¡¿What the
foci?! is an expression that is relatively unknown and unused, considering that each year millions of high school students worldwide experience a great need for such a phrase. This phrase is simultaneously a
profane question and exclamation, and so a fukquestatement. Within the realm of high school mathematics, a "focus" is a point within the interior of an "ellipse" (a circle that stayed out too late the night before, i.e. ellipsicated). An ellipse is one of the
conic sections aka connexations
sic. In fact, there are two such points, and the plural is foci (as in octupus / octupi). Students are often asked to find the foci of an ellipse in a homework problem or on a test. Typically, this situation arises in the spring of the
school year for students in
Algebra 2.
Some students had no problem figuring out the details of
conic sections during the exam. However,
the twins, who had instead been pondering the associated study of connexations earlier that spring instead, did have a problem. After being asked to describe the two most important points within the interior of an ellipse, bewildered and frustrated, the twins simply felt ellipsicated, looked at each other across the room and nodded in silent agreement, ¡¿What the
foci?!
