[2] in Professors_Quote_Board
The Quotes of Chairman Arthur P. Mattuck (9/18/87 - 11/16/87)
balamac@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (balamac@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Nov 18 19:09:44 1987
The Quotes of Chairman Arthur P. Mattuck
18.063 Fall Term 1987
All quotes are kept in the file ~balamac/mattuck.txt (NFS).
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``Obviously'' inverse means I don't want to bother (9/18)
Let's do this as a thought experiment. (9/18)
``Well-defined'' means something that seems to be a definition really is
(9/21)
That's a bijection because it obviously is (9/21)
Some signed sum of some things (9/21)
There are sets where you can't even get started (9/21)
To pick k is to pick n-k (9/23)
I'll go too fast anyway, but this way I'll have sympathy (9/23)
Now, this formula is intuitively obvious (9/25)
Different but pretty much the same (9/28)
I'm making up notation as I go, but so what (9/28)
Everything twiddles itself (9/28)
Trivial: go home and stare at it for 3 hours until you're convinced
(9/30)
The margin of this blackboard is too small for the proof of this theorem
(9/30)
After working at it long enough to understand it, you should agree that
it's trivial (9/30)
Nobody in his right mind would write it this way [Mattuck just did]
(9/30)
It's useful since it can often be done (10/2)
The answer is...This is solvable because...Why am I wearing a tie and
jacket? (10/2)
I don't deal with special cases (10/2)
It's Fermatty (10/5)
If they're fundamental, they will be used (10/5)
He wasn't Russian, but he would be if he were alive today [Mattuck on
Kant] (10/7)
It has an irregular singular [vertex/vertices] (10/7)
Pure math is divided into analysis, algebra, and topology. Never mind
what they are, they're not important (10/14)
Take it, pick it up, and let the rest hang down (10/14)
I won't give you a transparent proof. I'll give you the most obscure
proof I can find. (10/14)
A tree which is not connected is a forest. (10/14)
That's outside the scope of this course. That's in the next course,
which you won't take. (10/19)
This is a true fact, like all facts. (10/19)
Nothing is harder than counting (10/21)
You don't have to give a reason for it; you just know it (10/21)
It's 4-dimensional space. All you need is 4 axes. (10/21)
I have a feeling I must be a windbag, since my notes for this lecture
consist of 4 lines, and [in 44 minutes] I've only covered 2. (10/21)
That's indigo, a color no one's ever seen (10/21 Rec.)
Back in the old days, in pre-history, I mean last century... (10/21)
``The finest mathematician in nonabelian hocus-pocus between the ages of
36 and 37'' (10/23)
I guess a perfect magician can do anything (10/23)
How many people don't know \omega is the cube-root of unity? That's a
lie; I just told you. (10/26)
I'd have to work a minute or two to say it better, but I'm sure I could.
(10/26)
I don't want to prove that. It's intuitively clear. Why don't we just
talk about it for a minute? (Artin, 10/28)
Call it "e" for "identity" (Artin, 10/28)
K is an integer. I assume you know that by now (10/30)
It's like the SAT: Congruence mon n is to the integers as "~" mon H is
to any group. (10/30)
I think you could do this as an exercise yourself. In fact, I don't
know why I'm doing it. (10/30)
It's undoing a definition, which is what all of mathematics is. (10/30)
You'll use it in the next problem set. If that isn't applied
mathematics I don't know what is. (10/30)
If you work hard you should have corollaries (10/30)
"P" is always a prime number. (11/2)
3 and 3 is 1, they don't make 6. Well, they do make 6, but it makes
more sense if they make 1. (11/2)
When something is beautiful and elegant, it is of no help in actual
computation. (11/2)
Beautiful but ineffective: I know some people like that. (11/2)
It's empty, but you've got to put in something, otherwise no one knows
it's there. (11/4)
"F" isn't a function anymore. It's just the letter that comes after
"e". (11/4)
Since you're goo guys and I'm not... (11/6)
Anybody not understand that? Too bad. (11/6)
Proof by example. (11/9)
Within 100 yards of here are the greatest Lie Algebraists in the world,
when they're in their offices. (11/16)
