That quote was apparently uttered by Feynman. (I don't remember seeing it before.) There is some truth to it, of course, although there is plenty of masturbation in physics as well (especially by the male ones).
Academia has a long history of intellectual masturbation...
Here's another one I just saw (that I have seen before): "Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."
1 day ago
9 comments:
Hm, interesting quote. May I use it on my blog? I think a good number of mathematicians are sexually repressed or desperately in need of sex (eventually). Look at graph theory terminology: domination theory, bondage numbers, colorings. hehe.
Well, Feynman is dead and can't stop you. :)
You can use anything you want from here.
By "a good number", do you mean "almost all"?
What are bondage numbers? Clearly I need to learn about those...
On the subject of sexually repressed mathematicians, I once had this exchange with Time Magazine.
Also, it isn't just mathematicians (although they are responsible for group actions), but the scientific community in general. Witness curve fitting and error analysis in one of Caltech's intro lab classes ("Phys 3! Curve fitting! Error analysis!") and back-side attack in organic chemistry. (Will somebody explain to me why error analysis is there? I never understood why people were including that with the other stuff.)
I'm sure I'm missing plenty of others...
A good number? Well, I was trying to be polite by writing "a good number" instead of "almost all."
The bondage number b(G) of a nonempty graph G is defined to be the cardinality of the smallest set E of edges of G such that the graph G-E has domination number greater than that of G.
Piece of cake! Very interesting stuff. Unfortunately, I am no longer doing graph theory research. The prof is not speaking to me anymore. I think that I pissed him off, or he is pissed off at me. (Is there a difference? hehe)
Time for sleep. Some of us are on EST!
OK, what is the domination number?
What little graph theory I know has been gleaned on a need-to-know basis from my work on network theory. I've never actually taken a graph theory course, although I would like to learn more of that stuff so I reinvent the wheel less often in my research.
Your prof: Yes, it's not quite transitive. Also, it would likely be construed as somewhat more different if you use older meanings of those words. (The word 'piss' has come to be considered much milder nowadays than it used to be. It's actually kind of amazing how mild the word is considered now. People use the invective but don't think about what they're saying---kind of like when a CEO calls themselves a corproate schmuck without knowing what it really means. In such situations, the people in the room who bust out laughing are likely the ones who know a little Yiddish...)
Sleep: It's barely even 11 pm your time. The night is young!
Ah, touche! The night is young. I keep forgetting about daylight savings.
I suppose the more appropriate word would be "angry". The prof is angry at me. But I know that I deserve much of his anger, since the reasons behind his anger or hatred of me is my own fault.
Let's see. I give you the "official defintions" (lingo) of domination theory. Domination number (often denoted gamma(G)) refers to the minimum size of a dominating set of vertices in G. For a graph G and a subset S of the vertex set V(G), denoted by N(S) set of vertices in G which are in S or adjacent to a vertex in S. If N(S)=V(G), then S is a dominating set of vertices in G.
If you take an introductory graph theory course, you probably won't see anything on domination theory. I learned this from about a year and a half of research with this prof at Georgia State.
Ok, time for sleep! It's 11:30pm here!
Hmmm... Anything called "domination theory" must be worth learning. As for intro courses, I would just skip to the graduate school course because it will be self-contained. I don't know if the intro grad courses have those concepts, but we'll see. (I have a long list of courses I want to audit, so there's no guarantee I'll actually do this.)
Actually, some of it reminds me of a couple things I've seen that didn't seem like standard terminology (which have to do with starting at a vertex and looking at vertices at progressively higher hop count from it, and then a weighted version of it that we developed [and probably reinvented]). I'm not sure if I'll spend time trying to figure out any precise way they're related, but it's useful for me to know some of the buzzwords out there in case I encounter them in a paper and then need to learn them. Thanks!
The night is still young!
It's another night! But I have lots of assignments and exams this week.
I don't know much about network theory. I'll look into it, or at least what research you have done. Mostly, my prof and I were concerned about the theory behind graph theory. I don't know if that makes any sense. I am considering going to grad school in math, so I'll keep what you wrote about getting a post-doc in my brain! I am keeping all of my options open at this point.
The night is young. What costume are you wearing? Divo? hehe Happy Halloween!!
I decided to come to campus dressed as a geek. Oh wait...
You dressed as a geek? Never!! I dressed as a tired college student.
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