Down with quadratics!
Or, more precisely, down with the term "quadratic." It gives me a headache trying to explain to students why a quadratic equation is polynomial of degree two, while quartic and quintic equations are polynomials of degree 4 and 5 respectively. While we're at it, let's also get rid of "linear" and "cubic" for the same reason. These terms, of course, represent the legacy of the geometry-crazy Greeks. A quadratic is a polynomial of degree 2 because "x squared" represents a square with four sides. Whatever. It's confusing. It's inconsistent. It's time it faded into history.
Let's call them "diptic" and "triptic" equations instead. Then everything fits neatly:
constant: polynomial of degree 0
monic: polynomial of degree 1
diptic: polnymoial of degree 2
triptic: polynomial of degree 3
quartic: polynomial of degree 4
quintic: polynomial of degree 5
Is it going to happen? No, these terms are too entrenched. And I can't get quite as upset about the term "linear" (a monic), since the locus of a monic truly is a line (whereas the locus of a quadratic is not a square).
Any thoughts? Has anyone else experienced student confusion over these inconsistent terms?
posted by Ethan Brown at 12:43 PM
2 Comments:
Oo. very consistent, but no, I like the term "linear". Lines are important... and quadratic is entrenched because of THE Quadratic formula.
on another topic, when will your math blog address the topic of math tatoos? they seem to be all the rage...
Yes, I think linear mostly makes sense (as I point out, the locus of a linear equation is indeed a line). I would be OK with keeping linear, but for the love of Euler's ghost in heaven, let's get rid of quadratics.
Now I'm glad you brought up math tattoos...you can expect an interesting story on those very soon.
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