Professor Quotes

We have these two equations now. Which one are we going to start with? The one with the zero in it. You always start with the one with the zero in it.

I was told earlier today that I was awarded tenure, so there's nothing they can do to me. I can stand on the desk (jumps onto desk) and teach from up here if I want to and they can't do anything about it.

These equations are your friends. Use them, know them, love them.

Prof: So what happens when the spacecraft reaches Mars?
Student: It crashes.
Prof: Well, let's say *you're* guiding the spacecraft and not NASA.

This is a hard topic to teach and the guy who taught it to me didn't do a much better job than I am right now.

One can get the ass of the comet by watching chunks of ejecta decelerate as they leave the impact crater.

Prof: Should we tell [missing student's name] that this problem was dropped from the homework?
Class: No.
Prof: OK, I won't say anything if you don't.

Any idiot can stand here and give you an exam.

Anything extremely curvy is a circle or an ellipse. Anything only slightly curvy is a straight line.

It's going to recombine like a screaming banshee.

This thing will be spinning like a banshee.

I used to say "there is no such thing as a stupid question, only a stupid answer," but let's face it there are stupid questions. So then I said that "there are stupid questions, but that they help us learn". But the students got mad because I called them stupid, so I stopped doing that too. Now I just say "ask questions".

It is an unfortunate fact that some of my friends are experimentalists, and they use silly units like meters, and seconds and amps.

If God had been an undergraduate when he created the world he would have goofed off the first six days and made everything the last night.

Almost diverges is like being almost pregnant. You either are or you aren't.

[After failing to get a demo to work] I'm a theorist.

The homework is not due until the day after tomorrow so no one has looked at it yet. I think that is a theorem or something.

This is a theorem: All functions are linear, at least to first order.

An engineer, a mathematician and a physicist are on a train through Switzerland. They see a white cow from the train window and the engineer says "All cows in Switzerland are white." Shaking his head, the mathematician says "Can you please be more specific. Some cows in Switzerland are white." Looking sad the physicist steps in and says, "Even that is not enough, some cows in Switzerland are white when viewed from one side."

Some people actually called me for help on Saturday night. Now guys even I am not that uncool. You should not be doing homework for this class on Saturday night.

You can actually lecture faster than the speed of light, since when you do no information is transmitted.

A general word of advice about this---EVERYBODY doing physics at any level feels very stupid most of the time. I certainly do when faced with research. The thing is that some people are better at hiding it than others. Thus you probably got the impression that you just aren't getting it while some brilliant student across the room is having no problem. The fact is this "brilliant" student is feeling as dumb as you deep down but is faking it better. (Over the years I have gotten very good at faking it but trust me, intrinsically I am no better at this stuff than you are---apart from an extra couple of decades of experience). The key to being happy doing physics while feeling like a complete idiot most of the time is that very ocassionally one has flashes of insight that make it worthwhile.

Guys you should pay attention, knowing constellations is a great way to impress girls.

The history of gamma ray bursts has been likened to a bunch of 6 year olds playing soccer. They don't play positions, they just all run around following the ball. Then mainly by accident the ball pops out and they all run that way. That's kind of what gamma ray bursts theorists have done over the past few years. They were always sure they knew what caused them, but what the cause was has changed over time.

And being a Douglas Adams fan, I'm glad to see that the number 42 makes it into astrophysics somewhere.

I consider vegetables to be the things that feed the meat I eat.

Student 1: I don't drink.
Prof: Right. I've seen the way you act. There's only one explanation.
Student 2: The same could be said about you.

This is what has been affectionately termed hamster theory. On small time scales the hamster running on a wheel kicks the Sun's butt in energy production! But try finding a hamster that can last 10 billion years.

Don't believe your professors they lie to you. Well, I don't, but everyone else does.

Why am I being so nice to mathemiticians today? Not enough coffee... AUGH! What's wrong with me today?

I was working out a problem, and I had to run around kicking the cats, because Mathematica is a stupid program.

I tend to think of ad-lib lecturing as flossing your teeth. It's the sort of thing that's okay to do it, but it's not nice to do it in front of people.

So, this constant is changing with time...now that was a stupid thing to say.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, physicists only like to solve problems that they already know how to do. They're not too good at the other kind.

Guys: don't put anything cushy on the inside of the wedding ring. Engrave the *date*. it's much more practical. And do it as big as will fit, because as you get older your eyesight gets worse...

This is totally unrealistic, unless you've filled the air up with molassas and have projectiles that go really slow.

Oh, that's real clever. Write so small that the middle-aged professor can't read anything at all. Not that I'm upset about it...

If I were (Professor X), I would just make all the unit vectors shrink down to zero and still get the right answer.

You have to take the National Physics Association Physics Safety Test. If you pass, you get a license to carry a concealed calculator, and to work in non-inertial frams. This license is valid in many states, but not in the District of Columbia.

Ok, Eureka, so that's what the coriolis forces look like. This is the 'spherical cow' of hurricanes.

This is Newton's law, written in it's simplest form... wait, gotta get the signs right.. um... what am I doing?

This is one of these things that gets worse before it gets worse still.

Uh-oh. These equations are BAD.

(after a long class of confusion) Thank god! A question I can answer!

That wasn't a bad idea, putting the sun at the center of the solar system. Got a few people burned at the stake, but hey.

What I'm going to do here is an operation that at first signt appears to be illegal. We may be weird in most ways, but we can handle this. We're physicists, dammit!

So, what can we do with this equation, aside from run away screaming?

These is an elementary, do-able integral. We've all learned how to perform these without any trouble.. which means I looked it up in a book.

I just remembered that I can't remember the name of my high-school math teacher. What a relief! Years of therapy finally paid off...

A moment's reflection will show... that the authors are idiots.

For this problem, we're going to make a bunch of approximations. Like ignoring the gravity of Earth.

No, you don't assume anything, for these orbits. You plan it! Um.. plan it.. planet! Ha!

A differential equation! Look, an old friend... or in this case, an old enemy.

You got this far on this problem? Good. The rest is easy; you'll kick yourself. But stand up first, or else you'll get the chair, which is metal, and will hurt.

What is the key point here? oh, drat... the key point is that I've lost my list of key points. That's embarassing.

So you tie a dog, a cat and a baby together with strings and springs, and you throw them across the room while spinning them. The question is, can we describe the motion?

So I'd go to parties in the 80's and people would ask me "what's your sign" and I'd say "delta". Never got too far with that.

OK. Weve graduated to power tools now. Mo more hand-saws and screwdrivers... apprentice treatment. Time for lagranges equations!

In the remaining 5 minutes, I want to relate everything we've done to Quantum Mechanics.

This is called the collapse of the wave function, and I don't understand the problem with it. But lots of people have assured me that it's because I'm stupid. Okay, so I'm stupid.

Let me show you something that will add to the weirditude.

Professor: To honor (other professor's name), I'm going to use MKS units. If you don't like it, then set c=1.
Class: Can we set q=1?
Professor: No, you can't set q=1. (other professor's name) could, but I can't. See, he is smart.

And this here is called the secular equation. I assume that is because nobody has ever written it in a church. But heck there are a lot of people over a long time on Earth, you gotta figure at some point someone had to write it in a church.

With all the math majors, they could probably solve these by using words like "orthogonal dipsydoodles" and stuff like that...

Professor: It's Monday, and it feels like a Friday.. rainy and cold...
Class: It's Tuesday!
Professor: See?! I can't even get the day right. It *feels* like a Monday that feels like a Friday. And I didn't shave well this morning, either.

Professor: Yes, the final will be cumulative. It will have 150 questions, and to save myself time I'm just going to give you 15 minutes.
Class: Just like the Physics GRE's!

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