Highlights from lunch, February 2019

A fun fact about how solutions to the wave equation behaves very differently in even dimensions: in 2 dimensions, instead of a single clap, you'll hear a decaying tail of claps. Because, somehow, to do the analysis you have to imagine going up a dimension and replacing your point source with a one-dimensional source. Sound travels from all along that line towards you, with suitable delays and decay ... hence that decaying tail ...since Pac-man eats stuff on a plane, you shouldn't just hear a "piu" every time he eats something, it should be more like "PIIUUuuuu ... "

Mladen could probably've told ya

I had a dream in honor of my late friend and co-author Gilbert Baumslag. Gilbert and I were both in Berkeley, and he invited me to come over for lunch in the free product with amalgamation that he was renting. It was not clear which factor I was supposed to come to, and figuring this out involved some tricky group theory. I was still puzzled about it when I woke up.

Peter Shalen, via Facebook

Meh fact of the day

"Meh" might come from the Yiddish, via the Simpsons. From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Etymology: Probably <  Yiddish me be it as it may, so-so (1928 or earlier), probably imitative.
Probably popularized by the U.S. cartoon series The Simpsons , in which its earliest use was in the episode Sideshow Bob Roberts , first broadcast on 9 Oct. 1994.

A RAAG, an Anosov representation, and a Higgs bundle walk into a bar.

They start debating what GEAR could stand for. They immediately reject the notion that it could possibly stand for "Geometric structures and representation varieties", noting that this goes against everything that acronyms are supposed to do. After some back-and-forth the right-angled Artin group proposes that the acronym captures the way that the network functions: "Guesses, Errors And Retries". The Anosov representation and the Higgs bundle don't like this very much ... after more debate, the Anosov representation claims that the acronym is all about the guiding principle of the network: "Give Everybody Ample Renumeration". This is not universally accepted either, and the argument goes on ... finally, the Higgs bundle comes up with what is obviously the most perfect answer ... but nobody can understand a word of it.

(from Steve Bradlow, at the GEAR retreat banquet)

Meanwhile, in math grad school

Not actually the worst description of moduli spaces

"Yo dawg I heard you like geometry, so we put some geometry on your geometry, so you can geometry while you geometry."

Victory is ... nobody's?

W: Shouldn't that be true more generally?
M: I don't think so ...,
W: ... well, one of us wins.
C: Nah, it's not such a nice game. We could all lose. 

---from this week's Topology seminar

We only like the semisimple stuff around here

Parabolics just make us hurl.

Calculus quiz haiku, Round Two

thin thin flimsy walls
made of donut dough ready t
o collapse, yummy  

(Theis) 

Donald Trump looks like
Burnt coffee cakes that went through
Space exploration 

(Salhaney)

(the following came in a pair)

Donald Trump will make
America great again:
Slash NASA's budget!  

No funds for spaceships---
Trump Administration buys
Lots of coffee cakes.

(Hoopingarner) 

Thursday's problem session went hilariously well

Okay let's just try to muddle through this ... 

[two minutes of silence] 

... 

If I weren't here you would all be sulking right now ... more than you already are.

... 

Okay, let's try problem 4. 

I hate problem 4.

Wait, we've been saying that about every problem we've tried! Problem 1---no, we hate problem 1. Problem 2---we don't like problem 2 either. Problem 3---no ... 

...

I think I'm going to quit math and become a janitor. 

I'll join you!  

Calc I Haikus

(i)

The derivative 

The derivative is hard

Good luck GPA

(ii)

Lemurs live the dream

They don't do derivatives

Math is really hard

(iii)

The lemurs jumped from

the space shuttle and began

skiing down Diag

(iv)

Flying through the void

Leaving behind the ground quick

Always fly: shuttle

(v)

Nothing is as odd

as skiing down the diag

that has no real hill

---from the overworked students of section 001.

And so the wheels of the world turn

... as Chilean Ambassador in 1972, Neruda spent most of a three-hour meeting with President Georges Pompidou designed to negotiate Chile’s foreign debt discussing Baudelaire instead.

--d'ici

Hier gaan over het tij,

de wind, de maan en wij

(the Dutch, at Neeltje-Jans on the Oosterscheldekering)

Now I really want to see that plaque. It is a little bit out of the way though ...

54 hours later, some thanks are due

To Singapore Airlines for upgrading me to a flat bed across the Pacific, and to a truly awesome friend for offering a couch to crash on for a night at extremely short notice. 

To your lasting credit

The two things I still remember (and will probably remember for a long time) from our valedictorian's speech are "they're chasing us out!" and "tsk, instrumentalist thinking." 

Day -7.5: On the Most Solemn Occasion of Commencement

"Seriously?"

WOOHOOOOOOO

Death has become him

Fun fact of the day: De'Ath is an actual surname.

Yet Another Sign of Creeping Senioritis

Paz, esperanza y alegria

Absolutely the same thing as peace, hope, and joy. Except not. Except yes. Except not. Except ...