: a fable about Polly Nomial, a convergent function who loses her way, published in the Journal of Irreproducible Results, a science humor (!) journal.

It's jargony, clever, and pretty darn punny. I was laughing out loud, and I don't usually laugh out loud. And I didn't even get most of it since that part of my brain has been shut off for so long. A sample from the story of Polly:

She was being watched however. That smooth operator, Curly Pi, was lurking inner product. As his eyes devoured her curvilinear coordinates, a singular expression crossed his face. Was she still convergent, he wondered. He decided to integrate improperly at once.

Hearing a vulgar function behind her, Polly turned round, and saw Curly Pi approaching with his power series extrapolated. She could see at once, by his degenerate conic and his dissipative terms, that he was bent on no good.

"Eureka!" she gasped.

"Ho, ho!" he said. "What a symmetric little polynomial you are. I can see that you are absolutely bubbling over with secs."

"Sir," she said, "keep away from me. I haven't got my brackets on."

"Calm yourself, my dear," said our suave operator, "your fears are purely imaginary."

"i, i" she thought. "Perhaps he's homogeneous then?"