## The Exponent Rule for Derivatives — Your One-Stop Shop to Staircase-Looking Functions

Like the featured image above? Good for you! As students (fanatics?) of mathematics and other technical sciences, we have an intuitive appreciation of the role this topic — calculus — plays out in our daily life. While obviously not a subject to be mastered overnight, what’s true is that our first exposure to it tends to be […]

## The Ultimate Guide to Logarithm — Theory & Applications

For the very vast majority of humans on earth, there is a topic found in the good old math textbooks that many of us still even dread contemplating about, as it seems to mess with our brain in a rather particular way.  The name? $\displaystyle \text{Logarithmus}$ — or Logarithm in English to be sure! As terrible-sounding as it […]

## Integration Technique Series — How to Make Use of the Overshooting Method and Integrate with Ease

Hey! Greeting from a bunch of post-April-Fool bunnies who never managed to get their modules published on time — because they were simply too busy eating Easter eggs and shooting for the moon.  🙂 Moving onto a more serious topic though, if you’re currently into (or have been into) this thing called integral calculus, you might know from first-hand […]

## Quadratic Factorisation: A General Method that Conquers Each and Every Quadratic Trinomial

When it comes to quadratic polynomials — which seem to come in all shapes and forms — most of us have spent at least a semester just learning about how to maneuver around them. Indeed, when we look at a standard math curriculum on quadratic expressions, we would find topics such as square of a […]

## Derivative of Inverse Functions (a.k.a, How to Create Your Own Table of Derivatives)

Quick question. Are you currently (or have been) a student of differential calculus (a.k.a., Calculus I)? If so, maybe you can guess what is on that (potentially-cryptic) graph above? What. Inverse functions of course! Just look at that beautiful shape and how well they correspond with each other! (OK. Bonus point: can you guess which […]

## Derivative of $x^x$, $x^{x^x}$, and a Venture Into Tetration and Hyper-Exponentiation

In a first course of calculus, we have very specific rules for dealing with functions in the form of a sum, a difference, a product and a quotient. And now, we’re about to throw a curve ball at you: What is the derivative of the function $f(x)=x^{x^x}$? Intrigued? Well, it’s time to learn more! For […]

## “Sound” Investment: Reverse-Engineering the Original Investment Amount from the Current Interest

Need a dose of no-BS financial education? Here’s a good news for you. Not too long ago, we were chatting with our wildly imaginative friend Victor, who came up with the following investment question: OK. Let’s say that a while ago, I set up a lump sum of investment with a total of \\$10,000 CAD towards a […]

## Biostatistics For Health Professionals — A Review

For all our prospective med-school students (and others alike) who are currently enrolled in EPIB 507 here in McGill, you must have wondered about why you took a course such as biostatistics in the first place, and as you have already experienced, our biostats course — as opposed to courses in the regular semesters — […]