MathPlus's definitions

Mustafa Shopping Centre

Singapore’s popular hangout for migrant workers, and a destination of choice for budget tourists, which is arguably ground zero for the high number of corona infected cases that had plagued the “fine” island-state.

Although safe distancing measures were in place at the dormitories long before the lockdown started on April 7, with thousands of migrant workers socializing and shopping at Mustafa Shopping Centre on their off days, it’d have been a miracle or modern-day Passover had God graciously and completely spared the mostly Hindu and Muslim migrants from the coronavirus.

by MathPlus January 5, 2021

Trum-pi-st

Someone who preaches that pi is a rational number, or a ratio of two integers, although mathematicians had proved moons ago that it is irrational—for example, evangelicals or QAnonists profess that π = 3; blue-collar workers proclaim that π = 22/7; and morally bankrupt Republican lawmakers protest that π = 314/100 or 3.14.

Trum-pi-sts hold on to their position faithfully, steadfastly, or politically regardless of the evidence or despite the facts.

by MathPlus January 5, 2021

Zero

The number of people in the Indian diaspora who look forward to be jabbed with Covishield, India’s homegrown coronavirus vaccine, with a number of them hypothesizing whether Trump’s corona cures, such as being injected with disinfectants or radiated by UV light, might inexpensively be more effective.

Politicians claimed that in the first quarter of 2021 zero countries outside India would be allowed to import the much-coveted locally branded Covishield, as vaccine nationalism should come first before aliens could profit from it.

by MathPlus January 4, 2021

Singapore Math Tourism

When math educators fly to the “fine” city of Singapore to attend a pep talk on the bar model method, and to visit a local school and watch a teacher conduct a problem-solving math lesson, before spending the rest of their educational trip on shopping and sightseeing.

When Singapore Math tourism visitors flew back home, they’d excitedly tell their principals or superintendents to embrace the Singapore Math model, by substituting their present dear mile-wide-inch-deep textbooks with wallet-friendly Singapore math titles, often much to the disapproval of their colleagues, who want to “Make US Math Great Again.”

by MathPlus January 3, 2021

Psalm 91

The psalm par excellence from the Book of Psalms, in the Bible, which has been used as an effective spiritual weapon by Christian believers time and again to fight against any plague, pandemic, or pestilence.

Guesstimate how many millions of believers (or even pre-believers) worldwide have read or prayed Psalm 91 to seek divine protection against Covid-19.

by MathPlus January 2, 2021

Covid-91

The spiritual antidote to being protected from Covid-19—with reference to Psalm 91 in the Bible, which believers faithfully use as an effective prayer of protection against any plague or pestilence that confronts them.

Christians know that Covid-91 is no match to any man-made antibodies or vaccines in protecting them against Covid-19, because whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty, and that He is their refuge and their fortress and will save them from any deadly pestilence.

by MathPlus December 30, 2020

Nazi Math

German math textbooks that were used during the reign of Adolf Hitler in the Second World War, whose word problems often mockingly or sickeningly demonize the “undesirables.”

One 1941 Nazi math question is: “Every day, the state spends RM 6 on one cripple; RM 4 1/2on one mentally ill person; RM 5 1/2 on one deaf and dumb person; RM 5 3/5 on one feeble-minded person; RM 3 on one alcoholic; RM 4 4/5 on one pupil in care; RM 2 1/10 on one pupil at a special school; and RM 9/20 for one pupil at a normal school. Calculate the expenditure of the state for one pupil in a special school and one pupil in an ordinary school over eight years and state the amount of higher cost engendered by the special school pupil.”

by MathPlus December 29, 2020