anyhow, to start on my project, i downloaded one of my advisor's journal articles from his website. read the first paragraph of this paper and just *try* to tell me he's not cool to have published this in a major math journal :-P
(it's perfectly understandable even if you're not a math person... and for the record shalosh (his computer he references in the paper) has copublished journal articles with him and "written books" that are on dr. z's website, (ekhad's web-books closer to the bottom).
if naming his computer and copublishing with it, and having it write stories online aren't enough, true fact... zeilberger once published a result under his dog's name instead of his own because he didn't want to be associated with it.
more fun? if you actually look at his website there's plenty of other randomly funny stuff to read... and lots to learn... his quotes are pretty funny too... all math related of course, but here's a sampling:
- ``Perhaps we should go back to Pythagoras's time and make math forbidden knowledge'' ---Brian Hayes (2002 AMS meeting, San Diego, Panel discussion, Jan. 6, 2002)
- "If you think you're a really good programmer... read [Knuth's] Art of Computer Programming...You should definitely send me a resume if you can read the whole thing.'' --Bill Gates [ quoted on the jacket of `ACP I', third ed.]
- ``Algebra With Personality=Combinatorics'' -- Dave Bayer (Lecture MSRI, 10/14/98)
- ``Combinatorics without Algebra and Topology is like Sex without Love'' -- Anthony Joseph
- Omar Foda's corollary of Joseph's maxim: ``Algebra without Combinatorics is like Love without Sex''.
- ``There is something inhuman and vaguely pornographic about statistics.... Pornography, on the other hand, with its loosely bound sequences of storyless sexual couplings (or triplings) often has the feel of a statistical survery.'' '' -- John Allen Paulos (Once Upon A Number, Fall 1998)
- ``A lot of mathematicians are a little bit strange in one way or another. It goes with creativity''. -- Peter L. Duren (NYT,5/26/96 , p.23)
- "Mathematics is a collection of cheap tricks and dirty jokes." --Lipman Bers (quoted by Boris Datskovsky).
- ``My occupation is an open question. I was once an assistant professor of mathematics. Since then, I have spent time living in the woods of Montana.'' --Theodore J. Kaczynski, New York Times Jan. 23, 1998, p. A18
as if quoting humans isn't enough, good old shalosh (his computer) got a few on the quotes page too --
- `THE COMPUTER IS JUST AN INSTRUMENT for doing faster what we already know how to do slower. All pretensions to computer intelligence and paradise-tomorrow promises should be toned down before the public turns away in disgust. And if that should happen, our civilization might not survive. --Gian Carlo Rota, Discrete Thoughts, p. 263
Response: `THE HUMAN IS JUST A CREATURE for doing slower (and unreliably) (a small part of) what we already know (or soon will know) to do faster. All pretensions of human superiority should be withdrawn if humans want to survive in the future. --Shalosh - `If after two weeks of computing, I quit the program with an error message: `System Error-ran out of memory' it does not mean that you are on the wrong track, all it means is that you need a bigger and/or faster computer.' -- Shalosh
and here's the quote of all quotes
- Why is Zeilberger so willing to give up absolute truth? The most reasonable answer is that he is pursuing deeper truths. -- J. Borwein, P. Borwein, R. Girgensohn and S. Parnes, Math. Intell. 18(4)(Fall 1996) p.15.
just try to tell me i don't have a super cool advisor... you can't do it, can you? now, to just keep him impressed with me for long enough to write a good thesis under him. :-P
ok, seriously, i should get some sleep... happy... thursday?
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