Quote by a forest ranger at Yosemite National Park on why it is hard to design the perfect garbage bin to keep bears from breaking into it: “There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.”
math prof
13.4K posts
math prof
@mathematicsprof
Ex math prof, ex Lt. Comdr PHS, ex ultra-marathon runner, ex servant to cats; present: keeping liver, kidneys, pancreas, heart, lungs in semi-workable form.
Joined April 2009
- I sat next to a guy on a plane once and after asking, I said I had a Ph.D in math. He said he only studied hs math and hated quadratic eq. He said I bet you have to solve a lot of them. I said, yeah it's just one quadratic after another, I have to solve 'em all day long.
- Sunday joke: Picked up a hitch-hiker. Seemed like a nice guy. After a few miles, he asked me if I wasn't afraid that he might be a serial killer. I told him the odds of two serial killers being in the same car were extremely unlikely.
- I had a dream last night that I solved the Goldgach Conjecture so I got up half asleep and jotted down a summary of the proof so I wouldn't forget it. I got up this morning eager to check the proof. The proof read 8 = 5 + 3.
- In calc when teaching the 'min surface area of a can with given vol, of which soln is diameter = ht, I wrote a cat foot company telling them how much they'd save by making their cans taller. Got a letter from the marketing dept telling me a million reasons for the can's design.
- I had a dream last night that I proved the Goldbach Conjecture. I didn't want to forget the proof so I momentarily got up and scribbled it on a sheet of paper. This morning it read 8 = 5 + 3.
- Replying to @npparikhSend an email to the college where the teacher graduated asking them what kind of product they are turning out?
- Quote of the day: “There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.” Yellowstone Park Ranger on why it is hard to design a bear-proof garbage can.
- I recently got a phone call from someone who represented a security company who said I had a virus on my computer and offered to help. He said he only needed the password of my computer and he'd fix it, so of course, I gave it to him. I told him it was the last six digits of pi.
- If there was one thing that really 'blew me away' as an undergrad it was Cauchy's Residue Theorem. The idea that you could evaluate integrals by adding up some strange things called residues was KEWL! Was there one thing in your education that really excited you?
- I just got a phony telephone call claiming to be my internet provider asking me for my password. I obliged, telling them it was the last 6 digits of pi.
- My advisor's advisor, advisor, advisor, advisor, advisor was Leonhard Euler. I tell my calculus students, this is a good example of a monotone decreasing sequence.
- Replying to @MusingsonmathExactly! *people ignorant of what mathematicians do*
