Brilliant Headstones

There are some brilliant epitaphs on these tombstones. I have seen a few of them before (such as "I Told You I Was Sick", which is a favorite), but there are a lot of great ones I hadn't yet seen.

Quote of the Conference: Geodesic Spaces of Normal Shrinkage

"I call it 'geodesic spaces of normal shrinkage', in honor of George Costanza."

This may be the quote of the conference. The talk in question is this one.

A Golden Age of Mathematics: Happening Right Now!

My opinion is that we are, right now, in a golden age of mathematics.

I really like the quote below, and that's what I try to convey to my students and postdocs. https://t.co/EDt196FML9 pic.twitter.com/MmkbY28HN6

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) November 27, 2019

Gandalf's Quote About Social Media

Indeed. ;)

"He hated it and loved it, as he hated and loved himself.
He could not get rid of it. He had no will left in the matter."
- Gandalf (about social media) pic.twitter.com/aa5nmg2iNx

— Ethics in Bricks (@EthicsInBricks) February 19, 2019

Mathematics is an Experimental Science

Yes!

'Mathematics is an experimental science, and definitions do not come first, but later on.' -- Oliver Heaviside

— Analysis Fact (@AnalysisFact) June 1, 2018

(Tip of the cap to Steve Strogatz.)

Tales from the ArXiv: Building on "Seminal but Laconic" Findings

I am highly amused by one of the sentences in the abstract of this paper, which is called "Systematic elimination of Stokes divergences emanating from complex phase space caustics".

The sentence in the abstract reads as follows: Building on the seminal but laconic findings of Adachi, we show that the deviation from second order can be used to rigorously determine the Stokes lines and therefore the region of the space that should be removed.

I think I need to steal the first part of that sentence, and I know that I have felt that way on many occasions (e.g., with respect to work by Nesterenko) in my career.

XKCD: Memorable Quotes

I approve of the new xkcd!

The Problem With Talking to People

There are two things that I really dislike about talking to people: (1) talking and (2) people.

Knight Rider and the Non-Existence of Functions

I think that some mathematics presentations would benefit from an obvious allusion to Night Rider (where you need to imagine the proper word emphasis from the TV series).

"In this paper, I will present a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a function that does not exist."
Coming in 2018 to a university near you.

Here is the original quote (which you can find on this page): Narrator: Knight Rider, a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist. Michael Knight, a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

Quote of the Day: Conservation of Pain

Me, to my (graduate-level) ODE students in office hours this afternoon:

"The amount of pain is conserved.

[nontrivial pause, while I think about the accuracy of my statement]

(Well, technically, the amount of pain is non-decreasing.)"

Update: This quote was quite a doozy. It's the type of quote that, when my professors accidentally backed into them, I liked to write them down for posterity.

A Non-Maleficence Aphorism for Mentorship: "First, Don't be an Asshole"

A Non-Maleficence Aphorism for Mentorship: "First, don't be an asshole." pic.twitter.com/4ne87JmG4K

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) October 22, 2017

Quote of the Day: Differential Equations and Star Wars Robots

"You know you're in trouble if the different cases for your differential-equation solutions start sounding like the names of Star Wars robots."

(That is my spontaneous gem from today's lecture. We're doing Frobenius series.)

Infinite-Series Techniques: "A Good Psychological Restorative"

Yes, really—at least as prescribed by Drs. Bender and Orszag. Take two of these and call me in the morning.

Infinite-series techniques: "a good psychological restorative"

Prescribed by Drs Bender & Orszag. Take 2 of these & call me in the morning. pic.twitter.com/RH6gk9jh5k

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) October 4, 2017

Update (10/04/17): PBS is now involved (as you can see below).

We agree... 🙃 https://t.co/3wUoBjaUHU

— PBS Infinite Series (@PBSInfinite) October 4, 2017

What Programmers Say When Their Software Doesn't Work: Top 20 Responses

I have witnessed several of these and used some others.

The Top 20 replies by programmers when their programs do not work https://t.co/kfjyE9CClp #coding #datascience pic.twitter.com/5TBdyRPgrh

— Jason H. Moore, PhD (@moorejh) September 22, 2017

(Tip of the cap to Michael Stumpf.)

Words Well Hung

I can see myself uttering last words along these lines (though I can do without the hanging).

"I see that you have made 3 spelling mistakes." Last words of Marquis de Favras after reading his death sentence before being hanged (1790). pic.twitter.com/b4aFy7yyJM

— Klaas Meijer (@klaasm67) September 15, 2017

(Tip of the cap to George Takei.)

Complex Analysis, Simple Analysis, and Congressional Support for Perverse Sheaves

This quote encapsulates one of the great stories in the history of U.S. government funding (and legislative and others' skepticism of such funding):

"On April 9, 1975, Congressman Robert Michel brandished a list of new NSF grants on the floor of the House of Representatives and selected a few that he thought might represent a waste of the taxpayers’ money. One of them (on which I happened to be one of the investigators) was called “Studies in Complex Analysis.” Michel’s comment was, “ ‘Simple Analysis’ would, hopefully, be cheaper.” I shudder to think of what might happen if certain members of the current Congress discover that the NSF is supporting research on perverse sheaves."

You can see some more details in an old blog post from John Baez.

"Bullshit and the Art of Crap Detection" (1969 Speech)

Take a look at this speech by Neil Postman from 1969. It is called "Bullshit and the Art of Crap Detection".

I had heard of this before, and I found it today through the Twitter post below, where again note that it was uttered in 1969.

Oh Neil, if you'd only lived to see Facebook and Twitter. pic.twitter.com/USZozDmZTE

— Calling Bullshit (@callin_bull) September 2, 2017

Quote of the Day: Moscow Student Sex Survey from 1903

This quote speaks for itself.

My favourite response from a Moscow student sex survey, 1903: 'In order to suppress sexual passion, I entered the faculty of mathematics'

— Siobhán Hearne (@siobhanhearne) August 23, 2017

(Tip of the cap to Craig Montuori.)

Do the Laws of Australia Supercede the Laws of Mathematics

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull apparently thinks so. To quote him, "Well the laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia."

Good luck with that one.

Why I Joined the American Physical Society

The American Physical Society (APS) e-mailed its 2016 Fellows to ask them to write a sentence or two about why they joined the APS.

They wrote: "If you can tell us in a sentence or two why you chose to be a member of APS, and we use your quote in the APS membership brochure, we will send you one item of your choice from the APS store."

Here is what I decided to write: I chose to join APS because my research as an applied mathematician also interfaces with numerous areas of physics (and I publish much of my work in physics journals), and I wanted to make sure that I am also part of the physics community. I was already playing ultimate frisbee with physicists in grad school, and this was the natural next step.

Do you think they'll use my quote?