Monday, November 19, 2007

Some Signs You May be Living In A World of Math

Not an exhaustive list, but fun anyway. . . .

  1. You wonder if something is measurable.
  2. You want everything to axiomatic.
  3. The ultimate argument stopper is a counterexample.
  4. The person you're talking to respects (3) as conclusive proof they are wrong.
  5. Inheritance is more than just what people get when a relative dies.
  6. You classify china patters according to their symmetry types and group.
  7. A donut is just a really tasty coffee cup.
  8. Induction is either weak or strong, never ambiguous.
  9. Choice of coordinate system is arbitrary.
  10. When someone talks about a group your first question is "Under what operation?"
  11. Complex analyses are usually easier than a real ones.
  12. Everything is a conjecture until proven.
  13. Hypotheses are what you assume going in, not what you're trying to prove.
  14. Examples are just special cases of things that might not hold in higher dimensions/more generality.
  15. You tried pouring coffee in your donut.
  16. You pour coffee into a cup but onto a Klein Bottle.
  17. You've got vector space, subspace, null space, column space, and row space, but no shelf space (and probably no floor space either).
  18. When people talk about a kernel of truth you get confused.
  19. No matter how much stuff you have, it's still okay because it's a compact set.
  20. Any question you know the answer to is trivial.
  21. You understand at least half of the above.

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