Lyr Req: Sing Tangent Cotangent Cosecant Cosine

Subject: Lyrics? Math song 'Tangent, Cotangent'
From:
Date: 28 Sep 99 - 03:33 AM

Has anyone heard or remember a song, a ballad, with the refrain "Singin' tangent, cotangent, cosecant, cosine.."? I heard it sung by a math teacher 35 years ago (phps he wrote it...) -=Jim=-

Subject: RE: Lyrics? Math song 'Tangent, Cotangent'
From:
Date: 28 Sep 99 - 10:58 AM

Amherst song by F. Brownming, Jr. Tune, "Vilikins and his Dinah". Academy Songook, 1895.

Subject: RE: Lyrics? Math song 'Tangent, Cotangent'
From: Jack (Who is called Jack)
Date: 28 Sep 99 - 11:46 AM

An offspring of this kind of song is found in the engineers yell. A cheer for the engineering student section at the University of California.

e to the x dy dx

e to the x dx

secant cosine tangent sine

three point one four one five nine

square root, cube root QED

slip stick slide rule 'ray UC!!!

Subject: RE: Lyrics? Math song 'Tangent, Cotangent'
From:
Date: 28 Sep 99 - 01:49 PM

Sorry for typo; by F. Browning.

Subject: Lyr Add: SING TANGENT CO-TANGENT
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 07:54 PM

From The Abridged Academy Song-book: For Use in Schools and Colleges By Charles Herbert Levermore, 1918:

SING TANGENT, CO-TANGENT
Words, F. Browning, '61 (Amherst)
Air, "Villikins and His Dinah"

1. There was a professor in New York did dwell.
His name it was Loomis. we know him quite well.
He wrote a big treatise on angles and lines,
With chapters on spheres, surveying, and sines.

CHORUS: Sing tangent, co-tangent, co-secant, co-sine,
Sing tangent, co-tangent, co-secant, co-sine!

2. Prof. Coffin, from cones cut by planes that passed through,
Made all kinds of figures that ever he knew,
Some round like an apple, some lengthened like eggs,
Some rounded like sand-hills, some pointed like pegs.

CHORUS: Sing origin, focus, directrix, and curve.

3. Old Robinson added the third of the three,
An algebra hard as the hardest could be,
With theorems difficult, problems like steel,
Intended of course for the students' good weal.

CHORUS: Sing Robinson, Horner, Prof. Napier, Sturm.

4. There was once a poor student in Amherst did dwell.
The first in his class, and all liked him right well;
He drank some cold conics, supposing 'twas wine,
And screeched, as he died, "I am choked by a sine!"

CHORUS: Sing tangent, etc.

5. Beware then of sines, now my classmates, I pray,
And follow not tangents, but a straightforward way;
And then by plain sailing your port shall be made,
In a harbor of rest, by no mortal surveyed.

CHORUS: Sing tangent, etc.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Math song 'Tangent, Cotangent'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 09:01 PM

Published in H. R. Waite, 1868, "Carmina collegensia: A Complete Collection of the Songs of the American Colleges, with Piano-forte Accompaniment." Songs of Amherst, p. 180.

Browning also wrote another Amherst song, "My College Course Must Have an End,"
In a few days, few days,
Unless some chap has cash to lend,
etc.
Tune- Few Days.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Math song 'Tangent, Cotangent'
From: LeTenebreux
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 09:02 PM

My favorite math songs are Tome Lehrer's songs "New Math" and "Lobachevsky".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Math song 'Tangent, Cotangent'
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 02:08 AM

Tom Apostol used the same tune for "Where Are the Zeros of Zeta of s?"
http://www.math.wisc.edu/~robbin/funnysongs.html#Zeta

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Math song 'Tangent, Cotangent'
From: Fergie
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 09:24 AM

Oh! put your elipse a little closer to the phone. (with apologies to Elvis) (just in case he is a secret member of Mudcat).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Math song 'Tangent, Cotangent'
From: Gurney
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:04 PM

I found a site years ago that was ALL maths songs, science songs, and technical songs.
Can't remember what it was called, something like 'Technical Songs', and if that is your scene, it would be worth the search.
'New Math' and all the other tech songs I've ever heard were there, and they were a very small minority.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Math song 'Tangent, Cotangent'
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:14 PM

" Tangent, Cotangent..."--that's just great! There are always great new--or old--songs to find--and lots of them on Mudcat.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Math song 'Tangent, Cotangent'
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 06:46 PM

Gurney, maybe the site you found was http://www.science-groove.org/MASSIVE/searchbrowse.html