Playing With / E = MC Hammer

Basic Trope: Mathematics in fiction portrayed inaccurately.

• Straight: During a mathematics class at Tropery School, the board is covered in mathematical symbols that don't mean anything.
• Exaggerated:
  • The board is covered with random numbers, letters, Greek letters, formulas from physics, shapes, and symbols.
  • The board is filled with obviously incorrect math like "1+2=4".
  • The math equations use patently ridiculous symbols for variables, like mushrooms and flowers.
• Downplayed:
  • The board has meaningful mathematics, but it's too easy (or too hard) for the level at Tropery School.
  • Sometimes the math is portrayed accurately, sometimes it isn't.
  • Calculus is portrayed as unknowable to anyone outside of advanced mathematicians and geniuses, even though it's actually pretty basic as far as higher mathematics is concerned.
• Justified: Not applicable. (Any In-Universe explanation is a subversion.)
• Inverted:
  • The Mathematics classes in a work are portrayed accurately, at college level, and the writers aren't mathematicians.
  • Mathematics is portrayed correctly, but every other subject is not.
  • A real mathematical equation is claimed to be nonsense.
• Subverted:
  • The board is seen covered in nonsense symbols, but it turns out it was a pupil that wrote it. The board is a prop for a play in which mathematics is made fun of.
  • Tropery School exists in a universe where meaningful maths looks like nonsense to us.
  • Tropery School existed in the 1600s, the notational standards were different back then. ^note trying to read it as Modern Math would be like trying to read Middle (or even Old) English as Modern English
  • Tropery School has accurate differential equations in an elementry school but it is a school for the gifted making it in place.
  • The pictographs are part of a layman's explanation. For instance: 🔋=⚖️×(💡×💡), while not proper, gets the message of E=mc² across.
  • Bob is selling a device that claims to cure illnesses, and shows off a bunch of nonsensical "mathematics" while explaining how it works. It looks like BS because it is — it's later revealed that Bob is a Snake Oil Salesman and the device doesn't work.
  • this isn't a solve the equation test, but a fix the equation test.^note "That X-Cubed should be an X-Squared, Miss Hornsby."
• Double Subverted: Then a real Maths class at the school is shown. The mathematics is just as bad, if not worse.
• Parodied: Mathematics can look like every subject that isn't mathematics. For instance, at some point the board is filled with Spanish verbs conjugations and everyone says it's math.
• Zig Zagged:
  • There are equations that make sense, equations that makes no sense, and equations that make sense but are in the wrong context on the board.
  • While the equations on the board are completely made up, they're mathematically solid.
• Averted:
  • The mathematical symbols are accurate.
  • Even though the show is set at school, math class is never shown.
• Enforced:
  • Writers Cannot Do Math
  • "The math equations depicted don't have to make sense. It's not like the audience will be paying attention."
  • Given the potential for catastrophe the real formula has, Our Lawyers Advised This Trope.
  • The console only had a few tiles available for blackboards and the tile artist went for making a few generics and mix-and-matching them as needed.
• Lampshaded: "Charlie, I need some help. Does the stuff on the board even mean anything?"
• Invoked:
  • The class has an uneducated substitute teacher.
  • The teacher is testing his pupils' ability to recognize and fix notational errors.
• Exploited: Charlie is given a "math" test, scribbles all over it, and gets a perfect score.
• Defied: Macy sees the nonsense on the board, shudders "Who thinks this is maths?", erases everything on the board and writes some actual maths.
• Discussed: "I dread Maths class. I've never understood the weird symbols and formulas. It just makes no sense."
• Conversed: "Why are the mathematical symbols on this show so inaccurate?"

• Plotted A Good Waste: The writers want to make a Take That! to incompetent teachers or to the education system itself, so they do their research on whatever level of math it is, and then intentionally portray it inaccurately.
• Deconstructed: When the nonsense is discovered, the teachers are fired for their incompetence.
• Reconstructed: The teacher explains everything with Insane Troll Logic.
• Played For Laughs: The inaccurate equations are a Running Gag.
• Played For Drama: Tropery School is a bad school. Its pupils are children of families that can't afford anything better. The nonsense "maths" is just one sign of the low quality.

---

Mouse placement + click here = E = MC Hammer

---