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Wockyjabber

Hilbert Schenck, Jr.

'Twas finite, and the polar cusp,
Orthogonal to the secant lay.
The semi-tacnode operates on
The Gudermanian of A.

"Beware the integral, my son,
With shape of non-symmetric bell,
Beware old Van der Pol, and shun
The curious vector del."

He took his program in his hand.
Long hours the real root he sought.
Then rested by the storage drums,
And sat awhile in thought.

And as in tedious thought he sat,
The integral without a name,
Rose from a skewed, conformal map,
Diverging as it came!

Pi-e, Pi-e, and x, y, z,
The digital went clicky-clack.
He found the norm in series form,
And brought the work sheets back.

"Oh, hast thou solved the integral?
Here is a raise, my brainish boy!"
He threw his time cards in the air
And clapped his hands with joy.

'Twas finite, and the polar cusp,
Orthogonal to the secant lay.
The semi-tacnode operates on
The Gudermanian of A.

Schenck, Jr., Hilbert, "Wockyjabber". In Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1960. © 1960 Mercury Press, Inc.

Also in

Fadiman, Clifton (ed.), The Mathematical Magpie, © 1962 Simon & Schuster, Inc. Published in 1997 by Copernicus, an imprint of Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. ISBN 0-387-94950-3.

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