Friday, May 28, 2004

Coffee

Unattributed quote:
A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems

Paul Erdos, after going off coffee for a month:
You have set back the cause of mathematics for a month

And finally, Ziggy (and this will now be my unofficial logo):

Posted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian at 5/28/2004 12:12:00 PM

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous5/29/2004 04:50:00 AM

    Hey Suresh,

    I think the Erdos quote relates to going without amphetamines, not coffee (http://bookbuzz.com/MBIO_About_Erdos.htm). Nabil.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jeff Erickson5/31/2004 02:51:00 PM

    I've heard the "coffee->theorems" quote attributed to Paul Turán, although it is frequently misattributed to Paul Erdös (who preferred speed to caffeine).

    Common snarky reply (also misattributed to Erdös, who would never have been so crude): "A computer scientist is a machine for turning coffee into urine."

    Obvious unattributed variant: "A topologist is a meachine for turning donuts into theorems."

    So by transitivity, a computational topologist....

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