Quotations

Every few months or so, I run across some interesting quotation or text-bite that strikes me as so funny or insightful that I have to put it into my .plan. (Translation for non-propeller-heads: A .plan is a file of information displayed when you finger a user. Don't ask me what it means to finger someone.)

--John Stembridge

A newly arrived member of the Institute for Advanced Study went up to two senior looking people and asked if either of them knew anything about representation theory. Being Borel and Langlands, they answered "yes". "Well," said the member, "do you mind if I ask you a stupid question?" "You already have" responded Langlands.

--James S. Milne

First, there is the baby bottle with the whiskey. As I recall it, one time in the early '60s, I wandered down Nassau Street in Princeton and found a store that was selling baby bottles with nipples attached. I bought one. Then I took it to Fine Hall for the math tea time. What I seem to recall is that I put some hot chocolate in the bottle and then sat around and sucked on it. But what I have heard from others is that I put whiskey in the bottle and then sucked on it. I seem to recall that it was difficult to suck the hot chocolate, and so it could have happened that I rinsed it out and filled it up with whiskey. I always had a bottle of whiskey in my office in Princeton, and when a speaker came to give a topology seminar, I would try to get the speaker drunk. After all, a drunk speaker is usually more fun than a sober one. Also, there is a problem with seminars, which I call A.S.S. (attention surfeit syndrome), in which a person sits quietly even when completely bored. This is a serious problem with education in general, and especially in serious seminars and colloquia, where some chairman or other thinks people should shut up and sit still. If the audience drinks too much, they will snore and distract the speaker; but when the speaker is drunk, it all works out pretty well, usually.

--John R. Stallings

Penn

If there is one math department that I really don't like, it is Penn's (as a whole(!), some of my best friends teach there, e.g. Herb Wilf), whose QP (Quality/Pretension) quotient is very low (in my opinion).

--Doron Zeilberger

I have very mixed feelings about Penn ...
As for the social scene, if you like drinking, this is the place for you. If not, there are other activities but you have to look carefully to find them.

--A student's individual view