h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is a bit interesting

When I was in technical school, at the start of our maths class we were all told we must purchase a slide rule with the trigonometric functions on it. They were not cheep! About the third week of classes we were all told to take out our slide rules, look at them carefully and put them back into their sheaths - we would never use them again. Texas Instruments had just released a pocket calculator with all the trig functions for $125.00. We could not afford to not buy one!

He then taught us the three basic Trig functions;


Sine = Opposite over hypotenuse
Cosine = adjacent over hypotenuse
Tangent = Opposite over Adjacent

(remember 'co' is the prefix that means 'with')

I solved many a triangle using this before computer graphic programs made it all unnecessary

F S

U612575
that's who I did it for

but at secondary school when "we" were to learn trig and algebra, we were northern lads and knew we'd never use them in real life, so the teacher had a hard job teaching so many deaf ears and gave it up and went back to basic maths

Please be aware that as colourist for this comic, I merely apply what I'm given. I'm purely the technical side of this goofy enterprise.

I got a score of over 600 on my level II maths achievement test for the SAT. But I used psychic powers - I'm really innumerate. My Trigonometry teacher knew this, which is why I almost gave him a nervous breakdown with that test score. <whistle.

As I had absolutely no idea what the Prof's formula was for, I not only couldn't proofread it, I had zero idea what it was about until I realised about TRiG's name.

It's sad when the person drawing the cartoon doesn't get the joke.

But that's h2g2.

oops! I forgot to name drop