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May 2006
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You Might be a Mathematician if …
by Aubrey Jaffer

You Might be a Mathematician if …

  • hypergeometric summations are the most fun you can have with your clothes on;
  • at the age of 19 your most productive years are behind you;
  • your major result will be named for someone else;
  • your fame lies in posing the question you can’t answer;
  • you make mistakes … but they are really interesting mistakes;
  • you wonder how Euler pronounced “Euclid”;
  • you understand all the mathematics Gauss produced … through age 13;
  • a copy of Russel’s letter to Frege adorns your wall;
  • your major was Mathematics, minor Caffeine;
  • you know all of the Greek alphabet, but not a word of Greek;
  • You can recite Pretty Poly Nomial and Curly Pi from memory;
  • your correspondence has footnotes and bibliography;
  • irresistible little combinatorics puzzles keep appearing like a nervous tic;
  • unemployment is a welcome opportunity to make progress on your life’s work.
  • your progeny are relieved to learn that Mathematics is not a heritable genetic trait;
  • the solution to every problem involves counting balls into boxes;
  • you cannot refrain from blurting out counterexamples when someone claims an impossibility;
  • you can fold planar strips into regular polyhedra … entirely in your head;
  • doing something more than once is boring;
  • you suffer dental and gum disease because brushing teeth is boring;
  • because of your dental problems, mention of the word “calculus” raises mixed emotions;
  • you celebrate Rota’s birthday decadently with donuts and champagne in paper cups;
  • you celebrate Erdös’s birthday furtively with Benzedrine chased by a double espresso;
  • it is difficult to plan for retirement given the current state of the continuum hypothesis;
  • you remember postal addresses by means of number theory: “The smallest integer which is the sum of two cubes in two different ways”;
  • you have calculated how many ways (ignoring reflections) there are of lacing your sneaker;
  • you count on your fingers in binary;
  • your romantic relationship is strained when you show too much interest in your beloved’s mathematician acquaintances;
  • you have already obtained your next three years of reading material;
  • you know a six-letter word with three vowels, all of which are “y”;
  • you learned French so you could read Bourbaki;
  • you bring Bourbaki’s Varietes Differentielles Analytiques Fascicule de Resultats on vacation;
  • you don’t bother taking vacations when you can read Bourbaki at home;
  • you visit Earth primarily for lectures and family obligations;
  • your opinion of A Beautiful Mind is “been there; done that.”


Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2005 Aubrey Jaffer
http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/~jaffer/YMBAMI
This page was last updated May 1, 2006.

Richard Harter’s World
Site map
Guest
Mathematics
May 2006
email
Hyde County, South Dakota is the Pin Tail Duck Capital of the world. Visit scenic Highmore, SD in 2006!