When you touch it on Alpha Centauri, the whole universe collapses.
Whammo.
--- Professor Zajonc
It's good for your soul to sometimes make the wrong choice and discover
that it's correct.
--- Professor Towne on how to solve a problem
I brought a book with me, and I'm not afraid to use it.
--- Amanda Birmingham
Think of standing under Niagra Falls, and what's raining down on you is
very hot, around 10 million degrees Fahrenheit.
--- Professor Greenstein, with more imagination than the rest of us
We would like nothing better than to think that you are talking
about us over dinner at Valentine.
--- Professor Towne
You can make the Earth rotate in either direction.
--- Professor Towne, overestimating the ability of his class
Rager: Imagine that the robot is in a room with the Holy Grail, and
then it leaves the room. Are we still in the room with the Holy Grail?
Student: It depends on how many there are.
Rager: THE Holy Grail -- not a pale imitation of the Holy Grail! THE Holy
Grail!
Remember it for 20 or 30 years, but no longer.
--- Professor Armacost, in reference to an integral
The cars can drive themselves at 5 mph on well-marked, well-lit roads,
which is okay if you're having a little war in the K-Mart parking lot.
--- Professor Rager, on a line of research into computer-driven cars
You either do or don't come to class and listen to Rager babble. Life
is a search through choices.
--- Professor Rager, offering an explanation for why 1/5 of the class didn't
come on a typical day
Playfulness in the serious sense of the word.
--- Professor Dizard, describing what he wants to see in papers
I look at Sean's shirt and my teeth begin to vibrate zzztthzzt and I know I
am in the presence of yellow.
--- Professor Kearns
Maybe it's because I'm not a bird. I mean, I don't know the mental
trauma of being a bird.
--- A fellow student in Biology 38
Ultimately, we will fall into the sun. This will happen even if there
is no sun.
--- Professor Greenstein, having a slight problem with logic
You can change turtles -- you can get more turtles, and whole
communities of turtles -- but it's still turtles.
--- Professor Zajonc
You should see this method of perversity at least once.
--- Professor Armacost, turning a simple integration into a scenic tour of
exotic trigonometric identities
I got 187 messages from myself.
--- Professor Rager, after his computer program went awry and spent two
hours sending e-mail messages to his account
Every time there's a big snowstorm in Siberia, it redistributes
the mass of the Earth.
--- Professor Towne
How can I say things that are pictures?
--- Toni Morrison, 'Beloved'
Finish what you were saying, and then take it back.
--- Professor Greenstein, in a small Astrophysics seminar discussion
Student: By "discussion," do you mean a free exchange of ideas?"
Tekla: No.
I put it in bold letters. You should read it. You should also pay
attention to it.
--- Professor Rager, on the day he handed out our final assignment in AI
We don't need poetry to be elevated by it;
All you have to do is just look at this darn thing.
--- Professor Looker
God is different from a mouse.
--- Professor Kearns
It's demented and twisted, so we need practice.
--- Professor C. McGeoch
No matter what the weather, I can make it to Smith in half an hour.
--- Professor Tekla Harms, planning to leave for a lecture that was later
cancelled because of a blizard
We do a little victory dance, and we go on to the next node.
--- Professor Rager, explaining the operation of neural networks
I have succeeded at making the problem wider than it was.
--- Professor Armacost, after expanding an equation.
The world is bigger than we are. The world is definitely bigger than we
are.
--- Professor Greenstein, mulling.
I find that to be a remarkable result. All I wish is that I understood
it, or that anyone else understood it.
--- Professor Rager, on a computer program that plays backgammon well
The north pole might be in one of two places.
--- Professor Tekla Harms, on ambiguity in paleomagnetic data
Some days I'm just not capable of thinking.
--- Professor Gerry (physics) stating the obvious
Aren't we drifting towards the absurd?
--- Chris Hale, seeing what might come after the tower function
If you're all taking naps, I can take a nap too.
--- Professor Rager, realizing that no one was listening to his lecture
I obviously did that just to wake you all up.
--- Professor Rager, after throwing an eraser at the class
Let's say the blimp doesn't know what its autonomy is. Let's say it
doesn't know that it's going to die in the dark.
--- A student in Artificial Intelligence, during class discussion
We might have night. Then there's no sunlight at all. Even on top of
the mountain.
--- A student in Artificial Intelligence, during class discussion
This is a non-hostile interaction situation.
--- Professor Rager, checking with his class on the progress of an assignment
I could convey a lot of information without actually having to tell you
the truth.
--- Professor Tekla Harms
I resemble only half the things I say I don't.
The other half resemble me.
--- The Golux (from James Thurber's "13 Clocks")
Poor Freud. He needed counseling.
--- Tamara Swanson
Deep down, this problem is shallow.
--- Professor Armacost
We'll have to think a little about ... oh, maybe we won't.
--- Professor Schmalz
We've got minds and bodies.
You and I are lucky;
we've got one of each.
--- Professor Kearns
When I explain it she'll understand,
because she understands everything already.
--- Toni Morrison, "Beloved"
You're welcome to hang around my unconscious.
--- Jared Hertzberg
Los Angeles is just a whole other trip.
It's like, what are these people doing here anyway?
--- Professor Looker
I am sick of Thoreau! I want to Thoreau this book out the window!
--- Overheard in dormatory during ILS-7
An indecisive animal is not an effective animal.
--- Amanda Birmingham, on why evolution in a many-worlds reality would favor
creatures who saw only one version of reality at a time
That doesn't mean that, on Tuesday, 60 stars are going to wander off.
--- Fellow student in my Astrophysics seminar
What I want to do today is work on this equation, and make it more and
more complicated.
--- Professor Snowden-Ifft, on an equation for the magnetic field
It's coming, let's attract it!
--- Professor Towne, on using an electromagnet to 'boost' a pendulum
If we could change the laws of relativity and travel at the speed of
light, and we emit a gamma-ray into water, and we travelled along next to it,
would it be going faster than us?
--- Fellow student from Astrophysics
I think this is an appropriate issue to mull over.
--- Professor Greenstein
I'll lie like a professional if you accuse me of having said this.
--- Professor Greenstein
It's like admitting to some terrible perversion, coming out of the
closet. I think in terms of centrifugal force.
--- Professor Greenstein
These are all good ideas, but you're thinking too much.
--- Professor Rager, on the level of discussion in Artificial Intelligence
Trying to open the door by smashing my shoulder into it the wrong way was
a bad idea. But the experience codified this knowledge.
--- Professor Rager, on how one might go about learning about opening
doors
That is exactly NOT the significance.
--- Professor Rager, shooting down a student's answer in class
I want to start this lecture five times. This will be the first start.
--- Professor Rager
We can certainly come up with situations in which 'green ideas have large
noses' is a meaningful sentence. I don't want to get into that.
--- Professor Rager, on natural language processing
I don't know how to phrase this question, so I think I'll just tell
you the answer.
--- Professor Rager
We're really committed to failing.
--- Professor Rager, explaining the use of the 'cut' in Prolog
This is a classic scientific solution to a problem. Define it away.
--- Professor Rager
All is not rosy when you chop the goal up into little pieces.
--- Professor Rager, on an Artificial Intelligence technique.
The 3 comes flying up out of the recursion tree. Voom!
--- Professor Rager, on a piece of Prolog code
If you were trying to translate me into Prolog, what would you represent
me as?
--- Professor Rager
Especially in a multi-overlapping frog situation, you're never going to
get an exact pattern match.
--- Professor Rager, on a computer that listens for, and counts, frogs
I'm beginning to think that birds are verbs.
--- Professor Rager, during a lecture on natural language processing
I'm not here. You don't see me.
--- Professor Tekla Harms, returning a pointer to an in-use classroom
What would you do if you woke up one morning and found out that you
were an airship?
--- One Artificial Intelligence student to another, before class.
There is this mysterious sin (theta) that appears, and I'm not going
to talk much about it.
--- Professor Snowden-Ifft, exploring a mathematical sphere
... the particular universe we believe in right now ...
--- Professor Schneider, thinking more cautiously than most of us
Who is holding the purple cat depends on who is wearing the orange hat.
--- Professor Ferris
Let's do what we're not supposed to do.
--- Professor Armacost uses a calculator
If you turned into a neutron star, you'd probably ruin the shocks.
--- Amanda Birmingham, while riding through North Carolina
This is the way we did it before we had modern electronic devices,
like L'Hopital's Rule.
--- Professor Armacost
Are those aggressive, barbaric instincts justified by anything?
Yes, the chain rule.
--- Professor Armacost
The sun is painting the ground red.
--- Expression for an orange sunset, translated from a language used in Papua
New Guinea, discussed in linguistics class
Anyone want to walk to Cleveland tonight?
--- Tamara Swanson
Let's walk to Cleveland. I'm serious, let's walk to Cleveland.
--- Rebecca Brannon, about 15 minutes later, avoids a paper
It's tempting to think that there's no point to this question.
--- Professor Velleman
No sane person, with the exception of myself, does this kind of
problem.
--- Professor Armacost (SO close to finding a universal law)
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyhundrobrollllantysiliogogody
--- A town in Wales discussed in linguistics class
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
--- Noam Chomsky
It's likely, after we read it,
that we might not want to see more
of it.
--- Chris Hale
I don't know if numbers are sufficiently introspective, but if you were
a number, you might wonder, "what number am I the sinh of"?
--- Professor Armacost
I always try to do things that are not wrong.
--- Professor Armacost
We started this thing, and if we don't finish it, no one's going to
be happy.
--- Chris Hale
Sean, you're proof that the aliens don't pay attention to detail!
--- Rebecca Brannon, suspecting that I might not be a homo sapien after all
You can't go until you tell me what ln 0 is.
--- Professor Armacost, preparing for the semester that will never end
Three is just in between two and four.
--- Professor Ferris
Isn't it curious that they come up with what we call triads?
--- 4 hours later, Professor Reck continues the Music Department's exploration
of the number three
It's like a lot of yaks jumping about.
-- NPR radio commentary on Beethoven's symphony #7
I recommend all of our courses.
--- Professor C. McGeoch
Write for a fool.
--- Angi
And his notion of flux puts the verb in a sentence otherwise
still with mere description.
-- Ryan Senser
I now understand, more clearly and distinctly, what clarity
and distinctness is.
--- Professor Kearns
The people do not wish to be commanded or oppressed by the nobles;
and the nobles desire to command and oppress the people.
--- Machiavelli
The 14th amendment doesn't mean that all people with red hair should be
killed.
-- Professor Taubman
I created it, therefore it has to be embellished with oddity.
--- Me, to Becca about a computer game I wrote
You can only solve the paradox if you have already solved the paradox.
--- Me again, in ILS-7
You need to get outside of your mind.
--- Professor Kearns
I hate to be alarmist, but I think the fossils are running away.
--- Professor Rager, hearing children running through the natural history
museum directly above our classroom
It's possible to imagine very strange machines.
--- Professor Rager
The swamp creature has no real connection with any of the things the
swamp creature is thinking about.
--- Professor Rager
We're going to stand out in a line and hold them back.
--- Professor Rager (computer science) on glaciers
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