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Three Questions: Followup
Sep. 24th, 2007 12:59 pmA couple of days ago I grumbled about a handful of things that had happened that day.
As regards the first question, Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content has provided a rather comforting viewpoint.
As regards the second, I should say that I did, actually, remember eating the ice cream; what I didn't remember was finishing it. (Why doesn't English have a good perfective form?) Thus I was disappointed when I headed into the kitchen, spoon in hand, to find the freezer empty of ice cream.
As regards the third... You know how it is when you wake up in the morning, suddenly possessed of some brilliant idea which, after the passage of a couple of hours, reveals itself to be rather more lead than gold? Unfortunately, one of the first things I do after getting up is going online to check my mail - and, sometimes, to write and send it.... The proposed talk - which I still intend to give, albeit with some unease - won't be about current research (as colloquia usually are), but about the importance of good notation, and specifically about the misuse of the equals sign by mathematicians, together with some possible remedies. Given my (dilettante-level) taste for linguistics, I find this interesting, but I have the disturbing feeling that the experience will be rather like giving a talk on spelling to the English department. We shall see.
As regards the first question, Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content has provided a rather comforting viewpoint.
As regards the second, I should say that I did, actually, remember eating the ice cream; what I didn't remember was finishing it. (Why doesn't English have a good perfective form?) Thus I was disappointed when I headed into the kitchen, spoon in hand, to find the freezer empty of ice cream.
As regards the third... You know how it is when you wake up in the morning, suddenly possessed of some brilliant idea which, after the passage of a couple of hours, reveals itself to be rather more lead than gold? Unfortunately, one of the first things I do after getting up is going online to check my mail - and, sometimes, to write and send it.... The proposed talk - which I still intend to give, albeit with some unease - won't be about current research (as colloquia usually are), but about the importance of good notation, and specifically about the misuse of the equals sign by mathematicians, together with some possible remedies. Given my (dilettante-level) taste for linguistics, I find this interesting, but I have the disturbing feeling that the experience will be rather like giving a talk on spelling to the English department. We shall see.
