It's not a joke, it's a funny story.

[darcydodo]

We had dinner last night at a friend's house; it was me, my mom, my mom's friend Lin, Judy and Dan (whose house it was), Dan's son Alex, and Dan's brother Ray. Dan and Alex are both mathematicians, and Judy's a statistician, so I told elemy's epsilon joke. Alex then reciprocated with the following (true) tale:

There was a mathematician who got back the proofs for a mathematical text that he was publishing. He was checking the formulas, and in one of them, he noticed a dot in the middle of the line. He couldn't figure out what it was doing there, so he got out a magnifying glass and looked at it more closely. It turned out that the dot was a little teeny tiny sigma. So he looked back at the manuscript to figure out what was going on, and he saw that, as an addition in the margin, he'd written "where sigma is as small as possible."

In other news, I'm back in Berkeley now, finally. It's sunny. My garden is mostly green. (And other sensible colors, given that there are some flowers.)

Comments

[midnightmelody.livejournal.com]

Hi everyone, my name is Kat and I thought that joke was funny. :)

[darcydodo]

*applauds you as you sit back down*

It was hilarious last night, 'cause everyone burst out laughing except for Lin. So we explained the joke. And she still didn't laugh.

[whiskeypants.livejournal.com]

where sigma is as small as possible

that's hysterical.
for similar reasons i worry about students listening too closely to things i tell them...

In other news, I'm back in Berkeley now, finally

want to hang out?

[darcydodo]

want to hang out?

Sure. I've got a friend coming over for a week, but I can't imagine that we won't be doing some hanging out with people. It would be a bit silly for her to come see me in Berkeley and not actually go anywhere or do anything. :)

[whiskeypants.livejournal.com]

sweet. er...i'll send you an email with my phone number. although i am, as you know, mostly tied to my computer in a very unhealthy sort of master-slave relationship, i am sometimes much more reachable on my phone.

[chele74.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a slave in a similar relationship, I object to you labelling it unhealthy. Just because my cable modem won't let me get up and unpack my apartment or eat breakfast or, hell, leave my apt? Perfectly healthy!

[whiskeypants.livejournal.com]

uh huh. mciac floating down denial.

the amusing thing is ray finding it all a mystery.

[chele74.livejournal.com]

I tried to explain it to him...that he calls his friends whereas I livejournal and email mine. Seems equivalent, right?

[whiskeypants.livejournal.com]

it's equivalent, except that lj and email are much more efficient.