Titania by John Simmons

Professor Quotes

These are quotes (usually paraphrased, since I'm trying to take notes and record the quote at the same time) uttered from my professors.  For the most part they are from University of Maryland  astronomy and physics professors; although, a few are from New Mexico Tech professors.  I've decided not to credit the speakers, since doing so could adversely affect my future in this field.

Other pages like this one:

• Jim Marshall's Memorable Quotes from Professors . Actually a few of Jim's quotes may look suspiciously like mine, since we are in a class together with a particularly quotable professor.
• Donna Pierce's Quotes from School

Last update: 7 February 2002 

It's clear when you think about it...and have enough to drink.

This is when we could make real money.  Not just science money, but real money.

There really is a difference between a person being 5'6" tall and living 70 years, and a person being 70 light years tall and living 5.6 femtoseconds.  Time and space really are asymmetric.

What's a light second? Same as a second with a third fewer calories.

If I teach faster than the speed of light, no information is conveyed.

Let's do rotations first, and everything we learn about rotations, translate.

I bet you're wondering where I'm going with this.  Well, so am I.

This turns out to be easy, but really more complicated.

Suppose for a moment God whispers in your ear in the dark of night the form of the Lagrangian. This is how most particle physicists do field theory.

We can add this because it doesn't matter, but if it did matter, we couldn't.

I think I managed to lose half the class; for those of you I didn't lose, let me repeat it.

If you can read, you can finish the homework. I'll assume you are like the rest of Americans, and can't read.

So I'm transferring my private energy to the rubber band.

That lubricates the surface, sending Tonya to go into her spins.

And this tells you what those little vibrators are up to.

This is a very rich topic, so if you really like algebra, you should go into plasma physics.

Physicists define interesting problems as the ones they can do.  So, a complicated dynamics problem is, by definition, uninteresting.

This, of course, is only useful for scattering AM radio waves off a charged elephant.

This (scattering light off a sphere) is the experimentor's way of taking a Fourier Transform. Theorists, of course, know how to take a Fourier Transform.

You don't actually prove this, but there are ways to motivate it.

Maybe I'll invite you not to think about it too much.

Student: You lost your twiddle.
Prof: Oh! I need that!

You didn't think I could confuse you about that, did you?

If you close your eyes and squint at it....wait, don't close your eyes, just squint.

One good way to learn about things is to throw things at it.

Where's my nothing? It doesn't contribute much, but I guess I better put it in there.

Photons don't lie.

Now rotate your head forty-five degrees, or have a stiff drink.

These are great things to study if you are re-doing a bathroom.

By thinking of God as a very large photon, you preserve free-will.

Student: My gut says "no" but I couldn't tell you why.
Professor: Your gut knows physics.
Student: The rest of me doesn't.
Professor: If you didn't say it, I was going to.

I've always wanted to institute a reign of terror.

In the American spirit, you can't get too large.

This amplitude is technically known as itty-bitty.

That's probably enough to give you a headache...anytime I can help.

Black holes have several reasons for being interesting; one being that black holes are way cool objects.

Let's leave the simple two parameter description of black holes and move into a realm where we can actually dectect them, which means it's back to dirty, nasty astrophysics.

You can do the most general case if you are into algebraic masochism.

At least you can see it written down unclearly rather than just hearing it orally unclearly.

The midterm will cover everything before chapter one.

It's not as bad as using "ain't" in literature I suppose.

As a Douglas Adams fan, I'm glad that the number 42 made it into astrophysics somewhere.

It's an easy first step. Then, well, a cliff.

There's a minus sign here because of Ben Franklin.

I think we can tell that Barb has decoupled from the rest of the class.

These are nasty to model, so theoreists do what people have done for years...they ignore them.

Sometimes doing things wrong can work out well...though, not usually.

This is where you run into trouble, or this is where the physics becomes full and rich, whichever you want to write in your grant proposal.

I can't do this with my cone head on; I can't hear myself in there.

I do most of my best thinking in the horizontal position.

Electrons are smart. When they realize that they can do it, they will do it, unlike students and faculty.

We are now going off to theory-ville.

This is the Malmquist bias. It's named that because, like so many things in astronomy, it disguises what it really is.

It's always good to have neat names for things. That way you can try and get more funding.

That's when you run into problems..er...rather you run into interesting phenomena.

This has driven people to either drink or M-theory.

What could produce this combination of conditions? Neutron stars, of course, because they can do anything.

Watching gamma-ray burst theorists over the years has been like watching 6-year-olds play soccer. There's no adherence to positions, just a clump of children following the ball.

If you've seen one gamma-ray burst, you've seen one gamma-ray burst.

Whenever you have a simple, rational fraction, you should think, "Whoa! There's something deep here."

Student: [After hearing that the professor will be having oral surgery between the last class and the final.] So, will you be in a better mood before you grade the exams?
Professor: The real question is, will I be in a better mood when I write the exam.

That's what I'd like to have you believe without asking me how it works.

Einstein said that this was his greatest blunder...I wish I could make a blunder like that.  [About the Cosmological Constant]

From lanl's astro-ph e-print archive (astro-ph/0107431 )

Title: Shapes and Shears, Stars and Smears: Optimal Measurements for Weak Lensing
Authors: G. M. Bernstein, M. Jarvis
Comments: 80 fun-filled pages, submitted to AJ. Version with full vector figures available via this http URL

I'll just show you this picture, and you can decide if its brilliant physics or complete nonsense.