Quotations
I am writing the part of thesis I hate the most at the moment, the literature review. I love to read papers and learn about them. I enjoy reflecting on them and putting down the idea I draw from the papers. What I don’t like it to try to keep track of everything after I read several papers. And then make sure all the idea is accurate as it was stated in the papers. To get myself feel better, I am going to play with some fun quotations here.
I was reading my book “Fermat’s last Theorem” in Chinese this morning and found the book quote a nice story that I can use. So I decide to look up the English version of the story on the internet. Here is the story.
An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from the train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. 'How interesting,' observed the astronomer, 'all Scotish sheep are black!' To which the physicist responded, 'No, no! some Scottish sheep are black!' The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication and then intoned, 'In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black.'
~quoted by Simon Singh in 'Fermat's last Theorem' from 'Concepts of Modern Mathematics' by Ian Stewart.
In this book Singh used this story to illustrate how mathematicians came to realization that they need to be accurate on proofing any theorem. But normally, this story was used to show the difference between fields. Like the following story form the site I got the quotation.
Why is it that you physicists always require so much expensive equipment? Now the department of Mathematics requires nothing but money for paper, pencils and waste paper baskets and the Department of Philosophy is better still. It doesn't even ask for waste paper baskets.
~Anonymous University President - quoted in "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle", John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tippler, OUP.
Actually, I look up this story because I want to show the idea that how people think about they knowing something. How much do you trust or doubt about what you hear, read, observe, or understand. In the movie “Something gotta give”, the Harry told Erica “I have never lied to you, I have always told you some version of truth.” Well, in relationship, it is horrify to know that the truth could have different version. In reality, especially in science or more specific physics, the truth is always depending on what assumptions you take and how accurate the equipments are. That’s why physics are famous for the joke of “spherical cow”.
If you don’t know about the spherical cow joke, you can find the book “Fear of Physics: A Guide for the Perplexed” on google book. Read the first few pages.
And when I was looking up the earlier quotation, I ran into a few more interesting one from this site http://ifs.massey.ac.nz/IFSandBits/May2000/no26.htm.
"Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak."
This one must be from a physicist.
"Don't you think it's unnerving that doctors call what they do "Practice?"
I never thought of this before. I do know doctors tend to approach by "trial and err".
At the same time, in Chinese, the doctors don’t call what they do “practice”.
"Did you ever notice that Evian bottled water is Naive spelled backward? think about it..."
I love this one. I always think that bottled water is only to fool people.
When I was checking out the spherical cow story, I ran into another great quotation in the book “Fear of Physics: A Guide for the Perplexed”.
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
That explain why those physicists in my field (physics education research) behave the way they do. Instead of learning about the new tool, they tend to try to fit everything into the tools they have.
One more common: quotations seem to have the tendency to self-multiply. I was looking for one, end up with more.
I was reading my book “Fermat’s last Theorem” in Chinese this morning and found the book quote a nice story that I can use. So I decide to look up the English version of the story on the internet. Here is the story.
An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from the train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. 'How interesting,' observed the astronomer, 'all Scotish sheep are black!' To which the physicist responded, 'No, no! some Scottish sheep are black!' The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication and then intoned, 'In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black.'
~quoted by Simon Singh in 'Fermat's last Theorem' from 'Concepts of Modern Mathematics' by Ian Stewart.
In this book Singh used this story to illustrate how mathematicians came to realization that they need to be accurate on proofing any theorem. But normally, this story was used to show the difference between fields. Like the following story form the site I got the quotation.
Why is it that you physicists always require so much expensive equipment? Now the department of Mathematics requires nothing but money for paper, pencils and waste paper baskets and the Department of Philosophy is better still. It doesn't even ask for waste paper baskets.
~Anonymous University President - quoted in "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle", John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tippler, OUP.
Actually, I look up this story because I want to show the idea that how people think about they knowing something. How much do you trust or doubt about what you hear, read, observe, or understand. In the movie “Something gotta give”, the Harry told Erica “I have never lied to you, I have always told you some version of truth.” Well, in relationship, it is horrify to know that the truth could have different version. In reality, especially in science or more specific physics, the truth is always depending on what assumptions you take and how accurate the equipments are. That’s why physics are famous for the joke of “spherical cow”.
If you don’t know about the spherical cow joke, you can find the book “Fear of Physics: A Guide for the Perplexed” on google book. Read the first few pages.
And when I was looking up the earlier quotation, I ran into a few more interesting one from this site http://ifs.massey.ac.nz/IFSandBits/May2000/no26.htm.
"Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak."
This one must be from a physicist.
"Don't you think it's unnerving that doctors call what they do "Practice?"
I never thought of this before. I do know doctors tend to approach by "trial and err".
At the same time, in Chinese, the doctors don’t call what they do “practice”.
"Did you ever notice that Evian bottled water is Naive spelled backward? think about it..."
I love this one. I always think that bottled water is only to fool people.
When I was checking out the spherical cow story, I ran into another great quotation in the book “Fear of Physics: A Guide for the Perplexed”.
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
That explain why those physicists in my field (physics education research) behave the way they do. Instead of learning about the new tool, they tend to try to fit everything into the tools they have.
One more common: quotations seem to have the tendency to self-multiply. I was looking for one, end up with more.