Dr. Zlatko Tesanovic - Mathematical Methods for Physicists
- (on the nature of the class) It's like going to the doctor's office... for particularly unpleasant procedures.
- (w.r.t. take-home exams) This will have to be specially styled for take-home exam-- just as food is styled for take-out ... but take-home exam is much tastier.
- Reports on the death of complex analysis are massly exaggerated.
- Physicists use math for entertainment purposes.
- (on Cauchy-Riemann conditions) Cauchy discovered these conditions and Riemann used them for his, ah, secret purposes.
- (on complex integration) Now here comes the interesting part.
- 80% of the theorems in complex analysis are Cauchy's Theorems
- The vengeance of the complex plane is terrible. Always remember that.
- (on the proof of the Residue theorem) Why is this reason to rejoice?
- Knowledge of analytic methods declined due to unfortunate and widespread disease of computers... Computers are tools. They are not a substitute for understanding. The language of physics is math. Computers do not contribute to the language... If you want to listen to the music of the spheres, then use math!
- Differential equations is another one of those welfare programs of physics.
- There are only three numbers in the world: 0, 1, and Infinity. In fact there are only two numbers because 0=1/Inf. So if it is not 0, then it is 1.
- (comparing Green's Function to Einstein's GR) The way to be remembered forever is to do something useful- not very profound.
- Quantum computing came from physicists ... obviously as does anything good in the world. Computer scientists wouldn't know quantum computer if it fell on them from the third floor.
- Nothing matches TeX!
- (on the Euler-Maclaurin Integration Formula) It works in all cases where it does. When it doesn't ... well, it doesn't.
- It agrees with theory- which is reason for great sorrow ...
- I am Mr. Spherical Bessel Functions! If you want to discuss spherical Bessels until you sweat, I'd be happy to discuss them.
- (on choosing origins that don't take advantage of symmetry) Nobody sane would ever do this to themself.
- If everything works, then what are physicists to do?
Other quotes collected by another graduate student who survived the tutelage of Zlatko Tesanovic
Dr. Gabor Domokos and Susan Kovesi-Domokos- Astroparticle Physics
- I don't know if measuring the distance to the nearest galaxy in inverse mass units is any more reasonable than measuring in parsecs.
- Physics should not change if I am walking in a circle.
- For common mortals, c= 3E10cm/s. For knowledgeable astrophysicists, c=1.
- In my universe, there exists only one electron.
- Se passa passa (translation: if you can get away with it...)
- ... but I said 2/3 =1
- (guest lecturer on cosmic rays) Clouds diminish your signal. I like signal.
- (on static universe) It's not a fact so it doesn't matter very much.
- We don't like small constants.
- We don't like large constants.
- Why climb Mount Everest? Because it is there... We have better motivation for studying neutrino physics.
- There will be many seminars at which you will be lost. This will continue until you retire and stop going to seminars.
- The importance of string theory depends on the size of the person's ego.
- (on string theory calculations) They are practicing 'safe physics.' You can calculate anything you want and no experimentalist can tell you you're lying.
- (on the theory that strong, weak interactions are unified at a certain scale) You find schizophrenic neutrinos because all the interactions are at the same strength and the neutrino doesn't know it's not a quark.
- We submitted a letter that the referee accepted without question- which almost completely convinced us that we were wrong.
- You don't want to get into a field (unless you are in condensed matter where it is inevitable) -but you don't want to arrive where there are a hundred people churning out papers already.
- (on K.A.R.M.E.N.) The only thing I know is 'N' is for 'neutrinos.'
- (on the symmetry in neutrino oscillation) ... it is exceptionally kind of mother nature.
- (on supersymmetry) It's theoretical acrobatics- the gluino is the superpartner of the gluon.
- (on unification and string models) We are feeding them theoretical ... input ... propaganda.
Dr. Henry Kandrup -Slightly Mathematical Cosmology
- This is a case of massive overkill.
- (on most proofs involving higher math) Now things get grungy.
- Let's think stupidly ...
- Having tormented you with algebra, lets do some thinking for awhile.
- ... we will parametrize our ignorance in terms of a fudge factor ...
- Conservation of energy on a good day ought to be telling us dE =-PdV.
- (w.r.t. the cosmological constant) There's another reason Einstein should be smacked...
- We all know that the universe is slowing down ... except now it seems that it isn't ... but to the extent that it is ...
- (w.r.t the thermal history of the universe) We're not completely talking out of our mouth.
- (w.r.t. cluster-cluster correlation) That's in some sense kind of cute.
- (w.r.t. inflation) Everything stated herein is factually accurate. However, the details have been supressed to protect the innocent.
Dr. Charlie Telesco - ISM
- "of order unity" means somewhere between 0.1 and 10
- How do you say "rigamarole" in Spanish?
- It's and approximate fact. Hey, if politicians can do it, so can we.
- If astronomy was a personality contest, we'd all be in trouble.
- (on Mie Theory) ... and fitting the different ME models ...ooh, I'm starting to sound like Mike Meyers.
- Qualifying exams always seem to have something on the size of HII regions.
Dr. Charlie Telesco - Observational Techniques
- Who flies the Fundamental Plane?
- I think we've already talked about this ... to first order.
- I'm trying to be uncharacteristically neat, but it isn't working.
- That's only a partial truth... it's only good to first order.
- If you're a celestial object... and I'm sure in you better moments you feel that way...
- (wrt calculating signal to noise) It's kinda cool in a geeky kinda way.
- Part of the confusion comes because they're using magnitudes.
Dr. Vicki Sarajedini - Galactic Astronomy
- (wrt shameless interchange of intensity and surface brightness) Oh, whatever. Everyone else does it.
- Astronomers do that. They leave off error bars so it doesn't look so confusing. But really it IS confusing.
- The funny thing about Tully-Fisher (well I think it's funny) is that you'd expect it to work, but ...
- We LIVE in a disk. We should be able to get SOME information.
- (wrt effective potentials) It's really just a construct. It's not really physically motivated. It's mathematically motivated to make things easier... well in SOMEONE'S opinion.
- (wrt classifying AGN) It's kinda really historical and somewhat arbitrary.
- This is the last class we're going to have, so I brought tissues in case you feel like weeping at the end.
Dr. Ata Sarajedini - Stellar Astronomy
- It's not so much the quantity that's being approximated as the concept.
- Real life is really good for constraining your theory.
- If you're not degenerate ...
Dr. Steve Eikenberry - Compact Objects
- Miguel: Where do I buy books?
Steve: At the bookstore.
Miguel: evil look clearly saying 'Smartass'
Steve: (reacting to the evil glare) He didn't say it, but he thought it very loudly.
- You could put your tongue on the end of a PMT and you can tell when a photon hits! GAH!
- (w.r.t. the pulsar model) I have a picture I'll show you in a minute. It's a lie, but it's the lie we tell everyone so don't feel bad. Kinda like politics.
- Whoever made the universe really liked Fourier transforms. That and beetles. There are lots of beetles.
- (in response to barycentering) So the earth is a really lousy place to build an observatory.
- (of pulsar rotation) It's faster than your blender, but it's like a billion times the mass of the sun. That's a blender you don't want your finger stuck in.
- The great thing about gamma rays is you can basically name the photons. That one is Fred, this one is Ralph. There's Joey. Little Joey came to us in January.
- (on buried B-fields) The physics of this... it's not fantasy really, it's just imaginative.
- (on magnetar populations) This all holds together at the hand-wavy level.
- Magnetic fields are suseptible to Enron accounting.
- (on magnetar field evolution) It's at that level of freaky.
- This is sort of our zeroth level introduction.
- This is linear. I like linear. It's easy.
- Let me live in my make believe world a little longer, then I will pull away the curtain and let you see the little man.
- The reason I was confused for the last five minutes is because I was confused... I was wrong.
- It's not a shell game. It really is true.
- From now until the last ten minutes of class, accretion disks are thin. Then I'll show you why they're not really.
- Just because we know almost nothing about what we're trying to study never stops us. We're astrophysicists after all.
- Everybody who turned it in got a thumbs up. It's the Eikenberry binary grading system. 'Turned in' (motions thumbs up), 'Didn't turn in' (motions thumbs down).
Physics/Astronomy Wisdom from other sources
- (from me) Happiness is time-averaged
- (from AP US History) Beware the M.E.G.O. effect. (My Eyes Glaze Over)
- 1 = 2 for large values of 1
- Once you've had the fire, you'll never be satisfied wih the ashes.
- written in an e-mail: "Tomorrow the VIRGO cluster will be relocated."
- (Dr. Steve Gottesman) If you have questions, you can go visit Uncle Doug and Grandpa Vera.
- (Dr. Bo Gustafson) I can get my hand to look green but I'm still not a space man.
- (guest lecturer Mike Turner) Not all crazy ideas are solutions to profound problems. Some are just crazy.
- (guest lecturer Mike Turner) I assume you've taken the physics course where you learned that neutrons are green and photons are blue.
- (guest lecturer Mike Turner) One sigma means you're willing to bet the reputation of a graduate student; two sigma means you're willing to bet a small family pet; three sigma is a child.
- (Eddington) No experimental result should be accepted until confirmed by theory.
- (Steve Eikenberry) The Eddington luminosity is like the pirate code... it's more of a guideline than an actual rule.
- (Ashley Espy) Can I get some input/exput.
- (Charlie Telesco) You're in the wrong field if you're not an optimist.
- (Justinc Crepp) Showing a Fourier intergal to a student is like showing a crucifix to Count Dracula.
- (Jonathan Tan) We need to know what the density is ... that's what we need to know, then we'll have everything!
- (John Everett) I hope to show you (A) that the model is very simple and (B) that I should not be allowed near ANY drawing program.
- (Jim Gunn) Cosmology is not repeatable and we have only one samplel of the universe.
- (Haywood Smith) It's like swinging a fat dog by a short tail.
- (Steve Gottesman) If it wasn't for diffraction of sound waves, you couldn't hear a sausage.
Other Random Quotes I've collected.
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