Quotes from Spring 1994

Instructor quotes

• It's a simple problem. Simple enough to be on a test. 1-11-94

• Now this norm has nothing to do with the character on Cheers. It's a mathematical property. 1-11-94

• No prizes for guessing where Taylor's Theorem got its name. It was named after a guy named Theorem. 1-13-94

• I've got this joke I've just got to tell you. 1-13-94

• Never believe anything until you've proven it. 1-13-94

• I've got to bring in a little philosophy, since I have a doctor of philosophy. 1-13-94

• We could not deduce that just now, but we can now. 1-20-94

• At Princeton our diplomas are written in Latin so nobody knows what they say. 1-25-94

• There is something special about this number. The Greeks discovered these. 1-25-94

• I've described what I just said. 1-25-94

• When I say Greeks I don't mean the guys from the fraternities. I mean the guys from Greece. 1-25-94

• I'm sure all of you have a life and don't want to hear about this, but I didn't have a life in grad school... 1-25-94

• As engineers, we like to see 4 or 5 significant figures... Ooo ... Wow! 1-27-94

• Remember back from kindergarten calculus... 1-27-94

• Wow this is even more cool isn't it... or is it cooler? 1-27-94

• This is so good it's bad good. 1-27-94

• This function is so nasty that it even looks like a stingray. 2-1-94

• Doing a good proof is like reading _The_Firm_ and enjoying the unexpected twist at the end. 2-1-94

• You can multiply it all out, or if you are really smart, like me, you can just look in the book. 2-1-94

• Wow, would you look at that! How do you like that? 2-3-94

• Some people are just walking CRC handbooks. 2-3-94

• Did I just sound like Bush there? `Long--bad, round--good.' 2-3-94

• This theorem is more general than in your book. That's your reward for coming to class. 2-8-94

• You can iterate until the cows come home and it's still invertible. 2-8-94

• You don't get that? Come see me and we'll talk about you transferring. 2-15-94

• Is this perfectly clear to anyone? Please put up your hand. 2-15-94

• Welcome to Fantasy Island. 2-17-94

• When you see a theorem with two names with a hyphen in the middle, like Hestenes-Stiefel. It usually isn't that the first married the second. 2-17-94

• These guys are not like small fries, these guys are big wigs. 2-17-94

• Student: Why shouldn't H_(n-1) = H_n?
  Prof: Why should it be? 2-22-94

  Prof: Does that answer your question?

  Student: No.

  Prof: It's not important. 2-22-94

  This is kind of an abuse of language, but hey, what the heck. We're engineers. We abuse language all the time. 3-3-94

  Physicists argue about why physics is so nice. 3-3-94

  He's quite old...Old and neglected I am told. (About some famous scientist). 3-3-94

  This problem is obvious because it involves money. 3-15-94

  These are hard to draw but easy to do stuff on. 3-15-94

  We've got to have a break now. Union rules. 3-15-94

  Before we end let me show you something very funny... Well it's not really funny, it's a property of this matrix. 3-15-94

  It's just an exercise. When you go jogging, it's not like you are trying to get somewhere. 3-22-94

  Actually Eric, you're all wrong. Alpha is not politically correct anymore, we use y 3-24-94

  "We will show"--That's whimpy, so "We shall show..." 3-24-94

  Now the big question is why in the world would anyone do that? Do they have nothing better to do or what? 4-5-94

  I'm sorry, let me say it again. Let me say it again. 4-5-94

  Chain rule. Hey, we haven't heard that word for a long time. 4-7-94

  I'm not going to prove this. It's too hard because none of us remember our undergrad calculus. 4-7-94

  I can see some looks that say, "Why can't there be a tangent plane... 4-7-94

  If you're a little particle and you're trying to maneuver a little spaceship... 4-12-94

  Okay, you know what I mean. 4-14-94

  You don't have to look at [the stopped clock] to know we are in a black hole around here. 4-19-94

  Isn't it interesting that our eyes evolved to see right where the Sun's radiance peaks. 1-14-94

  It's almost like I'm trying to convince you that what we are going to do can't be done. 1-24-94

  [NASA] spent their $225 million to launch [Landsat 6] into the ocean. 1-26-93

  That's the kind of argument that should happen in a bar. You're not going to resolve it, so you may as well enjoy it. 2-21-94

  At least 50% of the Remote Sensing literature is junk. 2-21-94

  Oh no, no, no. That would be to easy. The Professor's job is to maximize the agony of the students. 2-25-94

  That's lawyer talk. That's courtroom proving, not proving proving. 3-2-94

  Well, that's the sermon for today. Shall we pray? 3-18-94

  A lot of good people bent their swords on that problem because it's tough. 3-18-94

  This is the gospel according to old what's his name. 3-28-94

  This is a standard trick that engineers use to weasel out of problems they can't solve. 4-15-94

  Engineers get good at making compromises. 4-15-94

  At this point you've got to step back and say "Gee, we've got problems." 4-15-94

  Us [sic] EE's have a supposition that there is no such thing as a Mechanical Engineer. 4-18-94

  Politicians have a right to live I suppose. There must be some use for them in society. Then again, that's an assumption that may or may not be true. 4-22-94

  Old man Edison had a lot of trouble making the first lightbulb. 4-22-94

  Students and faculty are sort of like humans, they put off things until they actually need to be done. 4-28-94

  You must check your weapons at the door, but you could come see me. 4-28-94

  It is 30 miles from Danville to Martinsville, but it's 28 miles from Martinsville to Danville. 1-12-94

  Ho do you know when to fumble around for the light cord that turns on the light in your head, or when it's just not there? 1-12-94

  N squared gets out of town fast, it leaves N in the dust. 1-12-94

  Any mathematicians in the class, please hold back the jeers. 1-19-94

  N to the billionth-billionth-Carl-Sagan power. 1-19-94

  Try not to get overwhelmed by the simplicity here. 1-27-94

  We keep putting problems until they get small enough so even we can solve them. 1-31-94

  This is a graduate course, so the answer is "it depends." 2-7-94

  Let's get to the big picture. The big blank picture for now. 2-11-94

  This is when the smoke starts coming out of the androids head. 2-14-94

  Z on S_Z implies Z on S_Z fails to halt. Android drops dead. Roll credits. 2-14-94

  It's so nice outside. Thanks for coming. 2-18-94

  I'm a 3-D instructor. I'm not a 100-D guy. 2-18-94

  When you find an answer that simple, now that's something to rave about. 2-18-94

  Class is canceled Friday, so if you need a nice quiet place Friday afternoon, be here. 2-28-94

  Magic... that's all it is... magic. 2-28-94

  If you don't like the answer, change the question. Everything is an answer to something. 3-21-94

  Problem three was a bloodbath. 3-23-94

  This is figure 26.3 and in my opinion, they don't dent your noggin enough. 4-8-94

  Never fail to avoid working hard by working smart. 4-13-94

  Everyone has bad days, right? I'm likely to have quite a few of them here. 1-10-94

  Any questions? Are you bored yet? [To a specific student] Are YOU bored yet? 1-10-94

  Obviously, the right side is a pain in the butt. 1-10-94

  I'll probably switch notation 42 times this semester. 1-10-94

  I don't know why I'm doing this, maybe I'm just showing off. 1-10-94

  This is getting boring, right? 1-12-94

  I love grad students, so much better than EE 201. 1-14-94

  That will take some thought, but since I haven't thought about this class yet... 1-14-94

  How would you know this without going over to the math department and taking two years of classes, or something stupid like that? 1-14-94

  The fact that I'm either going to prove or blow off, depending on how long I twiddle my thumbs is... 1-14-94

  I've got a homework assignment here. I'm not too proud of it. 1-19-94

  If your dad was a farmer, he'd kill you. 1-19-94

  We fit this model that some egg head at the USDA came up with... 1-19-94

  Here I'm having a crisis in confidence again. 1-19-94

  I'm not sure how much of this you want to see. Aah, I'll give it to you anyway. 1-19-94

  Actually, that's such a dumb problem, sorry I assigned it. 1-21-94

  You're getting just in the time lecture preparation. 1-21-94

  I'll accept the fact that I'm wrong half the time. 1-21-94

  Hopefully these lectures, in an asymptotic sense, converge to something useful. 1-21-94

  What are you cats laughing about? 1-21-94

  Prof: I have this inferiority complex that you look bored.

  Student: Lost is more like it.

  Prof: Well, it doesn't matter anyway. 1-21-94

  I promised to do that right. Well... right is relative. 1-24-94

  If you have questions, don't be afraid to raise your hand. I may even look to see if that's the case. 1-24-94

  Let's write it down and see what sort of stupidity arises from it. 1-24-94

  Why is least squares cool? Least squares is cool because it can do this... 1-24-94

  If life is very good, we will prove that. 1-24-94

  I'm sorry, I didn't work the problem, I didn't really read it. 1-26-94

  Everything practical reduces to matrix equations. 1-26-94

  I'd give unmentional things for a piece of chalk 3 inches long. 1-27-94

  I just can't deal with the fact that there are more than 50 people here. 1-27-94

  You're squinting your eyes. 1-27-94

  If I wasn't so bored with this, I'd keep lecturing, instead I'll give you homework on it. 1-27-94

  Now finally the linear estimation monkey is off our back. 1-27-94

  My hand is killing me, so I won't write all that stuff I just said down. 1-31-94

  You start on the homework yet? It really doesn't matter. You'll get solutions anyway. 2-2-94

  Well I'm right in the middle of a thought, not a great thought, but let's cherish it nonetheless. 2-2-94

  I've tried to sell my thoughts and the market is poor. 2-2-94

  Why are you laughing? Just kidding. Sometimes I'm so sensitive. 2-4-94

  I have a few theorems that I probably won't prove. Well, I don't have the proofs here so that pretty much takes care of it. 2-4-94

  We'll start an example just to show that this isn't completely content free and sinful. 2-4-94

  Sure, you can have til Friday [to turn in the homework]. Tell your friends so everyone knows. It's the right thing to do. 2-7-94

  What am I doing? Oh, okay. Everyone following me? No? You idiots. 2-7-94

  I would not have had had to have had that wide a range. 2-7-94

  I don't know how to spell it. I guess it doesn't matter. 2-7-94

  Now consider the special case and consider what a pain in the butt it is. 2-7-94

  (A couple minutes after class should have finished) Anybody have anywhere to go? Stuff you want to watch on TV? 2-7-94

  I've given many people hints and I want to make sure the hints are evenly distributed. 2-9-94

  This next assignment will put hair on your chest. Oh, you've got hair on your chest? Well don't show me anymore man. 2-9-94

  In conclusion of this momentary thought I'm having... 2-9-94

  Maximum a posteriori, what, were these guys a bunch of Latin freaks or something? 2-9-94

  If you see gross injustices done [in the grading], you can come see me. Otherwise leave me alone. 2-11-94

  I've heard very nasty things about jail. 2-11-94

  From now on concave and convex are the same thing for today. 2-11-94

  I guess what I'm saying is, "I don't know if you want to do anything if Dirty Harry is pointing a gun at you." 2-11-94

  Well, shyzacripe. 2-11-94

  You'd get tired of flipping coins all the time, so you'd probably want to automate it. 2-14-94

  (Running over again) It's your job to stick up... If you want to watch the Beverly Hillbilies, now's your chance. 2-14-94

  Thanks for hanging out with me. 2-14-94

  I've been irregular lately, maybe that's why I've been cranky. 2-16-94

  Why are you so dressed up? You're not going to get a job. 2-16-94

  I can't believe that if we put a man on the moon we can't do this, but it may be hard. 2-16-94

  I'm not going to do the proof. It's not that it's hard, I'm just bored with it. 2-18-94

  That's a topic for greater minds than mine. 2-18-94

  Either you or I is confused here. Let's assume you are confused. 2-21-94

  I don't know if it was a good idea to tell you that. 2-21-94

  We could spend the whole semester on... well, people spend their whole lives on this stuff. 2-23-94

  This is imminently important and easier too. You can't beat that. 2-23-94

  This may get arbitrarily grotesque. 2-23-94

  I'm not underbarring vectors so tough!... I'll do it once for you. 2-23-94

  Some of the solutions are ones I did when I was a student so that should motivate you to be as great as me. 2-25-94

  I don't know why I'm doing this, except to torture you. 2-25-94

  We can go on with these examples ad nauseum, and we will. 2-25-94

  Hot dig. This is our special day when we get to see whether the chalk I hid is still there...cool. 2-28-94

  I didn't go through it cause I'm lazy. 2-28-94

  Any questions? It's okay to ask them... well, pretty much. 2-28-94

  Well let's compute it. Hey? Won't that be fun? 2-28-94

  I could be wrong. No, I know I'm not. 2-28-94

  You scared me man. Don't ever ask me another question. 2-28-94

  The generalizations of this are obvious. The problems generally get harder. 3-2-94

  We are embroiled in an example and I'm getting sick of it so I'm going to blow canopy. 3-4-94

  Well marvelous you say... 3-4-94

  Then we'll go back to estimation, Thank you Lord. 3-4-94

  Make your life better whenever you run into trouble. That's one thing you should be sure to do. 3-4-94

  Okay, so I answered a non-question. 3-4-94

  Are there any questions on that? [Guy raises hand] Aah, shoot. You know that when I ask that I don't really want you to ask me a question. 3-14-94

  How smooth is it? Smooth as you need. 3-14-94

  If I give you something that looks really hard on a test, you get scared, you wet your pants, but if you boil through it, you find I'm just a whimp. 3-14-94

  Yes, it's a 2 hour test. Tell your friends. 3-14-94

  If I could speak in italics I would. 3-16-94

  We don't want you to sit here with a pile of crap two feet high in front of you. 3-14-94

  I spent 5 hours on a couple of problems to find an easy way to do them so I could stick you with them on the test, but I couldn't find an easy way to do them. 3-16-94

  I probably can't answer your questions, that's a good way to get rid of questions, plead stupidity and move on. 3-16-94

  I heard of a PhD student who got offered $70,000, so you'll probably want to make an assumption on the problem and then graduate. 3-16-94

  That's kind of interesting, I guess... maybe? 3-23-94

  Have your lawyer send me a letter. 3-23-94

  There's a whole lot to say about this. We'll see how far we can go before we get sick of it. 3-23-94

  I haven't graded your tests yet. Actually, I'm not even sure where they are. 3-23-94

  Here's a theoremoid... 3-23-94

  I don't know, I guess we could call up Scharf (the author of our text) and ask him what was on his mind when he wrote that. 3-23-94

  When you want something to go to heck, go to the Cauchy. 3-23-94

  I should get a teaching award for this (using the overhead projector). 3-23-94

  I should know why I don't get teaching awards right? 3-23-94

  And likewise, this Cramer Rao Bound thing should make you feel warm. 3-35-94

  (Guy in next room is sharpening a pencil for a couple of minutes.) Let's drag him out and pommel him to a bloody pulp. 3-25-94

  That's a good guess. It didn't work on the test like that... it's too bad. 3-25-94

  Has anyone seen this stuff before? (No.) This is a case of the blind leading the blind. 3-28-94

  I just want you to know up front that I don't know what I'm talking about. 3-28-94

  This is difficult if you can't tell the difference between a boy and a girl. This is particularly difficult for engineers. 3-28-94

  Any questions cause I'm going to blow the EM algorithm canopy. 3-30-94

  This is the Law of Large Numbers, this is the Central Limit Theorem and we'll give a really bad proof for both. 3-30-94

  In other words, I am so unhappy with the proof, I don't want any evidence written down that you can use as evidence against me. 3-30-94

  You pick up a grad text and you're in Orlet space and don't have a clue what it is. 3-30-94

  We're going to do this a different way, so x out you notes and we'll start over. 4-1-94

  Sorry I'm late, I forgot I had class. 4-1-94

  Define pitchfork of y_k ... 4-1-94

  The gist of the proof is... What is the gist, for crying out loud. 4-1-94

  You guys with the bread, the questions about life, I'm loosing it. 4-1-94

  I need to think my life is worthwhile. So let that be our first assumption. 4-1-94

  If I give you a proof on a test, it will be one you can do, provided you do better than you did on the last test. 4-1-94

  I would have probably died on the last test, but at least I would have died with some respect. 4-1-94

  Prof: I hope you can take a joke.

  Student: I hope you can take a joke on your evaluations.

  Prof: To be honest with you, I do quite often. 4-1-94

  You probably... Ah, you dang should. I don't know why I say probably. I'm the one making the rules here. 4-4-94

  This is just a special case of the more general problem where you don't know anything. 4-4-94

  You should ask any questions that come to mind, other than "what is this all good for?" I don't want to hear that one again. 4-4-94

  You don't need a complex exponential, just the regular mom and dad high school exponential is fine. 4-6-94

  This is not worth dwelling on since it doesn't look like anyone's doing the homework anymore. 4-6-94

  Let's stop for a minute, let that anger and pain leave your arm. 4-6-94

  Since I haven't done my taxes or graded the tests (we took about a month earlier), I probably won't have the solution [to the next homework set] ready soon. 4-8-94

  Before I prove this, I'll just say a couple things to try to encourage you. 4-8-94

  Okay, don't go anywhere. 4-8-94

  If you're a control weasel, you would know that already. 4-8-94

  Things are looking up. The government owes me money and from the looks of your tests, so do you. 4-11-94

  We use the Lemma and then we can say, cough, cough, cough, excuse me. 4-11-94

  Questions? Okay, go away. 4-11-94

  I'm grading the test. It wasn't bad... well it was a disaster, but I did see a silver lining. 4-13-94

  An approach that is ultimately doomed to failure has some nobleness in it... it's something I may have tried. 4-13-94

  (To one student) I've been grading you exam. It's going pretty well for you. It's interesting... I don't know if I can give you many points for it, but it's interesting. 4-13-94

  Now we're done. We have the answer, but we don't know squat. 4-13-94

  It's all there in front of you so we could cancel classes and go, but we won't. 4-13-94

  They use capital triangle, delta I think it's called. 4-13-94

  (Points to an equation) There's a lot of evil stuff in here. 4-13-94

  Don't blame me for the terminology. I'm just the messenger. 4-15-94

  Let me erase the board so I don't make that little janitor lady mad at me. 4-15-94

  Consider the equation... actually it's kind of cute. 4-18-94

  That will not be on the exam. I've learned my lesson. There will be new lessons, no doubt. 4-18-94

  I got so excited, my notes are out of order. 4-18-94

  You guys are smart. You ask a lot of questions. Maybe that's why we haven't covered any ground in here. 4-18-94

  You would only know this if you were in EE 602, but by the sounds of it, you may not even then know it. 4-18-94

  No, no, no, that's not what we're doing at all. Pardon me, pardon me to death. 4-18-94

  Oh, I blew it, but let's understand why it doesn't matter. 4-18-94

  You guys are really with it. 4-18-94

  You with me? Just you two nuts are with me. You're the only ones... I'm sorry, I take it back. 4-18-94

  That's the way I started out and that's the way I'm going to end, but I don't know how much more I'm going to say about that because I'm sure you're all sick of it. 4-22-94

  It's new, and that's the meaning of the word "new." 4-22-94

  That bothered me for some time too... Until I started teaching this class, and now nothing bothers me. 4-22-94

  The reason that proposition 5 is cool is this: It implies proposition 6. 4-22-94

  An affine function of affine functions is affine. Thus it is affine and that which was to be shown has been shown. 4-22-94

  Let me look [at my notes] and see if there is anything worth talking about... nah. 4-22-94

Student quotes

• EE 267--Report Lab 5, Feb. 25, 1994:
  As the summary question is only worth two points, and as spring break is just around the corner, I am sorry to say that I must simply 'rip' this part of the lab write-up to prepare for the events that will occur in the near future.

  EE 267--Report Lab 5, Feb. 25, 1994:

  The only think that really took much time was the decision of what inputs to use as the select lines. Otherwise, the lab was cool.

  EE 267--Report Lab 12, April 1, 1994:

  Experiment #12 was a learning lab--boring.... My own personal note: this lab was pretty darn boring, but it was nice to not have a difficult write-up to do. Thank you!! Have a good Easter weekend.

  Note: I wrote Lab 11 and told my students that. (See if you can tell that it is the end of the semester and I am about to assign grades.)

  EE 267--Report Lab 11, April 22, 1994:

  ...However, using the immense problem solving skills known only to fellow EE's, a circuit was designed that flashed "hi Eli" instead (of course there was also a little luck, or a TA's grand insight, that the roommate's father's name was Eli).

  EE 267--Report Lab 11, April 22, 1994:

  Finally I am starting to learn something useful. Too bad it is the end of the semester. Anyhow, this particular lab was probably the most intelligently designed lab that I have had throughout this whole semester. I am really impressed by the person who designed it (I wonder who it was :-) ) He should be given a raise and a medal.

  EE 267--Report Lab 11, April 22, 1994:

  Well there's not much else to say except that this was the most interesting lab of them all (I'm really not trying to brown nose).

  EE 267--Report Lab 11, April 22, 1994:

  Truthfully, I liked this experiment. It was my favorite one because it seemed more practical than the others. (Way to go, Chris!)