Glen, an assistant principal in a rural southwest Louisiana high school, takes up the mantle of the principal of that high school when the previous principal died, alongside the school's football coach, of COVID-19. He inherited a school with its lo...
By the end of the month, on April 27, everyone in town, and even people from elsewhere in the parish, believes in the Venomous Agendas becoming the Cinderella team of the Square Root of the Answer. Every high school mathletics team in the region is in the crowd, wanting to see their idols for the first time in person. More than ever, and also more than anywhere else in the country, and maybe even the entire world, mathletes are treated like rock stars in town. Four mathletes, one pep rally like the pre-pandemic football pep rallies.
Because of what makes this competition special to the eyes of the town, Glen realizes quickly that there are too many attendees for the school's auditorium and the municipal stadium is the only suitable venue for a pep rally centered around the Square Root of the Answer. Yet it seems like the local population treats the mathletes as circus freaks.
Once the crowd gets to the stadium, and the PA system is active, Éliane begins the night with her own speech addressing the crowd regarding how important the Square Root of the Answer is to the locals, and how far the VAs came to even compete there:
"Three months ago, no one could have seen coming the victory of our school at the state stage of the Square Root of the Answer. This season has been exceptional for the Venomous Agendas, with historical records on the AIME which, even though our performances have not inspired this town as much as the SRA, do not detract from their exceptional character. Tomorrow, the biggest mathematics competition in parish history begins and, regardless of what happens next, let's enjoy our trip under the limelight because it may very well be the only time in our lives that we will be able to obtain public recognition for having talent in multi-variable calculus!" Éliane addresses the crowd. "For me this represents the ultimate hour of glory before my departure for Duke this fall!"
Trent then has the mathletes fan out over each board so that they don't all see one person hog all the attention. People tend to either have a lot of questions or to have no clue what's going on. Only a handful few actually understood anything among the crowd without asking questions.
In that sea of questions, one of the questions seems to stick out like a sore thumb, and Glen somehow catches a glimpse of it, his presence going unnoticed because it is, well, the mathletes' night.
"Hello, my name is Krista, and I think I will transfer to your school next year if my parents allow me to. We briefly talked about differential equations in class; how does that change in several variables?"
"With multiple variables, one must first ask if we can separate the variables, so that we can decompose a partial differential equation in two ordinary differential equations with a little algebra. To do so we suppose that the solution takes the form H(x,y) = F(x)G(y), and we insert it into the partial derivatives in the equation. But, with one or multiple variables, one must pay attention to both initial conditions and boundary conditions" Gen explains to the attendees.
"Wow! Can you solve a PDE in front of the crowd?" Marcia asks, while knowing almost no one would understand anything to this demonstration.
"The great classic, the heat equation. We thus have"
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