When Grammar Met Clarity

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Writing has always fascinated me. It’s such an interesting aspect of communication; you can pretty much convey anything you want, in any way you want. Even a grammatically incorrect sentence can carry its full meaning. Yet, somewhere along the way, we began mistaking good communication for intelligence. “Oh, he writes and speaks so well.  He must be smart.” Good communication can create a false sense of technical pride. I grew up believing that grammatical precision was the measure of knowledge. But in hindsight, that wasn’t entirely me; it was my teachers. They were absolutely particular that every sentence not only conveyed meaning, but also respected the sanctity of grammar. A misplaced article or preposition could invite the harshest of corrections. Yesterday, my wife and I were talking about writing and as all conversations these days eventually do, it veered toward our kids’ writing. We were laughing over Sahana’s recent schoolwork: a delightful mix of humor, dialogue, and im...
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Functions and Operators

Don't get perturbed by the title. Simple maths to understand this is more than enough. I was in a daze in Dr. Kosbar's class listening to signal space representation of signals and other stuff. And then, there was a mention of Maths. He came up with a good one!

A function is travelling in a dark alley with a lot of money. An operator comes up to the function and asks the function to give all the money. The function refuses to give the money. So the operator says that if the function doesn't give the money, it will differentiate it. The function is not perturbed. It says "Hahaha! I am e ^x(e to the power of x)". The operator is not perplexed. Guess why?

The operator says: I am d/dy!!!!

What do you say for that???

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 2, 2006 at 4:26 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. AnonymousMarch 2, 2006 at 4:32 PM

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  3. Praveen KrishnanMarch 2, 2006 at 4:35 PM

    I never knew this article can give rise to so many complications!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMarch 3, 2006 at 4:20 AM

    why did u remove the comments?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Praveen KrishnanMarch 3, 2006 at 8:57 AM

    You know what Kanna had to say....First he says x and then he says epower x. I guess he thought he finally had it enough and has deleted it from the site!!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousMarch 4, 2006 at 1:31 AM

    Of course, I'm sure you get a good enough share of jokes from Rosa.. There's one you missed last sem..

    Why do math guys confuse Halloween for Christmas...?

    coz Dec(imal) 25 = Oct(al)31

    ReplyDelete

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