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DANIEL WHEATLEY

had pulled a curtain across the back of the stage. Now the black
dot stood out on the background. “Better?”
A few of the students nodded.
“Fantastic!” Dr. Fitzie grabbed the black dot and slid it right
in front of her, letting it hang on an invisible plane that stretched
from one side of the stage to the other. “Let’s talk about dimen-
sions, shall we? I nd this to be the easiest way to understand
functions and how they operate. You’re all familiar with the
concept of dimensions, yes? is dot has none. No height, no
length, and no width. Well, of course the dot does have a mi-
nuscule height and length and width, because otherwise you
wouldn’t be able to see it, but let’s ignore that, shall we? Truly
dimensionless objects are rather tricky to ddle around with,
and this is just for demonstration purposes. It’ll be our little
secret.”
She winked and grabbed the dot, sliding it back and forth.
“Here’s where it gets exciting. When things start moving.
Because then we get a dimension added to our object and with
it, a function.” Two intersecting lines appeared on the invisible
plane—the X and Y axis. Dr. Fitzie slid the dot straight across,
leaving a perfectly at line in its wake. “at is the simplest
function we have. X=1. It has always equaled 1. It will always
equal 1. It goes nowhere else, does nothing else. It is just a dot
chugging along at the same level day in and day out, not even
worrying about all the dierent dimensions and possibilities out
there. It is at and boring, and it is perfectly content with that.”
Dr. Fitzie put her hands on her hips, frowning at the line she
had drawn as if it had disappointed her. “But I’m not content,”
she said after a moment. “ere’s just so much more to do!”
With two deft strokes, she cut the front and rear of the line
so it was just a segment about a foot in length. “Now, this is the
same line; I’m just using a piece of it because that’s a lot easier

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