Reading the Comics, October 2017: Mathematics Anxiety Edition

Comic Strip Master Command hasn’t had many comics exactly on mathematical points the past week. I’ll make do. There are some that are close enough for me, since I like the comics already. And enough of them circle around people being nervous about doing mathematics that I have a title for this edition.

Tony Cochrane’s Agnes for the 24th talks about math anxiety. It’s not a comic strip that will do anything to resolve anyone’s mathematics anxiety. But it’s funny about its business. Agnes usually is; it’s one of the less-appreciated deeply-bizarre comics out there.

John Atkinson’s Wrong Hands for the 24th might be the anthropomorphic numerals joke for this week. Or it might be the anthropomorphic letters joke. Or something else entirely.

Charles Schulz’s Peanuts for the 24th reruns the comic from the 2nd of November, 1970. It has Sally discovering that multiplication is much easier than she imagined. As it is, she’s not in good shape. But if you accept ‘tooty-two’ as another name for ‘four’ and ‘threety-three’ as another name for ‘nine’, why not? And she might do all right in group theory. In that you can select a bunch of things, called ‘elements’, and describe their multiplication to fit anything you like, provided there’s consistency. There could be a four-forty-four if that seems to answer some question.

Patron of the Halloween Costume Advice booth: 'I want to be a zombie!' Regular character whose name I can't remember and can't find: 'That's a tough one ... we have to find a way to get you into character. Here [ handing a textbook over ] --- sit through one of Miss Barnes's math classes.' — Steve Kelley and Jeff Parker’s **Dustin** for the 25th of October, 2017. The kid’s premise this week is about advice for maximizing trick-or-treating hauls. So it circles around sabermetrics and the measurement of every possible metric relevant to a situation. It’s a bit baffling to me, since I just do not remember the quality of a costume relating to how much candy I’d gotten. Nor to what I give out, at least once you get past “high school kid not even bothering to dress up”. And even they’ll get a couple pieces although, yeah, if they did *anything* they’d get the full-size peanut butter cups. (We’re trying to build a reputation here.) What I’m saying is, I don’t see how the amount of candy depends on more than “have a costume” and “spend more time out there”. I mean, are people really withholding the fruit-flavored Tootsie Rolls because some eight-year-old doesn’t have an exciting enough costume? Really?

Steve Kelley and Jeff Parker’s Dustin for the 25th might be tied in to mathematics anxiety. At least it expresses how the thought of mathematics will cause some people to shut down entirely. Shame for them, but I can’t deny it’s so.

Young magician touching the wand to the whiteboard to show 15 divided by 3 is 5. His instructor: 'No relying on the wand --- I want to see how you arrived at the right answer.' (The title panel calls the strip The Tutor, with the tutor saying 'Someday when you're wizened you'll thank me.') — Hilary Price’s **Rhymes with Orange** for the 26th of October, 2017. The signature also credits Rina Piccolo, late of **Six Chix** and **Tina’s Groove**. The latter strip ended in July 2017, and she left the former last year. Maybe she’s picking up some hours part-timing on **Rhymes With Orange**; her signature’s been on many strips recently. Wikipedia doesn’t have anything relevant to say, and the credit on the web site doesn’t reflect Piccolo’s work, if she is a regular coauthor now.

Hilary Price’s Rhymes with Orange for the 26th is a calculator joke, made explicitly magical. I’m amused but also wonder if those are small wizards or large mushrooms. And it brings up again the question: why do mathematics teachers care about seeing how you got the answer? Who cares, as long as the answer is right? And my answer there is that yeah, sometimes all we care about is the answer. But more often we care about why someone knows the answer is this instead of that. The argument about what makes this answer right — or other answers wrong — should make it possible to tell why. And it often will help inform other problems. Being able to use the work done for one problem to solve others, or better, a whole family of problems, is fantastic. It’s the sort of thing mathematicians naturally try to do.

Jason Poland’s Robbie and Bobby for the 26th is an anthropomorphic geometry joke. And it’s a shape joke I don’t remember seeing, at least not under my Reading the Comics line of jokes. (Maybe I’ve just forgotten). Also, trapezoids: my most popular post of all time ever, even though it’s only got a couple months’ lead on the other perennial favorite, about how many grooves are on a record’s side.

Jeremy pours symbols from his mathematics notebook into a funnel in his head. They pour out his ears. He says 'My study habits are ineffective' to Pierce, who asks, 'Have you tried earplugs?' — Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman’s **Zits** for the 27th of October, 2017. I understand people who don’t find **Zits** a particularly strong comic. (My experience is it’s more loved by my parent’s cohort than by mine.) But I will say when Scott and Borgman go for visual metaphor the strip is easily ten times better. I think the cartoonists have some editorial-cartoon experience and they’ll sometimes put it to good use.

Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman’s Zits for the 27th uses mathematics as the emblem of complicated stuff in need of study. It’s a good visual. I have to say Jeremy’s material seems unorganized to start with, though.