4 ms·
It seems like the real character here is Graham, who I've never met, but I do have a story about his collaborator Bruce Rothschild, who was my professor for jun
by CurtMonash 12y ago
It seems like the real character here is Graham, who I've never met, but I do have a story about his collaborator Bruce Rothschild, who was my professor for junior-level linear algebra.
In those days, you either gave your professors little self-addressed stamped postcards to tell you your grade, or went to their offices to ask them. I took the latter approach with Rothschild. "What grade were you expecting?", he replied. I confessed that I thought I would probably get an A. "You're getting an F", he said. "I'm giving everybody the opposite of what they expect."
- formalsystem 12y agoI TA'd for Graham's Discrete math class at UCSD. He's still quite the character! His last lecture he juggled a handful of chalks in class and brought his deck of cards to do magic tricks. He once made me pull out a 1$ bill from my pocket in his office and then asked me what the serial number was, he shot out a question like: "what's the probability that you have n consecutive numbers on the bill". You could tell Math was legitimately fun for him, he treated open math problems like brain teasers and that fun rubbed off on the people around him as well.
- teejae 12y agoYou were playing Liar's Poker.
- formalsystem 12y agoHe probably played it differently from most people though http://quant.stackexchange.com/questions/4201/strategies-for-liars-poker http://quant.stackexchange.com/questions/4201/strategies-for...
- pmelendez 12y agoWas he joking?
- formalsystem 12y agoHe wasn't serious but he would have been interested in a quick answer. I didn't get it cause I couldn't think of a quick way to know what a reasonable upper bound for the serial number is (I believe they're printed sequentially). To be fair the guy spent his whole career learning how to count things!
- CurtMonash 12y agoYes. Anything else would have been ... problematic.
- ars 12y agoYou should have told him "I expected you to say that" and let infinite recursion reign free. :)
- CurtMonash 12y agoNo, that's something to do in a Hilary Putnam philosophy class. He's the one who announces at the beginning of the term there will be a two-part final: A. Write a question suitable for this course. B. Answer it. You will be graded on both parts.