+ C

Breathe.

The very moment that I think I have my finances straight, something happens that just knocks me back to square one.

Like a 3000 dollar car repair bill.

I suppose that gives some insight to why I had such anxiety about driving my car. I grimaced when I saw my mechanics number appear on my caller ID. I cringed as he listed the litany of other repairs that my car required. I wanted to cry when he told me the total estimate.

Its amazing how quickly that you can go from a prince to a pauper in a single phone call.

I suppose I should be relieved that at least I had the funds available to pay for this repair. I guess this is a crash course into adulthood. Welcome to the real world. Where all the money you make is someone else’s before you can even contemplate using it.

Over dinner, I had this great conversation with a friend about C. I don’t know how we really got started talking about it, or how our conversation went tangentially (oh the puns) to math but it did. But it got me started thinking about C.

You see C is a constant. Let’s rewind back to calculus 120 (at least it was 120 for me). Let’s begin with a basic definition for differentiation. Basically when you find a derivative or an equation, you’re finding the slope of that equation at a given point. Now, why derivatives are so interesting and fun is that this slope doesn’t necessarily have to be constant, which graphically is represented as a straight line. Instead, you can find the slope of a curve (or rather a line tangential of the curve) at a given point. Why do we care? Well, say if something is accelerating, using a derivative, you could hypothetically find the speed of an object at a given time, even though just a second before and after it won’t be at the same quantative speed.

Have I lost you yet?

So anyways, now let’s go back to geometry. The equation for a line is y = mx + b (that is just one equation for a line. There are also several other forms of that). m in this case is the slope of the line. b is a constant value, or in this form, know as the y intercept (I might be wrong on that, might be the x intercept), essentially at what y value the line crosses the x axis. It doesn’t really matter anyways.

So basically when you find the derivative, you find a value or equation to compute the value for m on a line. b is eliminated because it doesn’t contribute to the value of m.

However, integration is the opposite of this process. Just like multiplication and division, addition and subtraction, integration is a reverse derivative. You start with a slope, and calculate all the potential curves that could produce this slope.

Now this is where C comes into the picture. Remember b? b was negligible in calculating the slope of a line, however the multitude of values for b is what distinguishes each separate equation that could potentially produced the derivative that you began with. All these collective values that could be b, are thrown into a generic variable called C.

C can range from being nothing, to being some incredible huge and greatly influencing the value of an equation, no matter what its input. I find it amazing that something that is so easily dismissed can be the most influential part of the equation.

I admit, I was the math student that always neglected to include ‘+ C’ in my integration solutions and got a point or two nicked off my grade. Now when thinking about it, I have a new appreciation with C.

We can live our lives according to formula and by the numbers. Go to school for x number of years, find y job, save z amount of money. But its always the ‘+ C’ that we cannot anticipate, cannot expect, cannot plan for and ultimately what differentiates success from failure, lucky from unlucky. I realize that this is a hypothetical of a hypothetical and the relation between math and real life is tenuous at best, but I think C represents that even math is not completely logical and clean. Just like life.

Right now my C is definitely -2,817 dollars.

Champagne cosmo

5 oz. of champagne
½ oz. of triple sec/contreau
Splash of cranberry

I got this recipe online, and it’s a twist on a traditional cosmopolitan recipe, except you use champagne as your base alcohol instead of vodka. It’s a great summer drink and something that can easily be used to cover the taste of mediocre champagne.