[581] in Professors_Quote_Board
Mattuck, 18.06
dcctdw@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (dcctdw@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Sep 16 17:08:26 1992
He was telling us a story about one of his grad students who was apparently
very bright. During his orals, Mattuck asked him (is that bad pronoun
agreement?) for an example of a system that didn't have unique
factorization. The student quickly replied (in normal math, but it's
easier to express this way):
(* (+ 1 (sqrt -5)) (- 1 (sqrt (-5))))
which = 6.
Mattuck, trying to be difficult: "Well, how does that prove anything?
Student: "Oh, well, you want me to find more factors. Hmm. Let's see, 1 +
sqrt of... no, hmm, 2 plus sqrt of negative... no, how about--no,
maybe..."
5 minutes later...
Student: "Hmm... well, maybe..."
and later gave up.
