So because of my general lack of actual homework, my need to accomplish something and my inability to study I have been forced to dig up my math book in an effort to finish my Pre-calculus study guide in a timely manner. In truth though, my motivation here is two fold, yes, achieving something will make me feel slightly less helpless in the face of my pressing finals, but I also happen to be clinging to a B- in that class harder than the 60+ year old women clung to the last of the Von’s turkeys last November twenty first. Oh, and as a bit of clarification when I said “dig up my math book” I actually meant “whip out my lap top and open up Google”, my advanced mathematics book is a waste of a tree… a very big tree. So, with a pointy pencil, a notebook and and Google by my side I began to trudge through my Pre-calculus study guide. All was going well for the first 12 or so problems (now that I’ve got basic algebra down, concept questions were easily answered using math sites like purplemath.com) and then I hit the “stretching and shrinking graphs” section. Unaffected at first by this concept which I had previously not understood (after all, I had just figured out general transformations using purplemath) I calmly typed my query into the search box and found the following:
“So the “left”, “right”, “up”, “down”, “flip”, and “mirror” transformations are fairly straightforward, but the “multiply” transformations, also called “stretching” and “squeezing”, can get a little messy. You should hope that they aren’t frequently required of you.”
What? Thanks a lot for the reassurances purplemath, good to know you believe in me and all that jazz.
ha. i have that transformation equation written on my math divider from last year. i come across it whenever i put my calc notes in my binder and it still makes me cringe a little.