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The following humor is from Henry Cate III's collection of "Life" humor,
with permission. -- MLC
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Subject: Life 1.A
For another poke at our mathematical colleagues, here is what was said
during an introductory seminar for new employees a number of years
ago. The speaker was a Vice President for Research (exact title not
remembered nor important):
"Mathematicians are the least expensive researchers to support. All
they need is pencils, paper, and a wastebasket -- and when they turn
philosopher, they don't even need the wastebasket!"
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Subject: Life 2.D
One day this guy is finally fed up with a middle-class existence and
decides to do something about it. He calls up his best friend, who is
a mathematical genius. "Look," he says, "You are so smart. Don't you
suppose you could find some way mathematically of guaranteeing winning
at the race track? We could make a lot of money and retire and enjoy
life." The mathematician ponders this a bit and walks away mumbling
to himself.
A week later his friend drops by to ask the genius if he's had any
success. The genius, looking a little bleary-eyed, replies, "Well,
yes, actually I do have an idea, and I'm reasonably sure that it will
work, but there a number of details to be figured out."
After the second week the mathematician appears at his friend's house,
looking quite a bit rumpled, and announces, "I think I've got it! I
still have some of the theory to work out, but now I'm certain that
I'm on the right track."
At the end of the third week the mathematician wakes his friend by
pounding on his door at 3:17 a.m. He has dark circles under his eyes.
His hair hasn't been tended to for many days. He appears to be
wearing the same clothes as the last time. He has several pencils
sticking out from behind his ears and an almost maniacal expression
on his face. "WE CAN DO IT! WE CAN DO IT!!" he shrieks. "I have
discovered the perfect solution!! And it's so EASY!" "Tell me! How
does it work?" his friend excitedly asks? "Well, it's like this..."
"Assume that horses are spheres..."
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Subject: Life 2.E
The firm hired the mathematician and gave him his first assignment.
"We need this in a hurry!!!" Three days later they still hadn't seen
any results, so they asked their new math whiz how he was coming. He
replied "Well, I haven't found the solution yet, but I've proven that
one exists and it is unique."
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Subject: Life 2.N
A mathematician, scientist, and engineer are each asked:
"Suppose we define a horse's tail to be a leg. How many legs does a
horse have?"
The mathematician answers "5"; the scientist "1"; and the engineer
says "But you can't do that!"
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Subject: Life 3.6
Just to throw in my two cents worth in to the Intuitively Obvious
bucket, when I was a math student at Towson State University we were
given a final exam that involved proving that two N dimensional
matrices were related in a given way. I started with the first matrix
and used every theorem that I could remember trying to reach the
second, but I got stuck halfway through. Working feverishly on a
piece of scrap paper, I started on the second matrix, but couldn't
work it back to the first. In a flash of inspiration, I set the two
intermediate results equal to each other and copied the second set of
equations backwards onto the tail of the first. When I got the paper
back, there was a C which was crossed out and replaced by an A, the
midpoint of my equations was underlined, with a note saying - At first
I doubted that this step was intuitively obvious, but after thinking
about it for several hours, I decided that it was.
----------------------------------------------------
All right, you asked for it. A (possibly apocryphal) story related to
me by a graduate student who had come from a large midwest
(Wisconsin?) univ. Seems that one of his classes was taught by the
department emeritus Prof who was very old (in his 80's) and sometimes
a bit vague, but at other times incredibly sharp. One day in lecture
he was explaining something abstruse and paused to look at the board
for a moment. Thereupon he wrote down a result and said, eyes
twinkling, "And this is intuitively obvious..". Whereupon he smiled,
looked out over the class, saw the rows of blank stares, and turned
back to the board to contemplate the statement written there. This
went on for about a minute, at the end of which time he started to
wander, rather deeply in thought, across the stage. This went on for
a minute or two, after which the Prof. drifted out into the hall and
was heard walking back and forth. People started to, well, look at
each other and smile. A scout was sent out who reported the old boy
was pacing around and muttering to himself. The class, incredibly,
remained reasonably calm.
About five minutes after the scout had returned, there was a happy
shout from the hallway, and the again bright-eyed Prof. scuttled back
in, pointed to the intuitively obvious result written on the
blackboard, turned to the class and said, all aglow,
"Yes, yes, it IS intuitively obvious".
Same source, different Prof. This one happened to not like students
coming in late to the math class he taught..so much so that he would
do any of the following to the offender: lock them out, yell at them
abusively, throw chalk at them. One day, the Prof. was late. Five
minutes went by. Silently, one of the students went down and started
passing up to the audience all the chalk pieces and erasers. The
Prof. came rushing in at last, gave no excuse, and began to lecture.
After about a minute, he needed the chalk, and asked "Has anyone seen
the chalk?". The entire class stood up and bombarded him with chalk
and erasers. The professor was said never to have abused a student
for lateness again.....
----------------------------------------------------
I got this from the June issue of "Discover"....
Among science students Caltech is the capital of retaliation. A
particularly satisfying incident in the early 1970's involved a math
professor who annoyed students by his mechanical, predictable approach
to teaching - his lecture notes were straight from his book. One
student got hold of a device that changed the normal frequency in an
electrical outlet to any desired value. He plugged the classroom
clock into it and, over several weeks, upped the speed - first by 10
percent, then 12.5 percent, then 15 percent. Each day the frazzled
professor raced through the tried-and-true lecture faster and faster,
until finally he was reduced to fast-forward gibberish.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Life 3.C
The scene is a first year Soviet classroom and the students are just
getting settled into their chairs.
"O.K., students, take your seats. Class is now in session and we will
begin our studies in mathematics."
"Tell me, Ivan. 'What does two plus two equal?'"
"Three!," declares Ivan.
All of a sudden the teacher whips out his Soviet revolver (the one he
uses to play Russian Roulette with, but now it's fully loaded), takes
aim and "BLAM!" Ivan just made Soviet history.
The teacher scans the room and his eyes settle upon another young
student. "Mikhail, maybe you know." "What does two plus two equal?"
"Five!," shouts Mikhail.
"BLAM!" Only this time, it's right between the eyes.
"Now class, I know at least one of you out there has the answer, and I
will find out who does!"
"Viktor, do you know what two plus two equals?"
"Why, it's Four!," says Viktor with a little hesitation.
"BLAM!" Once again the sound of the teacher's gun reverberates
throughout the classroom as he blows little Viktor away.
One of the students stands up, shocked by what he's just seen and says
with disbelief, "Hey teach, why did you kill him? I think he had the
right answer!"
The teachers eyes bead down on the inquisitive little upstart and he
replies:
"BECAUSE HE KNEW TOO MUCH!"
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Subject: Life 3.F
There are three umpires at a baseball game. One is an engineer, one
is a physicist, and one is a mathematician. There is a close play at
home plate and all three umpires call the man out. The manager runs
out of the dugout and asks each umpire why the man was called out.
The physicist says "He's out because I calls 'em as I sees 'em".
The engineer says "He's out because I calls 'em as they are".
And the mathematician says "He's out because I called him out".
----------------------------------------------------
I once heard that the great mathematician David Hilbert was
invited to give a talk on any subject he liked during the early
days of air travel. His subject:
The Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem
Needless to say, his talk was eagerly anticipated.
The day arrived, the talk was given, and it was brilliant --
but it had nothing at all to do with Fermat's Last Theorem.
After the talk, someone asked Hilbert why he had picked
a title that had nothing to do with the talk. His answer:
"Oh, that title was just in case the plane crashed."
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Subject: Life 3.G
Years ago, I was taking an algebra class over the summer, and had a
teacher who liked to reminisce with funny stories about his past. He
relates that he had been a math teacher in the Air Force, where it was
his duty to force sleepy young recruits to stay awake for an hour of
math at 8:00 in the morning in a large, warm, dimly-lit auditorium.
One day, he came into the auditorium and saw his class even sleepier
and less attentive than usual. He realized that something drastic
would have to be done.
Now this classroom was *very* old, and the blackboards, which had been
nailed on to the walls with old black iron nails, had become loose
over the years. As a result, these black nails jutted almost
invisibly from the blackboard and this teacher kept banging his hands
on them while erasing the board. He decided to put them to good use.
With enough of a flourish to guarantee the class's attention, he went
to the front of the room, near one edge of the board. Then, clearing
his throat, he drew a coathook right near one of the protruding nails.
He proceeded to hang his coat and hat on the hook that he had drawn in
chalk (really on the nail, of course). Then he went on to give that
day's lecture. He told us that the entire class had their eyes to the
front of the room throughout the lecture. He didn't know if they'd
heard a single word he'd said, but at least they looked attentive.
At the end of the class, the lecturer would usually leave by a small
door near the blackboards, while the class would leave through the
large doors at the back of the hall. When class was over, he took his
coat and hat, erased the coathook, and left through the small
door--and was followed by the entire class, lining up to go past the
blackboard to see how he'd done it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Life 4.2
Boy's Life, May 1973:
Ralph: Dad, will you do my math for me tonight?
Dad: No, son, it wouldn't be right.
Ralph: Well, you could try.
----------------------------------------------------
Premises of the joke:
1) Mathematicians are prone to use faulty induction.
2) Physicists dismiss contradictory evidence as experimental error.
3) Chemists make faulty observations.
So, let's get a thread going. Can you think of any other people to
make fun of? Here's what comes to mind:
Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime,
although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine
is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate
that nine should be considered prime. The following brief
presents the case for nine's primeness ...
Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived
cultural environment which can only be remedied by
a federally funded cultural enrichment program.
Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime,
five is prime, five is prime, five is prime
five is prime, five is prime, five is prime ....
Richard Nixon: Put nine on the enemies list. I'm gonna get that number.
Rec.humor poster: one is prime, one is prime, one is prime, one is prime
Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as
an exercise for the student.
Computational linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an
odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime, ...
Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime...
Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime...hey, let's publish!
Measure nontheorist: there are exactly as many odd numbers as primes
(Euclid, Cantor), and exactly one even prime (namely 2), so
there must be exactly one odd nonprime (namely 1).
New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is ...
NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!
Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the
next release, ...
C programmer: 03 is prime, 05 is prime, 07 is prime, 09 is really 011
which everyone knows is prime, ...
BASIC programmer: What's a prime?
COBOL programmer: What's an odd number?
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Subject: Life 4.G
(I realize this belongs in Reader's Distress, but I figured, go for it.)
Inspired by recent testing of elementary students in math and science,
I decided to check firsthand into my second grader's education.
Me: Do you know anything about circles?
Chris: Oh, yeah, we've learned about that since Kindergarten.
Me: Do you know what a radius is?
Chris: No.
Me: Do you know what a diameter is?
Chris: No.
Me: Do you know what a circumference is?
Chris: No.
OK, I thought. Try another tack.
Me: Do you know anything about squares?
Chris (after slight pause): I THOUGHT I did.
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Subject: Life 4.T
A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer are all given identical
rubber balls and told to find the volume. They are given anything
they want to measure it, and have all the time they need.
The mathematician pulls out a measuring tape and records the
circumference. He then divides by two times pi to get the radius,
cubes that, multiplies by pi again, and then multiplies by four-thirds
and thereby calculates the volume.
The physicist gets a bucket of water, places 1.00000 gallons of water
in the bucket, drops in the ball, and measures the displacement to six
significant figures.
And the engineer? He writes down the serial number of the ball, and
looks it up.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Life 5.C
Mathematical Formula
lim (major) = P.E.
GPR-->0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Life 5.H
Having just returned from a brief visit to Puerto Rico, I must report
how well the mixed English/metric system has made life easier on the
island.
All speed limits are posted in Miles per Hour
All distances on the highway are posted in Kilometers
(however short distances are posted in feet & inches)
Therefore it is normal to see the following three signs next to each other:
---------- ------------ -------------
| | | | | |
| SPEED | | PONCE | | MAXIMUM |
| | | | | |
| LIMIT | | 55 KM | | CLEARANCE |
| | | | | |
| 55 | | SAN JUAN | | 12'6" |
| | | | | |
| MPH | | 285 KM | | |
---------- ------------ -------------
---
Just think how this must translate to one of the old common math
problems assigned in school:
1) Train A (comprised of an engine, 22 box cars and a caboose) leaves
San Juan at 12 noon south-bound for Ponce.
Train B (comprised of an engine, 16 box cars and a caboose) leaves
Ponce 15 minutes later north-bound for San Juan.
There is only one stretch of double track where the trains may pass
safely. This starts 100KM south of San Juan and is 2.5KM long.
It is 230KM from San Juan to Ponce (from front of engine)
Train A travels at 45MPH
Engines are 52'6" long
Box Cars are 42'8" long
Cabooses are 30'4" long
What is the slowest and fastest speeds at which Train B may travel
to safely pass Train A?
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Subject: Life 5.Q
The Board of Trustees of (fill in University here) want to find out if
the Profs. really know their stuff. So they decide to ask the Profs.
"What's two plus two?" They go to the Math Dept. and the response is
"Oh, that's easy, it's four." So they write that down and go to the
Physics Dept. and the response is "Oh, it's 4.00000000 with an
uncertainty of another place." Then they go to the College of
Engineering and the response is "Just a minute while I get my
handbook." Finally, they go to the School of Management and the
Accounting Dept. and there the response is (said in a low voice)
"What do you want it to be?"
This one is for all you engineers out there:
The Board of Trustees, not convinced by the performance in the
previous joke, decides to test the Profs. again. First they take a
Math Prof. and put him in a room. Now, the room contains a table and
three metal spheres about the size of softballs. They tell him to do
whatever he want with the balls and the table in one hour. After an
hour, he comes out and the Trustees look in and the balls are arranges
in a triangle at the center of the table. Next, they give the same
test to a Physics Prof. After an hour, they look in, and the balls
are stacked one on top of the other in the center of the table.
Finally, the give the test to an Engineering Prof. After an hour,
they look in and one of the balls is broken, one is missing, and he's
carrying the third out in his lunchbox.
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Subject: Life 5.U
[ This isn't really humor, either, but it is interesting. -- MLC ]
[Condensed from San Diego Union, p. D-1, 15-Jan-90]
It takes just seven ordinary, imperfect shuffles to mix a deck of
cards thoroughly, researchers have found. Fewer are not enough, and
more do not significantly improve the mixing.
The mathematical proof, discovered after studies of results from
elaborate computer calculations and careful observation of card
games, confirms the intuition of many gamblers, bridge enthusiasts,
and casual players that most shuffling is inadequate.
The usual shuffling done by people produces a card order that is "far
from random," Diaconis, the author of the discovery, said. "Most
people shuffle cards three or four times. Five is considered excessive."
The realization that most shuffled decks are not actually random
allows gamblers to improve their odds of winning. "There are people
who go to casinos and make money on this," Diaconis said. "I know
people who are out there doing that now." Diaconis said he almost
never sees a dealer shuffle seven times.
Bridge players usually shuffle about four times, except in some
tournaments where a computer randomly mixes the cards, said Edgar
Kaplan, who is editor and publisher of Bridge World magazine.
By saying that the deck is completely mixed after seven shuffles,
Diaconis and Bayer mean that every arrangement of the 52 cards is
equally likely, or that any card is as likely to be in one place as
in another.
The cards do get more and more randomly mixed if a person keeps on
shuffling more than seven times, but seven shuffles is a transition
point, the first time that randomness is close. Additional shuffles
do not appreciably alter things.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Life 6.H
[original author unknown]
*******************************************************************************
This file contains a list of quotes from people in mathematical or scientific
circles at Cambridge University, England (hehehe, never miss a chance to
put the Cambridge people down, especially if you study at Oxford).
*******************************************************************************
1985:
Overheard at a supervision :
Supervisor : Do you think you understand the basic ideas of Quantum Mechanics?
Supervisee : Ah! Well, what do we mean by "to understand" in the context
of Quantum Mechanics?
Supervisor : You mean "No", don't you?
Supervisee : Yes.
The Tautology prize goes to the lecturer who uttered the gem:
"If we complicate things they get less simple."
This year's modesty award is given for a phrase spoken by a lecturer
after a rather difficult concept had just been introduced.
"You may feel that this is a little unclear but in fact I am lecturing
it extremely well."
Overheard at last year's Archimedeans' Garden Party:
"Quantum Mechanics is a lovely introduction to Hilbert Spaces!"
A Senior mathematician was asked which language he used for some of
his computing. He replied that he used a very high level language:
RESEARCH STUDENT
******************************************************************************
1986
From an algebra lecture:
"A real gentleman never takes bases unless he really has to."
From the same lecturer:
"This book fills a well needed gap in the literature."
And another encouraging book review:
"This book is only for the serious enthusiast; I haven't read it myself."
Two quotes from an electrical engineer (but former mathematician):
"...but the four-colour theorem was sufficiently true at the time."
"The whole point of mathematics is to solve differential equations!"
And, as a contrast, a quote from a well known mathematician/physicist:
"Trying to solve [differential] equations is a youthful aberration
that you will soon grow out of."
While on the subject how about this fundamental law of physics heard
in General Relativity this year:
"Nature abhors second order differential equations."
A perplexing quote from a theoretical chemist:
"...but it might be a quasi-infinite set."
What is a "quasi-infinite set? Answers on a strictly finite postcard, please.
This year's Modesty Prize is awarded to the lecturer who said:
"Of course, this isn't really the best way to do it. But seeing as
you're not quite as clever as I am - in fact none of you are anywhere
near as clever as I am - we'll do it this way."
From the same lecturer:
"Now we'll prove the theorem. In fact I'll prove it all by myself."
And from a particle physics course:
"This course will contain a lot of charm and beauty but very little truth."
A comparison between the programming languages BCPL and BSPL:
"Like BCPL you can omit semicolons almost anywhere."
At the beginning of a course it is important to reassure the audience
about how straight-forward the course is and about how good the
lectures are going to be.
But what about this quote from the beginning of the Galois Theory course:
"This is going to be an adventure for you...and for me."
Or this one from Statistical Physics:
"At the meeting in August I put my name down for this course because I
knew nothing about it."
In the middle of the Stochastic Systems course the lecturer offered
this piece of careers advice:
"If you haven't enjoyed the material in the last few lectures then a
career in chartered accountancy beckons."
A lecturer of Linear Systems found the following on his board when he
arrived one morning:
"Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Greens' functions are boring
And so are Fourier transforms."
An engineer actually gave an answer to the question of "quasi-infinite" sets:
"It's one with more than ten elements."
And they wonder why buildings fall over...
*******************************************************************************
1987
From a supervisor:
"Any theorem in Analysis can be fitted onto an arbitrarily small piece
of paper if you are sufficiently obscure."
No matter how elegant a course is there will always be occasions when
a certain about of arithmetic is called for:
"I just want you to have a brief boggle at the belly-busting
complexity of evaluating this."
A lecturer recently started to use RUNES in his course! His justification:
"I need an immediately distinguishable character...so I'll use
something that no-one will recognize."
From a Special Relativity lecture:
"...and you find you get masses of energy."
It's nice to see the general-purpose 'nobbling constant' making a
welcome return to Cambridge lectures:
"This must be wrong by a factor that oughtn't to be too different from unity."
A flattering comment by a student for his GR supervisor:
"She's the only person in DAMTP who's a real person rather than an
abstract machine for doing tripos questions."
A description of a lecturer:
"G----'s a maniacal pixie!!!"
A less polite description of a famous (and notorious) mathematician:
"I personally think he's the greatest fraud since Cyril Burt!!"
- any guesses ?
Renormalisation holds no fears for this lecturer of Plasma Physics:
"...and divergent integrals need really sleazy cutoffs."
In the true style of Cambridge Maths Tripos we have the following:
"Proof of Thm. 6.2 is trivial from Thm. 6.9"
Why do mathematicians insist on using words that already have another meaning?
"It is the complex case that is easier to deal with."
And from various seminars in the King's College Research Centre:
"...the non-uniqueness is exponentially small."
"I'm not going to say exactly what I mean because I'm not absolutely
certain myself."
"It's dangerous to name your children until you know how many you are
going to have."
"You don't want to prove theorems that are false."
And that last one wins the Sybil Fawlty Prize for "Stating the Obvious".
A slightly more honest version of "The student can easily see that..." :
"If you play around with your fingers for a while, you'll see that's true."
Suggestions are welcome on the meaning of this:
"If it doesn't happen at a corner, but at an edge, it nonetheless
happens at a corner."
- Eh ?
In a Complex Variables course a long, long, LONG time ago a lecturer
wanted to swap the order of an integral and an infinite sum...
"To do this we use a special theorem...the theorem that says that
secretly this is an applied maths course."
I never name my lecturers but he's now head of the Universities Grant
Commission. And a lot of universities would like to swap him for an
infinite sum.
From an Algebra III lecturer:
"If you want to prove it the simplest thing is to prove it."
This year's Honesty Prize goes to the natural sciences supervisor, who
replied to a question with
"Don't ask me. I'm not a mathmo."
And from Oxford...
"This does have physical applications. In fact it's all tied up with strings."
*******************************************************************************
1988
Good heavens, do I see a lecturer actually noticing the existence of
his audience!
"Was that clear enough? Put up your hand if that wasn't clear enough.
Ah, I thought not."
Snobbery or what?
"In the sort of parrot-like way you use to teach stats to biologists,
this is expected minus observed."
Also from statistics:
"I too would like to know what a statistician actually does."
"We're not doing mathematics; this is statistics."
"You could define the subspace topology this way, if you were
sufficiently malicious."
"You mustn't be too rigid when doing Fluid mechanics."
Talk about ulterior motives...
"This handout is not produced for your erudition but merely so I can
practice the TeX word-processor."
From 1A NatSci "Cells" course:
"There are two proteins involved in DNA synthesis, they are called
DNAsynthase 1 and DNAsynthase 3"
From a Part 2 Quantum Mechanics lecture:
"Just because they are called 'forbidden' transitions does not mean
that they are forbidden. They are less allowed than allowed
transitions, if you see what I mean."
From an IBM Assembler lecture:
"If you find bear droppings around your tent, it's fairly likely that
there are bears in the area."
From a 1B Electrical Engineering lecture:
"This isn't true in practice - what we've missed out is Stradivarius's
constant."
And then the aside:
"For those of you who don't know, that's been called by others the
fiddle factor..."
One from a 1A Engineering maths lecture:
"Graphs of higher degree polynomials have this habit of doing unwanted
wiggly things."
"Apart from the extra line, that's a one line proof."
"This is a one line proof...if we start sufficiently far to the left."
A slight difficulty occured with geometry in an Engineering lecture
one day:
"This is the maximum power triangle" said a lecturer, pointing to a rectangle.
This year the Computer Scientists seem to be in the running for the
Honesty Award:
"Sorry, I should have made that completely clear. This is a shambles."
From a Computer Sciences Protection lecture:
"Who should be going to this lecture? Everyone...apart from the third
year of the two-year CompSci course."
"I don't want to go into this in detail, but I would like to
illustrate some of the tedium."
Oh those poor CompScis....
"I'm not going to get anything more useful done in this lecture, so I
might as well talk."
later followed by ...
"Well there you are, one lecture with no useful content."
Three from a NatSci Physics lecturer:
"You don't have to copy that down -- there's no wisdom in it -- it
only repeats what I said."
"We now wish to show that they are not merely equal but _the same thing_."
"And before I leave this subject, I would like to tell you something
interesting."
From a first year chemistry lecture some personal problems of the lecturer:
"Before I started this morning's lecture I was going to tell you about my
third divorce but on reflection I thought I'd better tell my wife first."
From a single research seminar at the King's College Research Centre:
"I'm sure it's right whether it's valid or not."
"WARNING: There is no reason to believe this will work."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Life 6.I
Q: What does a math graduate say to a sociology graduate?
A: I'll have the burger and fries, please.
----------------------------------------------------
This actually happened about 15 years ago, when -- as a young lecturer
-- I was asked to give a course on Foundations of Analysis. I was
sure at the time that the students already know the subject matter and
they will be wasting their time listening to me. I was quite
surprised, when I entered the classroom for the first lecture, to find
a room packed with students. I was going to suggest that those who
know the subject matter leave the course, so as not to waste time and
energy. I therefore asked the following question: "Has any one of
you, by chance, read the book of Landau: Foundations of Analysis?"
The class suddenly became very quiet, until a student from the last
row said: "I did not read the book, but I saw the movie."
Weeks later we were laughing, trying to imagine to ourselves how a
movie on Foundation of Analysis could look like.
----------------------------------------------------
In the computer industry, there are three kinds of lies:
lies, damn lies, and benchmarks.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Life 7.4
From: bwhite@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (Bill White)
Subject: Mathematics, original (as far as I know!)
Q: What's a polar bear?
A: A rectangular bear after a coordinate transform.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Life 7.G
The story around Harvard was that there was a graduate Math course
whose final always consisted of "Make up an appropriate final exam for
this course and answer it. You will be graded on both parts."
Then one year, a student answered as follows:
The exam is: "Make up an appropriate final exam for this course and
answer it. You will be graded on both parts." The answer is: "Make
up an appropriate final exam for this course and answer it. You will
be graded on both parts."
His reasoning was that since that was the best exam the professor
could write, it certainly ought to be good enough for a student.
He got an A. The professor specifically prohibited that answer from
then on.
----------------------------------------------------
A "small college story" going around here (at least three people have
told me this story, each one claiming it was them):
A student, working on a rather long math homework assignment,
discovered that one problem was fairly easy to solve, except that it
required about three pages of fairly simple proof after the one or two
difficult steps. It being rather late at night, he did the difficult
steps and left the proof undone, along with a note:
"This proof is left as an exercise for the grader."
Next week, he received his homework back. He noted that several extra
pages had been stapled to the back of it. Examining the extra pages,
he was surprised to find the entire proof written down step-by step.
At the end, in red pen, the grader had written:
"I made a minor math error. Minus 2."
----------------------------------------------------
From: reg@pinet.aip.org (Dr. Richard Glass)
While taking a psych. course in college, the teacher had a habit of
putting the following questions on an exam:
"Ask yourself a question and answer it."
Being a math major, I asked myself "Solve the following differential
equation [* equation deleted *] under the following conditions
[* conditions deleted *]"
and proceeded to solve it.
The next day I stopped by the math office to see one of the profs. He
told me "Go away, I'm stuck grading your stupid psych. exam".
I got full credit, and the psych prof. never put that question on an
exam again.
----------------------------------------------------
From: neufeld@aurora.physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld)
Well, I've got a favorite story from my Math-Phys course in undergrad.
I figure the statute of limitations on the marks has expired now, so
here goes.
The typical problem, show [expr] is equal to [much simpler expr]. The
math was pretty nasty, and half-way through it looked like I'd need a
clue to getting to the answer, so I went to the result and tried to
work it back to the intermediate result (typical test/homework trick).
They didn't meet. I had two expressions which I knew were equal from
plugging into the calculator, but I couldn't show it algebraically.
So, I used another familiar trick, between the two lines I wrote: ICBS
(it can be shown) and stuck it between the two pieces I couldn't
connect.
Now, somebody else in the class did the same thing, exactly, and got
stuck in exactly the same place. He wrote: TAMO (then a miracle
occurs) in the same place.
I got full marks, he lost marks and got a sarcastic comment from the
corrector.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Life 7.L
Subject: I won this cup - Mata Driver
Two MDs meet. One has a shiny new cup, the sort of which u get when
having won something.
- What is that cup then?
- Fab ey? I won it in the MD Maths Contest. They asked what 7 + 7 is.
I said 12 and got 3rd place!
----------------------------------------------------
Subject: Russian Math
Saw this one on a professor's door:
The evolution of mathematics education during the last 30 years.
================================================================
1960's
------
A peasant sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His costs amount to 4/5 of
his selling price. What is his profit?
1970's
------
A farmer sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His costs amount to 4/5 of
his selling price, i.e. $8. What is his profit?
1970's (New Math)
-----------------
A farmer exchanges a set P of potatoes with a set M of money. The
cardinality of the set M is equal to $10 and each element of M is
worth $1. Draw 10 big dots representing the elements of M.
The set C of production costs is comprised of 2 big dots less than
the set M. Represent C as a subset of M and give the answer to the
question: What is the cardinality of the set of profits? (Draw
everything in red).
1980's
------
A farmer sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His production costs are $8
and his profit is $2. Underline the word "potatoes" and discuss with
your classmates.
1990's
------
A kapitalist pigg undjustlee akires $2 on a sak of patatos. Analiz
this tekst and sertch for erors in speling, contens, grandmar and
ponctuassion, and than ekspress your vioos regardeng this metid of
geting ritch.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Life 7.T
I've heard that the government wants to put a tax on the mathematically
ignorant. Funny, I thought that's what the lottery was!
-- Gallagher
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Life 9.8
From: V120QLDP@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (PATRICK FERREL)
government mathematics
This is original and a true story.
Today in my Mathematics class we were talking about infinity as a
limit. One student had trouble understanding this problem:
5x - 3
lim ------
x->oo 2
6x - 2.
The answer is zero. The professor simplified the fraction by dividing
the numerator and denominator by 1/x which effectively produced this:
5
lim --
x->oo 6x
The student still did not understand why the limit was 0. So my
professor decided to go through it very, very slowly. He said, "What
do you get when you substitute 10 million for x? 60 million, correct?
What is 5 over 60 million? A very small number, correct?" The class
nodded in agreement. He then said, "What do you get when you
substitute 100 million for x? 600 million, correct? What is 5 over
600 million? An even smaller number, correct?" Again the class
nodded in agreement. My professor decided the coup-de-grace would be
to choose the largest number he could think of. "What if x is an even
bigger number, say, the National Deficit? What is 6 times the
National Deficit?"
I couldn't help but say, "Next year's National Deficit!"
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Last modified 19-November-2001.