From: mathnews@watmath.waterloo.edu (Math society newsletter) Subject: A collection of humourous quotes from professors at UW The math department here at UW 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: "Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?" "Yes, I don't have one." "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 inadvertantly." - 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 "What do I do if I am running low on my [computer] account?" "Take out a loan." - C. Durance Computer Science 234 And one last student quote to top it off: prof: "...so the American gouvernment went to IBM to come up with a data encryption standard and they came up with..." student: "EBCDIC!"