Narcissism

Hello reader, seems like I’ve made some mathematical ‘discovery’. Here:

     Assume any number x. The square of x is equal to the product of the difference between x and 1 and the sum of x and 1, all plus 1.

                 x^2=(x-1)(X+1)+1      for all x

See, this is actually easy because the terms in brackets will actually multiply out to become a difference of two squares, viz.: , which when you add 1 to simplifies to . But I never saw it this way, until I began to prepare for my exams on Control Engineering and was multiplying numbers like 7 and 9 and was getting 64( ) as the answer. I quickly checked for other numbers and the ‘theory’ still stood tall, so I ‘propounded’ it above.

Of course ‘mathematicians’ must have known this long ago, but I didn’t know. (I’m not a mathematician anyway.) Or I knew but didn’t understand, whatever that means. But I’m happy I discovered this myself and didn’t read it anywhere, and I admire my observance. Thank you for reading.

Nsukka, 02/07/16.

Nsukka, 11/05/16

Mon is not the name of a day. Mon is the name of a human being. Perhaps because of a poor academic background or because it took him very long to attend university – he seems older than majority of his mates – he asks the ‘stupidest’ questions in class, wringing out the coyest of smiles from the most mature of lecturers (of course the reactions of the immature ones is beneath the scope of this story) – ‘the only stupid question is the unasked one’. Even amid the derisive hailing from some mates – ‘Mon! Mon Mon! Gupta!’ - and the direct ‘masking down’ from other mates – ‘Confused boy! Mon confused boy! This man sit down!’ – he remains unfazed and will repeat himself as many times as the lecturer is patient to hear him out. And he will still stand to ask his questions in other lectures – today, tomorrow, next semester, next three sessions.