ChrisHowlett/PartIIIQuotes

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Dr A. G. Thomason - Probabilistic Combinatorics

This is Probabalistic Combinatorics; is there a dead cat in the room?

: Help - I require context here :) ...Thomason is wacky, but not wacky enough to say that for *absolutely no* reason. What induced him to say that?? --AC
: Apparently the room smelt a little odd. I have almost no sense of smell, so can't comment.

That was 8 minutes of contentless flannel.

Oh, I'm drawing a smily face - that was entirely accidental. This is a happy model.

In the meantime, let's see how far we can dig using an aluminium teaspoon and bare hands.

The point is that s_t doesn't have a t in it.

[D:Lecturers][At 12:35, wrt something started at 12:05]
I'm sorry, I only meant to spend 5 minutes on that.

Let t be plus something infinitely large but not that large.

I think that fact was first written down by our own Professor Grimmett, when he had more hair.

The for-crying-out-loud theory applies at this point.

Alas, probabilistic combinatorics proved intractable, so no more Thomason quotes, unless TheInquisitor adds them.

[In an email to all PartIII? students]: With respect to a Part III essay I set (on Graph Minors), I mentioned in an examples class at the start of this term an extra reference, to do with Mangoes.

Prof H. Osborn - Symmetry and Particle Physics

The fact that the proton and the electron have equal and opposite charges is obvious from the fact that we don't explode.

Dr I. B. Leader - Ramsey Theory

Everything on the board you should write down. Everything I say you can ignore - except this statement of course!

This is called "Strengthened van der Waerden", because it strengthens van der Waerden.

It's your job at some point to go home, drink Coffee...

If Iain Duncan Smith is colour "c"

Prof. A. Ekert - Introduction to Quantum Computation

Just renormalise me as I go along.

Prof P. Bursill-Hall - History of Mathematics

Along come the Romans. "The Who?", you ask. No, The Who are a rock group.

What happens in the middle ages? Two things. One is baked beans.

Prof. Korner - General Part III seminars

Although marriage can last longer than 3 years, it can be quite an intense relationship.

You shouldn't say "I want to spend my future doing left-handed pseudogroups".

Remember that people are human beings.

This is so low-brow other people think the brows are the beard.

Prof. P. T. Johnstone - Category Theory

As the returning officer for this constituency, I hereby present the following results.

Prof. R. Weber - Mathematics of Operational Research

[written on OHP - sic]
Furtherest Insertion Heuristic: Start at some city and awalys add city whoze minimal distence to existing tour is greatest.

Dr. T. Forster - Set Theory

Stout chap, Imre. Lots of good ideas.

It isn't blindingly obvious that you have infinitely many socks.

PTJ is an unrealistic and ambitious sadist.

There are some questions here which we can't duck completely, but we can kick them into the long grass.

I can't bzz-bzz-bzzz this one, for example
Forster has a habit of going "bzz" when thinking. This is a prime example

That was with a view to proving 42 - the Meaning-of-Life Lemma

Omniscience => AC

I can't believe I've written a bullet on the blackboard. How sad. It's like we've had our brains white-outed by LaTeX?.

Isomorphisms of well-founded graphs with a purple thingy.

This is what these things look like - a finite slug.

[As the board rises of its own accord] It must be the uplifting material I'm writing on this board.
-<groan>
-That was an ad-lib you know, it's not written down

: MuHaHaHa! It is now!

[In Forster's printed notes, nicely LaTeX?ed:] The relatively straightfoward way in which elmost every axiom of ZF aoolows itself to bed decuded from the remaining axioms...

Prof. W. T. Gowers - Topics in Combinatorics

Case 1 and 2 are trivial, Case 3 and 4 are the same, and Case 5 isn't really a case.

One never wants to miss an opportunity to use the CauchySchwartz

My personal philosophy of maths is that everything can be proved using CauchySchwartz and changing order of summation.

I'm fairly sure this result is at least true.

I'm going for 96 - which equals 100.

6 - that's 2-to-the-3.

It's a trivial statement, but it's one that might not be trivially trivial.

There aren't many curly letters in the universe that I can draw.

Prof. W. B. Raymond Lickorish - Knot Theory

There must be a 1x1 presentation because [gestures at writing on blackboard] it's there.

Now put a prime on your thoughts.

We'll do a sketch proof by pictures.

The a_i are Vassilier invariants! - whatever they are...

So when you walk out the gate past the two splendid knots, you aren't tempted to distinguish them by the HOMFLY polynomial or the Kauffman polynomial.

We could get something through for infinitely presented groups, but we'd have to think.

I've been amusing myself writing on the board practically all of last time's lecture.

There's now something trivial in the notes, so trivial that I'll write it over here [starts a new board].

Suppose you've got a disc with two holes - so that's a 2-holed disc.

Remember that you understand vector spaces.

We're going to try to get good with black blob technology.

Prof. A. S. Fokas - Boundary Value Problems in PDEs

[wrt a function N(k,c)] This is a known function - N for known.

Prof. T. J. Pedley - Fluid Mechanics of Swimming Organisms

Take a dead fish and wiggle it about.

Prof. Y. Suhov - Quantum Information Science

In the quantum situation, it's not just size that matters - it's mutual geometric position.

Ohhh, I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed Maths lecturers' quotes... Wonderful nostalgia :) --AlexChurchill

What's happened to your page of lecturer quotes, Alex? Is it still around? --SF

: Indeed it is, and linked from ChrisHowlett's other Quotes page. I think I'll create page LecturerQuotes for convenient links. --AC

"Fluid Mechanics of Swimming Organisms" was great. I really liked it. Being an open book exam, it was the first time I could actually get some marks for fluid dynamics! You see, I could do the maths OK, but I couldn't remember the equations... --M-A

CategoryQuotes | LecturerQuotes