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Comedy > Mathematics, Education >

The math department here at the University of Waterloo (Canada) has a student run news/humour magazine called, appropriately enough, mathNEWS. One of the best columns in there is the prof quotes. This is what keeps us awake in Friday morning classes:

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  • prof: “Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?”
  • student: “Yes, I don’t have one.”
  • prof: “Okay, you can send mail to one of the tutors…”
  • — E. D’Azevedo, Computer Science 372

• “If that makes any sense to you, you have a big problem.”

  • — C. Durance, Computer Science 234

• “Let’s make ethanol green this afternoon.”

  • — R. Friesen, Chemistry 124

• “You can write a small letter to Grandma in the filename.”

  • — Forbes Burkowski, Computer Science 454

• “What I’ve done, of course, is total garbage.”

  • — R. Willard, Pure Math 430a

• “The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug someone with it?”

  • — M. Devine, Computer Science 340

• “Is it a really good acid, or just a half-acid?”

  • — R. Friesen, Chemistry 124

• “You can do this in a number of ways. IBM chose to do all of them. Why do you find that funny?”

  • — D. Taylor, Computer Science 350

• “This process can check if this value is zero, and if it is, it does something child-like.”

  • — Forbes Burkowski, Computer Science 454

• “I think it is true for all n. I was just playing it safe with n>=3 because I couldn’t remember the proof.”

  • — Baker, Pure Math 351a

• “Now this is a totally brain damaged algorithm. Gag me with a Smurfette.”

  • — P. Buhr, Computer Science 354

• “Every prof blows this. We’re all going to get AIDS or something.”

  • — J. Vanderkooy, Physics 122

• “How do you find an isomorphism? You just f it. See? Graph theory is a lot of fun.”

  • — I. Goulden, Combinatorics and Optimization 230

• “You can’t drink negative beer. Well, I guess you could throw up.”

  • — Forbes, Math Elective 102

• “Due to the postal strike, the assignment is extended to one week from today. I do not give out extensions without good reason.”

  • — Forbes Burkowski, Computer Science 454

• “You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it doesn’t dim the lights when you turn it on.”

  • — Hepler, Systems Design 182

• “You have to regard everything I say with suspicion – I may be trying to bullshit you, or I may just be bullshitting you inadvertently.”

  • — J. Wainwright, Mathematics 140b

• “Pascal is Pascal is Pascal is dog meat.”

  • — M. Devine and P. Larson, Computer Science 340

• “We’ll call it S for cyclic.”

  • — Gord Sinnamon, Mathematics 234b

• “Karen has her own i, and she is not going to let Frank put his data into it.”

  • — F. D. Boswell, Computer Science 240

• “All that was meant to bore you shitless.”

  • — I. Goulden, Combinatorics and Optimization 230

• “The subspace W inherits the other 8 properties of V. And there aren’t even any property taxes.”

  • — J. MacKay, Mathematics 134b

• “So you have this mapping P(v). So what does it mean? It means you take v and ‘P‘ on it, right?”

  • — J. Baker, Mathematics 234b

• “That’s an engineer on his work term. He’s sawing pipes, then soldering them back together again…He’ll do that 10 times to make the pipe shorter.”

  • — J. MacKay, Statistics 332

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  • student: “What do I do if I am running low on my [computer] account?”
  • prof: “Take out a loan.”
  • — C. Durance, Computer Science 234

And one last student quote to top it off:

• prof: “…so the American government went to IBM to come up with a data encryption standard and they came up with…”

  • student: “EBCDIC!”