The Functions Book Tag ➗

hello everyone and welcome back!! 😚 i hope august has been treating you all well 🫶 how are we already halfway through the month of living for the hope of it all and never needing anything more?? as for me, I’ve been spending my days commuting back and forth from the city for my internship, agonizing over my personal statement, and trying to keep myself out of a reading slump by bouncing between two books—namely, Les misérables (fahnestock & macafee translation) and happy place. both are going splendidly, although only the former is living up to its title 🥲

but today, i’m back with some bookish questions!!! the amazing naemi, whose blog is linked below, tagged me last year (?!?! 😱) in her original functions book tag, and i’m still not over how creative this concept is 😍 just to ramble a little about my own feelings toward mathematics, i wouldn’t exactly call myself a math girlie, but taking ap calc bc this past school year has definitely been a turning point in my view of the subject. the structured beauty of derivatives, integrals, and especially infinite series hit me straight in the core and honestly left me in awe. i’m choosing not to take multivariate calculus starting next semester just because i’ll also be taking ap physics c, arguably the hardest science course offered at my school (if you don’t hear from me for a while in the fall that’s probably why…. pray for me please…) 😬 be that as it may, i’m looking forward to seeing how calculus is interwoven with physics! or maybe i’ll regret saying that once i start failing 😃

but enough of my academic rambling! thank you so much to naemi for tagging me, and here we go with my answers to these questions 💗

✖️ rules ✖️

• Thank the person who nominated you!
• Ping-back to the original creator, Naemi @ A Book Owl’s Corner, so that she can sneakily read your answers and be thrilled at how much attention math is getting within the bookish community!
• Answer all the prompts while appreciating the mathematical beauty contained in them! (You’re more than welcome to use the original graphics so that all the canva and GeoGebra work the creator put into them will be worth it…)
• Tag some people! Five would be best, since five is obviously the coolest natural number out there, but any other quantity works, too.

(all of these graphics and the italicized blurbs beneath them are by naemi!!)

The constant zero function x ↦ 0 maps every number to zero. And although finding its intersections with other functions is one of mathematicians’ greatest obsessions, one can’t deny that the zero function itself just isn’t all that exciting…
For this prompt, pick a book so monotonously boring you almost fell asleep reading it!

A feast for crows by George R. R. Martin 😬 my relationship with the song of ice and fire series is complicated, but a storm of swords was so incredible that i went into the fourth installment with open heart and excited mind—only to be hit with truly one of the most boring books i’ve ever read 💀

Martin made the regrettable choice to replace the fan-favorite and most important pov characters from the past three books with the povs of former secondary characters. as if that wasn’t risky enough, each of these former secondary characters was on some kind of interminable journey either through the mountains or the desert. I could not care less about any of them 😭 things only started to really pick up in the last fifth or so, and even then, i was left so salty about the ordeal that i had gone through that I highly doubt i’m ever going to read the fifth book 😅 (besides, i don’t think the series is going to be finished within my lifetime…)

Also known as the identity map, the function x ↦ x is central to mathematics. Not only is it the most basic linear function in existence, but it also gives certain collections of functions a group structure by functioning as the group’s neutral element: When you compose a function with the identity map, you obtain the same function as before.
For this prompt, choose a book with a generic plot that you can’t help but love!

Tokyo ever after by Emiko Jean is so delightfully predictable 🥰 it’s one of those books where you can probably take a look at the blurb and immediately know the direction the plot is going to go in. but that didn’t stop me from falling in love with this irreverent, charming story about finding your place in your family, a relationship, and the world 🫶

The graphs of degree-two polynomial functions such as x ↦ x² are called parabolas. When the corresponding polynomial’s leading coefficient is positive, as is the case here, the parabola is symmetrical to a vertical line going through its lowest point, the vertex.
For this prompt, choose a book or series with an epic beginning and ending, but a lackluster middle!

throwback by maurene goo. i loved the concept of this book so much—a second-generation asian american travels back in time and has to befriend the teenage version of her seemingly incorrigible mother?? hello?? the beginning sucked me right into the book and the ending made me cry, which is always amazing, but i could not tell you a single thing that happens between those two benchmarks 😅 (somewhere along the way, i think the main character rams through her school’s gates while driving a prom parade float?? 💀)

The inverse of x ↦ x² on the non-negative reals, the function x ↦ √x assigns the square root of a given number to that number – provided the number in question is greater than or equal to zero.
For this prompt, explore your literary roots and pick a book that got you into reading!

these happy golden years by Laura ingalls wilder. my bookworm journey basically started in the cradle, so i can’t pinpoint a single book that got me into reading, but laura ingalls wilder’s little house on the prairie series was such a formative part of my childhood. these happy golden years remains my favorite in the series. i reread that book so many times that my memory still summons the cold winter air of the opening scene on cue, even though it’s been ten years since i last read it (dear goodness i feel old) 🥹

to this day, it’s one of the few books that i own whose spine has been cracked, and whose cover is anything less than pristine. baby abby was absolutely devastated when a bottle of liquid glue leaked inside her backpack and got on her beloved book 💔

Like parabolas, hyperbolas are conic sections – graphs obtained by intersecting the surface of a cone with a plane. The standard hyperbola is given by the map x ↦ 1/x, the most basic rational function out there.
For this prompt, choose a book with a scenario so unrealistic you can’t help thinking it’s full of hyperbole and over the top!

kismat connection by ananya devarajan. i’m going to interpret unrealistic to be interchangeable with nonsensical and take the chance to rant a little about this book (no hate toward the author, just me being frustrated 😭). kismat connection stumped me with its premise. basically, madhuri wants to prove that her horoscope—which says she’s going to fail romantically—is wrong and that her family curse—which says she’s going to succeed romantically—is also wrong. assuming right and wrong are the only two possibilities, already the logic is not logicking 😀

so madhuri decides to fake-date her best friend arjun for a set number of months, which is cute and all, but also incredibly counterintuitive, because either way, isn’t she failing in her goal? if she dates arjun she’s fulfilling her family curse; if she breaks up with him she’s fulfilling her horoscope. i lost madhuri’s train of thought somewhere between hearing her horoscope and deciding to sign the fake-dating contract.

Inarguably one of the most famous functions out there, the sine function x ↦ sin(x), is particularly well known for its characteristically wavy graph.
For this prompt, pick a book that was an emotional roller coaster of ups and downs!

we are not free by traci chee. we are not free will forever remain iconic as the book that made me sob in the middle of the street while listening to the audiobook 😚 it’s hugely depressing and heartbreaking at times a lot of the time, but also wholesome and empowering in its focus on the japanese-american community that solidified in the internment camps—it had me smiling through the tears (or was it crying through the smiles?) 🥹

Although often treated as an afterthought to sine, the cosine function x ↦ cos(x) is meritable in its own right. For example, π, one of the most beautiful constants in the universe, is defined in higher mathematics as twice the first positive zero of the cosine function.

Using this power series, one can show that π is precisely the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. If that isn’t cool, I don’t know what is!
For this prompt, pick a book featuring pie!

oh my, did this send me on a throwback… i finished pi in the sky by wendy mass many years ago, but it was the book that immediately came to mind for this prompt. i remember pi in the sky as being charming, cute, hilarious, unexpectedly emotional, and educational on the spirit of theoretical physics (??). maybe it’s time for a reread—i’ve been looking for an excuse to reread the candymakers anyway (my fave wendy mass book from the ones i’ve read) 🤭

The quotient of sine and cosine, the tangent function x ↦ tan(x) completes our main trigonometric trio.
For this prompt, pick a book loves to go on tangents so much that it needs footnotes to do them justice!

babel: an arcane history by r. f. kuang. i probably could not have chosen a more basic answer to this prompt, but babel is the only recent book i’m familiar with that i know to have footnotes 😅 babel is very likely going to be my next read after les mis and happy place, so i’m excited to finally see what all the hype is about!! (seriously, an irl, not-big-on-reading friend recently finished babel and recommended it to me, and the shock in that moment was so real—is this how jean valjean felt when marius fell in love with cosette?? 😆)

As a function that is its own derivative, the natural exponential function x ↦ e^x is a symbol of absolute mathematical perfection.
For this prompt, pick your favorite book of all time!

now what kind of impossible question is this 🤨 just like how the values of an exponential function increase without bound as x goes to infinity, the number of books on my all-time faves list also increases without bound as time passes… (42 books and counting!)

but i think there is one book that accurately represents everything i love about reading—and that’s the unlikely escape of uriah heep by h. g. parry. i will never be silenced about this book. i will recommend it to anyone and everyone regardless of time, place, or occasion. i will shout it from the rooftops. i will make up for the egregious lack of hype surrounding it by sheer force of will 😤 because it just means that much to me. there’s mystery, a fraught sibling relationship, complex characters, cozy fantasy vibes but with consequences, commentary on the art of literary analysis, so many book-nerdish references, and famous literary characters literally come to life. it made me feel seen as a book lover. even just thinking about this book feels like coming home 🥹

The inverse of the natural exponential function, the natural logarithm function x ↦ ln(x), sometimes also written as x ↦ log(x), is extremely relevant to anyone studying in a scientific field. We’d have run out of paper long ago without the introduction of logarithmic scales!
For this prompt, choose a book that features logs or journal entries!

flowers for algernon by daniel keyes 💔 it’s been a while since i read this book, but i still recall the twenty-seven stages of grief that i went through after finishing it like it was only yesterday. not only is the book devastating, it’s also incredible in its masterful use of diary entries to show-not-tell charlie’s character arc.

An example of a fractal curve, the Weierstrass function x ↦ W_α(x) is continuous everywhere but differentiable nowhere. By discovering it, German mathematician Karl Weierstraß was able to disprove the previously popular claim that such functions did not exist, earning the function the moniker “monster.”
For this prompt, choose a book you find truly intimidating!

alexander hamilton by ron chernow. i’ve been super excited to read this book for the past four years… but only in theory. in reality, this clocks in at over 800 pages, with font so minuscule that i gave up after 10 or so pages the one time i tried starting it 💀 i have no idea when i’ll have enough motivation or hamilton-fueled adrenaline to make my way through this tome, but i’m pretty sure it won’t be within the next six months 🫠

You’re not getting a graph for this one because looking at the Riemann zeta function s ↦ ζ(s) only really gets interesting over the complex numbers… And I’m afraid I haven’t figured out how to plot four dimensionally yet!
However, to say that the Riemann zeta function is interesting is almost an understatement. The Riemann Hypothesis, which claims that ζ has zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part 1/2, is one of the biggest open conjectures in pure mathematics. Proving it would earn you both eternal glory and a million dollars’ worth of prize money and be just about the most satisfying thing ever!
For this final prompt, pick an intriguing book you hope to tackle in the future and are eyeing as your next possible read!

other than the books that i’ve already mentioned i want to read by the end of this year (i’ll point you to this post for more on that), i’ve been extremely eager to pick up alone with you in the ether by olivie blake. it’s been the talk of the town in various online reading circles, and based on what they’re saying, it sounds right up my alley. other recs for literary, slightly pretentious studies of what it means to love a person as flawed as you are, please? 😍

🫵 i tag… 🫵

here are the five people i’d like to pass the baton to! i’ve been horrific with keeping up with blog-hopping, so i’m taking this opportunity to both tag people and binge their recent posts!!

dini @ dinipandareads · saniya @ sunnysidereviews · veronica @ little corner reads · t.k. @ genie in a novel · ritz @ living, loving and reading · & anyone else who’s interested!

and that’s it for today! thank you again to naemi for tagging me 💛 i’d love to hear what you all think in the comments below! are you a math person? what would you say your favorite book of all time is? what’s a recent book you struggled to get through?

until next time, happy reading everyone!! stay safe 💕