['“Mother’s day is coming up. If you’re looking for a present you can just pick a weight function, create a series, and name it after your mother. Of course, this is not incredibly useful in mathematical physics.”— Series and Transforms lecturer','“I don’t care about those people.”— Physics professor on electrons outside of a magnetic field ','“That’s a good guy. That’s someone everybody wants.”— Physics professor on Uranium 235 ','“You can use this at a party if the person you’re talking to is someone you’re trying to impress, or if you’re trying to get them to go away. It works in both cases.”— Analysis Professor on proving the real numbers are not countable ','“Every time I climb Mount Everest, I eat a pizza.”— Topology professor on vacuous truth','“Oh, I forgot to row reduce to echelon form. My father told me not to smoke, but I did anyway. Class is done. Please go.”— Linear Algebra Professor 20 minutes into solving a problem and realizing he made a mistake right at the start, extremely distressed ','“I remember being a kid and learning about protective duality.”— Symplectic geometry professor ','“You can do it by playing Poohsticks or using the curl operator. Whatever you prefer.”— Physics professor on rotational flow ','“e^x is God’s function. ln(x) is the Devil’s function.”— Calculus professor','“Sometimes I finished the class too early, sometimes too late. I am a statistician, so on average I was always perfectly on time.”— Statistics professor','“I’m a mathematician. When I hear someone say a pun is the lowest form of wit, I take that as a minimization problem. How low can I go?”— Discrete Math professor, about to show us a Hamiltonian graph in the shape of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s face ','“The f word of mathematics is ‘fractions’”— Math teacher','Student: We will conjure dark spirits from the other side to harm you. Math teacher: The dark spirit is already here, and it's teaching you maths and physics. ','“I’ve had 18 teeth pulled. This silence is more painful than that.”— Linear Algebra professor when the class could not answer questions about a basis ','“You might be wondering why we are doing this. It’s because it works.”— Differential Equations professor on the Laplace transform ','Student: Um, I'm confused by your notation. Is this just an abuse of notation? Algebraic Topology Professor: No. Well, not in the way you're asking. It IS an abuse of notation, just, in a different way. ','“Everything I say is based.”— Algebraic topology professor','“We’ll continue decomposing after the break. Not what I meant, but we are all slowly decomposing.”— Calculus professor on partial fraction decompositions ','“TAKE notes, don’t PASS notes, or you won’t PASS the class!”— Algebra teacher','“That is the perfect wrong answer.”— Biology teacher to a student','“Algebra is a language. It’s a very beautiful language if you can understand it - which you should be able to, because it’s way easier to learn than English and you already know that one!”— Algebra teacher','“Quick, pretend that you’re working!”— Algebra teacher upon seeing the school principal walking towards the classroom','“Uh oh! If you don’t remember those other two theorems, we’re gonna have a problem. Oh, never mind, it wasn’t that important anyway.”— Geometry teacher, on proving triangles are congruent ','“That’s very nice and not legible.”— Geometry teacher after writing a very important theorem ','“This is Fermat’s Little Theorem. In fact, I’ve been to Toulouse.”— Number theory professor','“Number theory is like bees.”— Number theory professor','“I shouldn’t digress, but I will.”— Math professor','Professor: So, what should you feel when you see the derivative of arctan(x)? Student: Fear. Professor: That will come in a later unit. ','“Never use this equation. You’ll get negative points and heart disease.”— Physics Professor ','Student: How is the Drazin inverse useful? Linear Algebra Professor: I think that’s in a book I don’t have, have never read, and have never heard of. ','“I know you all know the answer, you’re just too shy to say it. I’ll break you eventually.”— Algebraic topology lecturer','“And so the answer is 9. Or 10, for very large values of 9.”— Astrophysics professor ','“It’s a bit like the Hotel California.”— General relativity professor, discussing black holes','“I really wish I could fail anyone who can’t properly state the definition of a graph on the final exam, but sadly the department won’t let me.”— Graph theory professor on the first day of class','Student: Did he just throw an ice pick in the air? Professor: No. A gardening pick. You can’t teach dynamics without throwing things in the air. ','“Let’s take a 15 minute break. I have to go check on my children, I do not trust them.”— Ergodic theory professor during an online lecture ','“There’s nothing interesting here except careful bookkeeping.”— Linear algebra professor','“What do you think? Should we leave this up to freak out my algebra kids next period?”— Calculus teacher, with a particularly long chain rule problem on the board','“Look, I’m not asking you to be Gauss on the exam, okay?”— Math professor','“No amount of French mathematicians can save us now.”— Physics professor','“Do not frustrate me.”— Calculus professor','“Some of you were concerned I sound out of breath at the blackboard. I’m fit, I promise, I cycle to work every day! It’s just the math takes my breath away.”— Linear algebra professor, discussing the results of the recent feedback survey ','“Real numbers only. Calculus is gross with complex numbers.”— Differential Equations professor ','“There’s a lot of killing going on in these finite-dimensional vector spaces.”— Algebraic Geometry lecturer','“I haven’t heard from John today. It would be nice to confirm that there’s actually a human behind his account, rather than just a Russian bot.”— Math teacher running an online lesson ','“What’s homology, and what’s with the co and the ho and the whatnot?”— Algebraic topology professor','“You can never sample size your way out of philosophical issues.”— Probability Professor','“I am completely aware that every single book has infinitely many mistakes. Why? Because whenever you read it again you are going to find one more mistake that you couldn’t last time. Hence, there are infinitely many of them.”— Real Analysis professor the forward to his book ','“I made my handwriting small and illegible. You’re welcome.”— Cryptography Professor','“If you don’t like swearing, I’m sure ‘statistics’ is getting to be as close to a swear word as anything.”— Stats lecturer, using an experiment on how swearing affects pain tolerance to explain paired comparisons','Analysis Professor: Most of these proofs may seem "obvious” to you; and you’re right, they are… Student: But? Analysis Professor: There’s no but. That was the end of sentence. ','“So it’s squozen between a series that converges and a series that diverges? That’s not much of a squoze.”— Calculus professor who likes to say “squozen” instead of “squeezed”','“If it were up to me, I’d have the real numbers abolished.”— Algebra Professor','“You are supposed to remember this. At night, someone kicks you out of bed and asks you to write down the Navier Stokes equations? You take your pen, your write it out and go back to bed again.”— Fluid dynamics lecturer, Imperial College London','“While they’re pure and beautiful and good for your souls, we won’t be asking you to reproduce these proofs in an exam.”— Linear Algebra professor on determinant proofs','“If you want to, you can hold hands with the person next to you.”— Calculus professor on the chain rule','Calculus Professor: Now, if you saw this on a test, what would you do? Student: Cry? Calculus Professor: No, try. Student: Try not to cry? ','“This is water, right? It’s also Mickey Mouse.”— Fluid Dynamics professor','“Now, you must be careful that you don’t get an index clash. Ooh, Index Clash sounds like it could be the name of a University Maths Pop group.”— Mathematical Physics Professor ','“Quantum Mechanics is like going into a bathroom and approaching frosted glass. You can sort of see someone showering on the other side but the features are not quite there.”— Mathematical Physics Professor','“The goal of mathematics is to do as little as possible.”— Algebra professor','“You can use this type of iteration for any set. Finite set. Well, I GUESS you could do it with an infinite set, but… you might be here for a while.”— Discrete Math Professor','“Wear a helmet. Get a flu shot. Call your mother.”— UC Davis statistics lecturer','“Please note, this exclamation mark is not a factorial. It’s just this result is… WOW! It’s exciting!”— Real Analysis professor','“Now we’re gonna do some sorta-mathematics.”— Analysis professor','“To do well in this course, you’re going to need to get dirty. By the end of the term I want you to be playing in the mud like pigs.”— Probability Lecturer','“Oh, no, I’m almost done with my notes, and we still have 7 minutes before class ends. 7 whole minutes! I better type slowly.”— Computer science professor','“It’s time we abandon this archaic crapfest known as the degree system.”— Abstract Algebra professor, after a student answered a question in degrees ','“Savor this moment: you were right and I was wrong.”— Abstract algebra teacher','“Have I told you the golden rule yet? No? Whenever you think about using the existential quantifier, use the universal one. That’s the correct answer.”— Calculus professor','“Ask questions. Piss people off. “I don’t know what you’re fucking talking about.” That’s your job.”— Calculus Professor, after asking if anyone had any questions and no one raised their hand','“So, how do we find these Gaussian Quadrature points? Three choices: a) I don’t know, b) I don’t care, or c) black magic?”— Numerical Analysis professor','“If you run out of options and you can’t find a solution, then change the problem.”— Calculus professor','“Newton would be proud of you, trust me.”— Numerical Analysis professor.','“Today we’ll be dealing with homogeneous constant coefficient second order linear differential equations, or as I prefer to call them, equations.”— Differential Equations professor, Lancaster University','“Everything in math is made up.”— Probability Professor','“If you move this equation into complex numbers, it becomes infinitely easier. Unfortunately, physics is a real science, meaning the problem is getting back to the real numbers and not getting trapped in the complex void.”— Physics teacher, on complex impedance','“Here’s where you nod and say, “yes I understand”, but I can tell you’re all dead inside.”— Calculus Professor','“Math is unhuman and unnatural.”— Measure theory professor','“Math isn’t discrete.”— Discrete Math Professor','“I’m sorry, I don’t know who let the goat in. We don’t want the slope of a goat.”— Calculus professor','“Never underestimate the power of drawing a potato.”— Algebraic geometry professor','“Then you put this stuff into that stuff. That’s a technical term. ‘Stuff.’ Make sure you know it for the test.”— Calculus Professor','“Complex numbers are plunged into real numbers.”— Calculus professor','“Formulas belong to the world of ideas. We are in the real world, unfortunately.”— Calculus professor','“Now we meet this companion integral.”— Calculus professor','“The trouble with the formal definitions is that they are formal.”— Combinatorics Professor','“Spaghettification is fatal.”— General Relativity Lecturer','“The greatest common factor is like your shadow, it follows you everywhere.”— High School math teacher talking about factoring and “slide and divide”','“If you want 100% on the midterm play close attention and practice this a lot. If you’re good with a 95%, feel free to zone out for the next 10 minutes.”— Calculus Professor','“Imaginary friends come in pairs.”— Circuit Theory TA on complex repeated roots','“Wait, what’s this trig identity, again? I don’t have to remember this stuff, you all do.”— Calculus professor','“Look at that, I’m even writing the theorem in four colors.”— Graph Theory Professor, while writing the Four Color Theorem on the board','“It’s a common bug in object-oriented programming…so I guess you could call it an “OOP-oops”!”— Computer science professor','“This technique [vertex matrices] might be useful if, for example, you wanted to set up Ryanair. Although, that might not be necessary as… it seems to have already been done.”— Linear algebra professor','“If any of you get this question wrong on the test, I will paper cut you. In the neck. With your own test.”— Calculus professor','“Irrelevant operators are more relevant than relevant operators, sometimes.”— Particle Physics Professor','“Ok, I’m going to get really technical here for a moment: once we get a basis of eigenvectors, AMAZING THINGS HAPPEN. Oh, I feel like Santa Claus when I say that!”— Linear algebra professor','“A student, from time to time, will do this wrong on the exam. Don’t be that student.”— Calculus professor','“Most things have some kind of name, I think.”— High School Math teacher','“One is WAY more than zero.”— High School Algebra teacher, before spending the next 45 minutes convincing the students that 1 is greater than 0.','“Look out past Mars and that son-of-a-gun is going 800 miles per hour!”— Physics Teacher on impulse propulsion ','“A complex scalar field is just like a bunch of Saints. Their height is the modulus and the halos are their phases, which can rotate, thus having one degree of freedom. But there also exist the SuperSaints, whose halos are instead spheres, with two degrees of freedom.”— Classical electrodynamics professor','“Obviously you can’t write out every element of an infinite set, unless you write in such a way that writing the first element takes 1 minute, the second takes 30 seconds and so on. That way, you’re all done in 2 minutes!”— Introduction to University Maths lecturer','Student: What's the use of these things in real life? Abstract Algebra Professor: If you are asking that question, then you are in the wrong field. ','“The first exercise is trivial, the second one is a classic, the third one is very simple. The next 20 exercises are very easy. Ok, next sheet!”— Math Professor','Student: So this part won’t be on the quiz? Statistics Professor: Right. So you can leave. ','“If you have lived a good life, you will have a differential equation of this form.”— Classical Mechanics professor on linear homogeneous equations ','“Both of these lines go to infinity. The second one is just a little bit longer.”— Optics teacher on interference','“Are you entitled to concocting universes? Yes of course!”— Logic Professor','“You shouldn’t worry about your final exam. And you know what? You can bring in anything that will help you relax. Coffee? Bring in coffee! Cookies? I can bring in cookies for you! But don’t bring in alcohol. You cannot do statistics drunk. I can bring in my celery too.”— Inferential statistics professor','“It sucks that we’re ending this semester with a lemma. Scratch that, we’re calling it a theorem. We deserve it.”— Mathematical Logic professor','“Gain is a unitless quantity. I’m gonna say it again. Gain is a unitless quantity. I can hear my voice echoing off of the back of the classroom. I know half of you are gonna miss this on the final, but the gain is a unitless quantity. Unitless.”— Cyber Security II Instructor','“And between the first and the second theory there’s a third theory, but who cares about the third theory.”— Math Professor','“What’s the derivative of displacement dinosaur? Velociraptor!”— Calculus professor','“Look, an isolated point!”— Real Analysis professor, pointing at a student with no classmates in adjacent desks ','“We’ve done this so many times I should know what this is, but I don’t. But you should.”— Calculus professor, on the integral of sine squared.','“Sorry, I’m not very good at arithmetic.”— Calculus professor','“’/’ doesn’t mean division, here! But… Let’s pretend it does: we’d have K[x]/(x)R. So? R/I is isomorphic to K.”— Abstract Algebra professor on quotient rings','“-8 is equivalent to 7.”— High School Discrete Mathematics teacher explaining modular arithmetic (mod 5) while confused counselors look on.','“If you get bored next week and long for mathematical enlightenment, try reading through the first chapter of the text!”— Real Analysis Professor','“Someday you will be glad you saw this. Not soon, but someday. It will be fifty years from now and you will be like, yes, I suffered for fifty years but it is all worth it now.”— Abstract Algebra professor, on Sylow Theorems','“Lagrange Multipliers to the rescue!”— Classical Mechanics professor','“Why must it be true that n-1 cannot divide n?…Thanks for coming everyone. See you on Wednesday!”— Number Theory Professor ending class in the middle of a proof','“There’s a plug back here and you can plug it into this thing called ‘The Internet.’”— Calculus teacher talking about his Ti-92','“This is why I don’t take off points for calculation errors! I don’t even deserve to.”— Linear algebra professor, after completely botching a row reduction','“For small numbers like 3 and 4 we can just beat the problem into submission.”— Introduction to Mathematical Reasoning professor, on proofs modulo 3 or 4','“No, that’s not a snake, it’s the integral symbol.”— Calculus Professor ','“I totally just screwed the pooch on that one. Wait… Did I say that out loud? I thought it, but I shouldn’t have said it.”— AP Calculus Teacher','“I gave up long ago trying to picture these things; it’s very dangerous to do so.”— Physics professor, on trying to visualize 3D curved space','“Well this worked earlier… Let’s stop class here and just look at it tomorrow.”— Multivariable Calculus professor ','“If you ask your Calculus professor, they’ll do what I did and tell you that rules are for children.”— Physics professor, justifying an avoidance of L'Hôspital’s Rule','“Leave it ugly because I told you to.”— Statistics professor','“Let’s not turn this into a lecture on quantum mechanics.”— Physics professor talking about springs ','Student: What class should I take next semester? Computer Science Professor: Well, that really depends on your arguments and parameters. ','“You’re asking me what this long ’S’ means?”— Astrophysics professor using integrals at a high school “Astronomy School” seminar','“And so we just have to evaluate the antiderivative. Now, you better help me out here, because this is where I usually mess up!”— Probability and Statistics professor','“Things are about to get reeeaaaal interesting.”— Calculus professor, on vector field surface integrals','“That’s, uh…that’s not the answer I got in this morning’s lecture.”— Linear algebra professor, doing an example on the board','“Because we’re theorists, let’s set hbar = c = pi = 1 = -1 = 2. That should work fine.”— Particle Physics Professor','“…I guess you all better go.”— Intro to Functions professor after realizing she made a mistake in the very first step of the problem after finding a strange answer','“And now, let’s move over to the negative side of the force.”— Math teacher, drawing the left side of a graph','“See, when you see your cat sitting on the sofa in the morning, and when you come home in the evening, your cat is sitting somewhere else, this movement can be expressed by a rotation. Though this example maybe isn’t that great since cats are objects that have the ability to move on their own.”— Geometry Professor','“The term monad stems from Category Theory, which is a branch of mathematics. There are people who study this subject full time. Often times they are pretty weird.”— Functional Programming Professor','“Category Theory throws the middle finger at all other branches of pure mathematics… Oops. Don’t tell your other professors I said that.”— Category Theory professor','“We must keep things in the complex domain, because things are much simpler in this domain.”— Control Systems Analysis Professor','“You do this between elementary and middle school. But it seems that you skipped this part of your life.”— Statistics Professor','“It is out of our hands, we cannot slow down the Earth.”— Classical mechanics lecturer on intertial frames of reference ','“Oh dear, what have I done here… My god…”— Math Professor','“You can prove this, but it does require some analysis.”— Analysis Professor','“The non-homogeneous case is very… painful. So please be ready for that.”— Differential Equations Professor',' [Description: A picture of a blackboard, with “Theorem” and “Proof” written in quotation marks.]','“Now all people might be equal, but not all functions are equal!”— Calculus Professor','“If your answer to one of my exam questions is not either 1, 0, pi, e, or 42, you did something wrong.”— Analysis professor','“Now it might look like we haven’t done anything here, but in math naming things can have power. It’s kind of like that book by Patrick Rothfuss…”— Discrete Math professor after beginning a proof “let the four integers be p1, p2, p2, and p4”','“Up to sets of measure zero, nothing matters anyway.”— Measure Theory professor','“The best part of this course is comparing μ and μ2. They’re my favourite Pokémon.”— Statistics Professor, introducing hypothesis testing for two means ','“Simple arithmetic is below us!”— Calculus professor','“Now, you can actually say it CAN happen to ANYONE!”— Calculus professor, after messing up the normal vector of a plane','Student: How do you know all this? Pre-Calculus Teacher: Because I’m all smart and stuff. ','“Holy Shit! It’s the Taylor Series!”— Complex Analysis Professor on taking a Laurent expansion','“Yesterday I heard an awful thing. I mentioned change of bases and you all groaned.”— Differential Equations Professor, right before spending an hour on change of bases','“I have three minutes left. I can say something!”— Abstract Algebra Professor','“A finite group is a group that is finite.”— Abstract Algebra Professor','“Come on! Be nerdier!”— Precalculus professor, when no one was interested in his proof','“There are few words you can say that are worse than ‘I can’t ’ and ‘why should I’, especially before you even try.”— High School Algebra Teacher','“It doesn’t look like a great circle. It only looks like an alright circle.”— History of Mathematics Professor','“Rabbits aren’t immortal.”— Mathematical modelling lecturer','Student: I’ve heard the best way to visualize 14 dimensional space is to think of a three dimensional space, close your eyes, and yell, “14!” Topology Professor: This is how I do it! *draws a 2-dimensional plane, labels one axis R^13 and the other R* ','“Now, lets see if I can pass my own course…”— Quantum physics lecturer who left the solutions to that week’s problems at home','“You can review all these logic theorems at home. Sorry. You’re already at home.”— VHDL Professor','“Hey Sean, you cool sexy dude, what goes on in a Hilbert space?”— Linear Algebra Professor named Sean, before he describes what goes on in a Hilbert space','“At least the order of magnitude of the order of magnitude is correct.”— Statistical Physics professor','“Ignore everything! Oh wait, you already know how to do that because you’re doing it right now!”— Geometry teacher','“This theorem isn’t very impressive so I don’t really like it. In fact, its just the Fundamental Theorem in Disguise.”— Calculus professor','“Yeah you’re supposed to do it that way, but let’s do it this way - for the lols!”— Maths high school teacher','“Think, try, don’t suck.”— Calculus Professor','“I am subtlety telling you this is very important.”— Proof-writing professor','“You’re gonna wanna burn this into your soul.”— Linear Algebra professor on the invertible matrix theorem','“The textbook calls this variable…I don’t even know what it’s called. I call it squiggle. Maybe it’s eta? Xi?”— Classical Mechanics professor ','“Sorry, this part of the problem is actually wrong. I got a little too excited by the zeros earlier.”— Calculus professor','“I’m going to suffer because I’ve got to do some exponentials.”— Fields and Waves professor','“We’re going to leave up the inverse function theorem because we’re going to need it.”— Differentiable Manifolds professor who then immediately erased the theorem','“Isn’t this theorem magical…*gasps* IT’S MATHAMAGICAL!”— Calculus teacher','“Some people don’t like using u and v more than once, but I believe in recycling.”— Calculus Professor on Integration by Parts','“This is why you don’t do drugs, kids.”— Calc II professor who, after 20 minutes of flawless algebra and integration, royally screwed up simple addition','“You call yourself a math major? Get out of my classroom!”— Math professor to student who has never heard of Doctor Who','Math teacher: Factoring is like an******. It has many layers. Students: Math teacher: Come on, did no one get that wheel reference? ','“You can’t prove the Pythagorean Theorem USING the Pythagorean Theorem!”— Honors Geometry Teacher','“Geez, I forgot the negative again! I’d get like, a B on my own exam.”— Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics professor','“Factoring is like an******. It has many layers.”— Math teacher','“But we don’t talk about polynomials higher than degree three in public. It’s considered rude. Some people might not know what quartic, quintic and sextic mean and they might be embarrassed.”— Mathematical Structures lecturer','“Basically, a molten planet is a lot like salad dressing.”— Astrophysics professor, UMN.','“Okay, I’m not going to finish that question because the rest of it is boring.”— Linear Algebra Professor','“The Clockblock Problem”— Actual title of a problem in the AMC 2015 contest. When you’re skimming questions fast, it, uh…reads something else. Source: artofproblemsolving.com ','“Maybe we want to say ‘Foo!’ because it’s almost Halloween!”— C++ Professor','“Oh, P3 would be interesting here. But we’re not allowed to think about P3.”— Dissertation supervisor on homogeneous structures ','“I brought a group today!”— Algebra professor, holding up a Rubik’s cube ','“I’ll go metric when they pry my ruler from my cold, twelve-fingered hands.”— University of Michigan math professor ','“…so yes, in this class 1 + 1 = 4.”— General Relativity professor ','“There are only two types of Mathematics: Category Theory and Physics.”— Category Theory professor ','“This is why you get the big bucks to be the differential geometer in the department. Nobody else has to write this set of equations.”— Differential geometry professor after laboriously filling the blackboard with Christoffel symbols ','“I had an assistant who bet on it with friends. He had free beer all the summer.”— Discrete math professor on winning Nim with math','“I’m not going to give homework on this section because it’s just a sideshow.”— Abstract Algebra Professor on Equivalence Relations','“Now it’s time for vector differentiation’s ugly drunk uncle: integration.”— Electromagnetic Theory professor','Professor: If you raise a kitten in a stroboscopic environment - disco kitty! – it never learns how to see the trajectory of an object. Student: I don’t think it will learn how to do anything. Professor: It learns to dance! ','“We’re going to take the constants outside of the integral because they’re boring.”— Fields and Waves professor','“So there we were, in Sweden, in the middle of the night, in a forest waiting for a moose. We waited for hours and then I turned to my friend and asked: does this follow a Poisson distribution?”— Statistics professor','“Once (-1/5)=1 starts looking reasonable to you, it’s the first sign you’ve gone insane.”— Elementary Number Theory professor on the Legendre Symbol ','“The graph looks just like a Pringle. After class you should buy some Pringles. Observe it then eat it to understand.”— Calculus professor on hyperbolic paraboloids ','“You want to see me suffer? Because this is suffering.”— Algebra professor doing the Extended Euclidean algorithm on a polynomial ring','“We are all torsion elements in the ring of life.”— Abstract Algebra professor','“Let’s assume it’s trivial that it’s trivial.”— Statistics professor','“We’re not going for easy; we’re going for efficient.”— Calculus Professor','“And so the Bayesian camp ‘casts shade,’ as the kids say these days, at the Frequentists.”— Biometry prof (via callstheadventurescience)','“I’m a mathematician, not an englishatician!”— Calculus Professor, after misspelling a theorem name 3 times (via scienceprofessorquotes)','“Oh dear, what have I done here… my god…”— Math professor','“Learn math so that when the regime comes, you will survive because you have a useful skill.”— Math history professor','“I’m going to do E dot ds and I’m going to be very disappointed.”— Fields and Waves professor','“Your faces look just like mine did when I first took Analysis and was introduced to the epsilon. They said “do you understand?”, of course I said yes…. I was LYING.”— Analysis 1 lecturer (via dethroned-uncrowned)','“sketchy proof is sketchy sketch”— Analysis professor, with a straight face. (via clarinetphello)','“We’re going to take a break, so y'all can rest your brain cell.”— High school math teacher ','“Remember when you learnt about differential forms in your childhood?”— Differential geometry professor while discussing the Poincaré Lemma. ','Student: *slams hand over work* Student: Don’t judge me! Statistics Professor: I don’t know what you think my job is. ','“Maybe do 20, get a taste of Euler.”— Abstract Algebra Professor, assigning homework','“You know people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dropped out of college because they had good ideas and got people like you to build their ideas. So if you have a genius idea, you should just drop out and have your classmates build it for you. But I know you all pretty well and I don’t think any of you are a genius. You should just stay in school.”— Calculus professor','“When people found out I was a math major they were always like, ‘Oh, I bet you can calculate numbers super fast!’ I would always tell them, 'Dude, I haven’t seen numbers in years.’”— Transitions to Higher Math professor ','“I do enjoy randomness. How about I give all but two of you perfect scores, and two of you get zeros?”— Multivariable calculus teacher discussing holiday grading ','“This is kindergaten.”— Differential Equations professor on the rigor of her class','“While we are waiting for that to warm up, lets talk about supersonic ducks.”— Special relativity and waves professor','“In math you basically have smooth peanut butter and chunky peanut butter. The smooth peanut butter is calculus. The chunky peanut butter is everything else.”— Discrete math professor ','“Alright look, this class don’t want none unless you got ln’s hun!”— High school calculus teacher (She pronounces ln’s “lans”)','“I’m sorry. This is going to get really bad. That’s why I brought donuts. It’s not because I like you, it’s because this is going to be awful.”— Abstract Algebra professor, before proving Sylow’s Second Theorem without Group Actions','“Watermelons always beats road runners.”— Math professor','“The chain rule really is remarkably beautiful. I’ve never gotten a tattoo, but if I did, I can’t think of anything more beautiful to have on your body.”— Differential Calculus Professor','“This may be useful when you are out in the mathematical wild…”— Math professor','“So you take the derivative of the stuff and then multiply it by the derivative of the stuff inside the stuff.”— AP Calculus teacher on the chain rule ','“Here comes to destroy all the fun of Fermat: Euler.”— Abstract Algebra Professor','“Oh, no! Euler is correct!”— Abstract Algebra Professor','“I’m pretty damn sure all of you need help.”— Calculus professor','“So quantum computers are not magic and the idea they can see all possibilities at once and just choose the right one is bullshit, to put it politely.”— Quantum Computing professor on the limitations of quantum computers ','“Here, are you guys too warm? *pours an entire vat of liquid nitrogen on the ground* That should help.”— Thermodynamic Chemistry Professor','“What’s a segmentation fault between friends?”— C++ Professor saying it’s ok to make bugs to see what they look like for educational purposes','“A real line and a lot of S^2s, hanging off like a fruit.”— Algebraic topology professor, describing the universal covering space of S^1 v S^2','“Students often have trouble telling the difference between the trivial and the profound.”— Group theory professor ','“Division by zero: everything blows up, turns into a singularity, and everyone dies.”— Linear Algebra professor at Arizona State University ','Algebraic geometry professor: Now we’re going to talk about blowing up points in affine space. Teaching Assistant: Because of this terminology, mathematicians have been arrested at airports. ','“If I see you put Angle-Side-Side in your proof, I will kick your Angle-Side-Side. We are SAS-y, Not ASS-y!”— High school geometry teacher','“These are the kind of games theoretical physicists play. I don’t know. They do horrifying things with math.”— Calculus professor on the Ramanujan Summation ','“Now I’m going to do some integration… Let me get mentally prepared for that.”— Fields and Waves professor','“The electric potential difference is created by the little chemistry elves that live in the battery.”— Physics professor on how batteries work ','“Logarithms are, in general, painful, because they do wild things.”— Fields and Waves professor','“These are very, very special isomorphisms…They play a big role in group theory. I’m not going to say anything more about them in this course.”— Abstract Algebra professor ','“Sometimes mathematicians get punchy and describe things with everyday language.”— Functional analysis professor ','“I don’t mean to make fun of you engineers or anything. I love engineers. I have one who is my son.”— Multivariable professor to a class of 90% engineers','“What is Fick’s Second Law? Oh no! it’s a second order differential equation! I did not do well in diffEq, that class is the work of the devil.”— Mechanical Engineering Professor','“I always thought the sports team named the Oilers should have changed their name to the Eulers.”— Math history professor','“Here comes the dirty part. I don’t mean that kind of dirty. I mean literally dirty.”— Abstract algebra professor','“I won’t talk about spherical trigonometry.”— History of math professor, who then spent almost an hour talking about it.','“When doing SSA, we are very careful to put the letters in that order.”— Geometry professor','Student: If someone weighs 99 lbs and eats 1 lb. of cheese, is that person now 1% cheese? Statistics Teacher: We definitely have to take a look at this. ','“Life is constant pain and suffering.”— Math professor','“If you thought this limit is zero, you should take your pencil and stab you leg repeatedly now. Maybe that kind of pain reinforcement will help you remember that the limit isn’t zero just because these paths give us a zero.”— Calculus professor on multivariable limits','“Why? I don’t know. I mean, I know, but you don’t. You’re gonna have fun struggling to find out.”— Combinatorics professor asking students about a generating function','“These huge products cross out. Get the hell out of here!”— Calculus professor','“The vectors in your vector space could be anything. You know, sometimes a crazy professor will say, “the vectors could be anything, like animals!” But that’s not true–what about vector addition? What happens when you put two animals together? Do they fight each other? Do they eat each other? Do they get together for a little night-on-the-town?”— Linear algebra professor','“Now that we have shed the blood of this hefty integral, we can return to our cubic splines.”— Numerical analysis professor, underlining heavily in red chalk','“An engineer, a mathematical analyst, and a physicist are asked what is 2+2. The engineer types in a calculator and answers, “That is 4 with 9 zeros after the comma.” The analyst says, “It converges!” The physicist looks at you and says, “It depends the result you want.””— Physics professor','“If you were to ask me what energy is I’d just ramble like a first year philosophy student.”— Electrodynamics professor','“I’d rather teach you how to derive the law of cosines than teach my algebra students like, how to add fractions. How many ways can I explain how to do that?”— Calculus professor','“I have to erase that, it’s going to give me a rash.”— Statistics professor walking in and seeing all real numbers in interval notation with brackets on the board','“If the moon is a pickle, then Dr. C is an alien.”— Professor using herself to demonstrate the idea of implications being vacuously true.','“A remark is where you say, ‘Look at this!’, ‘Look at this!’, ‘And we get this!’”— Abstract algebra professor','“I have an example…no, wait, I have a definition, and that’s just as good.”— Abstract algebra professor','Abstract Algebra Professor: I"m going to prove this real fast. Student: Left as an exercise. ','“Here, Ferrari is a person, not a car.”— Abstract algebra professor','“This is a proof by hand-waving, because writing is long.”— Abstract algebra professor','“Zero doesn’t actually mean 0. That’s why it’s called abstract algebra.”— Abstract algebra professor','“Now we’re going to study small groups, so groups whose orders are…small.”— Abstract algebra professor','Student: *says wrong method to get the answer* Calculus Professor: *points at equation* Nope, now you’ve killed the baby. ','Math History Professor: Lots of mathematicians had nicknames. Student: What would yours be? Math History Professor: Jo-hi-ness. ','“There was some struggle with…arithmetic.”— Calculus TA','“Why do your homework, you ask? You are humans. Humans do homework. You are humans, therefore you’ll hand me your homework this Wednesday.”— Math professor','“If I get stranded in Chicago because of the virus, I leave Student X and Student Y the remainder of my peanut butter. To Student A, my one Dover book on Graph Theory. God bless, and stay safe.”— Graph Theory professor','“The interior is inside.”— Calculus professor','“And they have to be arrows. If anyone draws a line segment I’m gonna die.”— Physics teacher on drawing force diagrams','“I never like twelves. They make me sad.”— Applied math professor during a lecture on the Goldbach Conjecture','“Sometimes you fall down, but it’s ok.”— Multivariable calculus professor','“To demonstrate the concept of null probability, I’m going to stand in the back of this room and throw a piece of chalk at the bullseye I just drew on the board.”— Probability teacher on the first day of class who then proceeded to hit the bull’s-eye dead center, sending the whole room into uproar, falling on his knees and lifting his arms up in the air.','Student: How can you just do that in your head? Math Teacher: Because I’ve read the mark scheme. ','“Let’s not use matrices. They’re really annoying.”— Abstract algebra professor ','“Any other problem that will make me regret that I assigned them?”— Real analysis professor after a problem wasn’t working out quite right ','Professor: How far did you all get with building Hipparchus’ table? Students: Professor: Students: Professor: You didn’t do it. ','“The eye takes 2D Fourier transform. In fact, I see you all convolutionated with a sinc(x) right now.”— Signals and systems professor','“The three bar equals sign means that if you click on it, you’ll see the menu of the website.”— Calculus professor','“Here we will learn a standard term. The term is, in fact, “standard.””— Lecturer introducing the standard topology','Math History Professor: Who actually uses base three? Student: Baseball players. ','“Sets are not like doors.”— Real analysis professor explaining open and closed sets.','“If you try to memorize all the proofs, disaster will strike. There will be no meaning in your life.”— Abstract algebra professor','“Chess is like a glorified tic-tac-toe. Go and play Call of Duty online. That’s a real challenge, that will destroy you”— Physics professor','“70! No need to calculate the factorial of that, I’m just excited you passed!”— Written on a struggling student’s test by a calculus teacher ','“This is called an exercise because it is really boring.”— Abstract algebra professor','Student: Does the early submission of my paper count as the rough draft? Math History Professor: No. I may have lost it. ','“So now we’ve proven that * is a right inverse. [pause] Left inverse? One of the two.”— Algebraic geometry professor, discussing pullbacks','“It works for almost all notions of almost all.”— Prof. Terence Tao on his work on the Collatz conjecture at a public lecture in Basel','“At this point you should be slightly worried.”— Calculus professor','“I’m going off on a cotangent here…”— Math professor','“They say that math is not a spectator sport, but I don’t think math is a sport at all.”— Calculus teaching assistant','“I don’t want to do the math on this one, it might be scary.”— Math professor','“You know you hate a class when you’re hoping to prove the professor wrong about something important, something deep.”— Linear algebra professor','“And the answer should be ½ if there’s any justice in the world, and maybe there isn’t. But there definitely is in math.”— Calculus professor','“Yes, you’re right. This is the correct answer. However, it’s ugly and you won’t receive the full credit until you give me the prettiest answer you can achieve!”— Calculus professor after trying to hand in an assignment','“Shh, what does the fraction say? *puts ear to blackboard, now whispering* Reduce me.”— High school general math teacher','“This is a porous plug. This is a pipe. This is not a pipe. That was a joke. Some of you got it.”— Statistical Thermodynamics professor, on Joule-Thomson throttling.','“You all remember the egg, yes?”— Classical mechanics professor','“Variables are our friends and we must treat them as such.”— Thermodynamics professor','“0+0=4”— Maths professor, last year','“I have messed everything up. Consistency.”— Calculus professor','“I’m asking you to be as unethical as possible.”— Statistics Teacher','“You can actually put on a shirt before you put on underwear. You should try it, it’s legal.”— Algorithms professor explaining topological sort','“Let this variable be called gamma. Wait, no, eta. Shit, I’m running out of Greek letters!”— Differential geometry professor','“It’s about to get harder.”— Probability and Statistics Professor on the second day of class','Professor: And by continuity from below - Student: Don’t you mean continuity from above? Professor: No, I definitely mean from below. Let’s settle this with weapons. ','“Every time a student writes a vector as a scalar, a little part of me dies.”— Physics professor','“I told my son I was teaching Fourier Transforms and he got so excited. He looked up at me with his big eyes and asked if Fourier transformed into a car. I didn’t want to disappoint him, so I said yes.”— Partial Differential Equations Professor','“Differential equations are our enemies. Integral equations are our friends.”— Math professor','“Let us whet our appetites with this equation.”— Linear algebra professor on the Laplace expansion ','“I never remember what the hell the quotient rule is. If you can remember the product, rule you can do anything.”— Calculus professor','“If the house were burning and I could grab one thing, it would be the Cauchy-Schwarz Inequality.”— Linear algebra professor (originally in German)','“Stop having fun!”— Computer Science Professor','“What should we do to punish the insurance company? Yes, we should all die!”— Probability and statistics professor, joking after solving a problem of finding the amount of the insurance company’s income','“There’s two solutions for the price of one, and I like a bargain!”— Fields and wave professor on complex solutions to 2nd order differentials','“Yes, that’s right. These are De Morgan’s Laws, which we use for untying NOTs.”— Logic and Computer Design professor, explaining the NAND gate implementation of the OR gate ','“You can’t beat this word in scrabbles.”— Algebraic Geometry professor, defining a syzygy.','“If you see this problem on the midterm, smile!”— Probability and statistics professor','“The members of this topology are lonely, just like people in a society.”— Real analysis professor','“Now don’t EVER say that again or Fisher will come and pull at your legs at night while you’re sleeping”— Design of experiments Professor when someone answered a question wrong ','Professor: The universe is about 14 gigaparsecs big, but parsecs are a weird unit, I don’t understand them and I don’t even want to! Student: It’s simple, a parsec is the distance that… Professor: I said I don’t want to understand it! ','“They’re not graded?!”— Differential geometry professor, halfway through returning homework ','“Mo’ dimensions, mo’ problems.”— Calculus professor','“Not every set has an algebraic structure. Take, for example, the desks and chairs you see around.”— Differential equations professor','“Nicole, would you come flip off the class?”— Physics professor to the TA, taking about the right hand rule for vector cross products. ','“This is beyond my abilities.”— Linear algebra professor on calculating 17*6 ','“Homework is like life. If you bullshit your way through it, that’s all you’ll end up with.”— Applied Calculus Professor, Roane State Community College ','“Should I write out 2 minus 1, or can we see that it is 1? No, I better write it.”— Graph Theory Professor','“Sometimes theorems aren’t named after the people who discovered them. I suspect that this is the case with the hedgehog theorem.”— Introduction to topology professor ','“It’s like putting a tennis shoe in a blender, it just doesn’t belong!”— Real Analysis professor ','“You can use anything for functions. Here, instead of f of x, we can have smiley face of x, or helicopter of x…”— Linear algebra lecturer','“What do you think they are? Last year they said they were genetically modified ducks…"”— Combinatorics professor on the Pigeonhole Principle ','Professor: How can we put 6 pigeons in 5 holes? Student: We kill one. ','“This monkey is very intelligent and decides to calculate how much time it has left to live.”— Classical mechanics lecturer during a projectiles question ','“You want to forget everything you know, ignore your intuition.”— Linear algebra professor','“There exists one zero, but there could be more more than one zero.”— Linear algebra professor','Proof by postponement Proof: Later. q.e.d.','“So you’ll have to remember the right hand rule. Errr… Which is my right hand? Is it this one?”— Pure maths lecturer ','“It’d be terrible if determinants showed up here. We’d just drop our stuff and walk out the door. If determinants show up, we’re having a real problem.”— Multivariable calculus teacher discussing quadratic approximations','“Probability isn’t all statistics - it’s actually interesting.”— Topology professor relating unions of open sets with probability. ','“I’m always talking abut base e. We are not computer scientists, we are not humans with 10 fingers, we are mathematicians!”— Mathematical physics professor on complex logarithms ','“Unlike for mathematicians, for us engineers sometimes 100 is infinity and 0.01 is zero.”— Digital signal processing professor ','“Mathematicians have to do a lot of work so that physicists can justify the things that physicists say.”— Complex Analysis professor on the wave equation','“No one minds if I diss chemists right? Chemists are weird.”— Astrophysics professor','“One does not always teach for a classroom. One sometimes teaches for a higher power. Such as education.”— Complex Analysis professor, giving up on an integral that shouldn’t have taken THAT long','“Please don’t make me do the trig substitution.”— Calculus professor talking loudly to self','“Do you know what gaslighting is?”— Calculus teacher after modifying a lemma three times that was proven last class ','Math Professors in the ElevatorProfessor A: We’re going to prove the unsolvability of the quintic today. Professor B: Ah, yes. I couldn’t solve it; that’s how I knew it was unsolvable. ','“Leibniz and Newton created calculus, but Leibniz died penniless and sad because Newton had more clout than him.”— Calculus professor','“Partial differentiation - believe it! Think back to Mulder and Scully! I want to believe! Get in touch with your inner Fox Mulder!”— Calculus professor','“Here’s a proof for you. It won’t be satisfying, but it will be quick.”— Math professor','“I don’t know why, but I firmly believe that all prime numbers are blue.”— Group theory professor','“If this doesn’t come out to be the determinant, you are about to hear a blood-curdling scream.”— Linear algebra professor','“The universe is NOT like an******.”— Cosmology professor','“Euclid is my hero.”— Geometry teacher','“I know you don’t like proofs, because they bother you. But a little bothering is okay.”— Differential equations professor','Student: Are we really having a lecture after the midterm exam tomorrow? Calculus professor: Yes. Why? Do you want to go home and cry instead? ','“I don’t want to define tangent right now, so I guess I’ll describe it like the Supreme Court defined ****: You’ll know it when you see it.”— Calculus professor','“This problem’s making me hungry, it’s taking so much glucose from my brain.”— Differential equations professor, solving the Laplace transform of sin(t)','“If you come late to the exam and expect me to give you extra time, I will laugh.”— Engineering mechanics professor','“It’s f prime over f, our old integration friend.”— Calculus professor','Algebra Professor: You won’t like me as much if you take the next class. Student: Well, hopefully I’ll just graduate and walk away, but that’s up to you. ','“I know a lot of you in the physics department take the log of 0 and call it negative infinity. We’re in the math department here, and we do not do such horrible things.”— Statistics professor on the log likelihood function','“Honey Badger Algebra don’t give a shit which short exact sequence the long exact sequence came from!”— Algebraic topology professor','“*blares ‘I’m a Barbie girl’ as an introduction to a lab* Sorry, I just had to let chemistry know that we have more fun than them.”— Physics professor','“This is sometimes called the****** model of stellar fusion because an****** also has several spherical shells. Each of these shells has a different type of nuclear fusion going on, which is not what happens in a typical******.”— Physics professor','Professor: We're going to talk about Taylor polynomials this quarter. Student: Shit. Professor: What was that? I thought I heard yippee! ','“You can quote my footnote.”— Math advisor, not meaning to sound condescending.','“What if you had some tequila first? I can get you some, you know!”— High school calculus teacher on how to prevent panic attacks during tests','“That’s what this BS is. Take an arbitrary collection and make some BS.”— Topology professor on constructing a sub-basis','“Sometimes the best mathematical approach to finding zeros is to give up.”— Calculus professor at Harvard University','“Some of you are saying yes and some of you are saying no and what I like most is that you both sound confident.”— Calculus professor','“You wish someone nucleophilicity and nothing could go wrong”— Organic chemistry professor','Student: What happens when you multiply a matrix by its transpose? Linear algebra TA: Random shit. ','“Oh, you introduced new variables… well that’s interesting and ambitious.”— Math professor','“Your proof isn’t technically correct, but math isn’t real anyway, so who really cares?”— Logic professor','“We could use Zorn’s lemma to prove this, but that would be like taking a rhino in a dog area.”— Topology professor','“v’s have points on the bottom, u’s have round things on the bottom.”— Calculus professor','“I said PR, I wrote PQ. That’s not a good idea.”— Calculus professor','“You can use this theorem 99% of the time. How do you know if you can use it? If the function you’re working with is nice. If the function is your friend, then you can use it.”— Multivariable calculus professor, who gave no further clarification','“I don’t know how I got this, but I got this. It was just too much to bear.”— Number theory professor about an example not originally in the lecture notes that he worked out in his free time','“Physicists are a little bit like serial killers.”— Out-of context physics professor','Math Professor: Pick a number bigger than 7. Student: 43. Math Professor: That's too big. Pick another number. Student: 27? Math Professor: Oooh! I like 27! ','“Is this what I wanted to get? That’s how I got hired here - there were ten candidates, and my answer was the closest.”— Complex analysis professor after calculating an integral','“I have to erase this, so remember it.”— Abstract algebra professor','“I guess we can use t as our variable for this problem. *in an imitating voice* Look at me I’m a physics major, and I love to use time as a variable for everything!”— Math graduate student TA ','“Sometimes to get through a math problem, you have to get a little rough.”— Calculus professor, Eastern Washington University','Calculus Professor: So what do we do when we can’t solve an integral? Student: Cry. Calculus Professor: Well, that’s one option. ','“Much like a polynomial, this person is zero for all critical values.”— Math professor, concluding a political tangent','“I didn’t tell you my favorite number yet, did I? Well the answer is: it depends on the subject I’m teaching. In this class, it’s 3.”— Group theory professor','“*draws sad face* This is the face of element b_(n+1) when it realises it doesn’t exist.”— Linear algebra professor','Linear algebra professor: *finishes off problem* Student: *raises hand* Professor: What did I do wrong? ','“You wanna know why you suck at calculus? Because you suck at algebra.”— An exasperated calculus teacher','“So with these problems you have to do what’s called ‘peeling the child.’ That sounds pretty nasty doesn’t it?”— Calculus teacher in reference to integrating trig functions with powers greater than two and no “children”','“It’s just some simple algebra, you probably learned it in 5th grade or something.”— Theory of Interest professor, while writing derivatives and summations on the board','“Best wishes, here I should say for how long I wish, but because there are no good descriptors in our language, so I say to infinity.”— Logic professor','“The first step in any physics problem is to figure out what the hell is going on.”— Physics professor','“Never trust a discipline that can be summed up in a single page.”— Biology professor on chemistry','“How did you hear about trapezoids??!?”— Calculus professor','“Using Radon-Nikodym we get - well, actually it was Cauchy who did this but there are too many theorems named after Cauchy.”— Complex Analysis Proffesor','“Every score should be a nonnegative integer. DO NOT ASSIGN ANY NON-INTEGER SCORES.”— Calculus Professor, on the grading guide for other Calculus instructors and TAs.','“So the math students will hate me now, but lets use the quick and dirty method.”— Physics professor on solving differential equations the physicist way','“I would very much like to see you try.”— Maths teacher when a student proposed calculating the limit of f(x) = ln(x), as x approaches minus infinity','“You will never see inertia on any test because…I don’t understand it either.”— Multivariable calculus teacher','Professor: Do you have questions to this topic? Students: Professor: Total confusion? Students: Yes!!! Professor: Perfect! So the next topic is about… ','“You can’t do anything in this life without parametrization. Even my belly can be parametrized by spherical coordinates.”— Calculus III professor','“And that symbol there [points to the atmospheric pressure symbol] is the symbol for the illuminati”— Fluid Dynamics Professor','“Every number should be loved by somebody.”— Calculus professor','“Study my favorite vector field for the test. Let’s see which one of you can figure out which one that is first.”— Vector calculus professor ','“P3 would be interesting here, but we’re not allowed to think about P3.”— Dissertation supervisor on homogeneous structures ','“Now let’s use our definition of non-degeneracy to define non-non-degeneracy.”— Geometry Professor on perfect bilinear forms ','“So yeah… basically it’s a formula, you’ll probably be able to do it.”— Maths Professor','“You’ll be glad to know that we won’t be doing math with these things. We’ll leave that to the physicists. They don’t have morals and will do anything.”— Chemistry professor in reference to Schrödinger’s Wave Equation solutions for one electron atoms (Dr. Morris, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, General Chemistry I)','“It’s time to take our break…but I’m having fun. Aren’t you having fun? This is fun.”— Vector Calculus professor after a very complicated and exhausting Lagrange multipliers problem ','“I’ll call this function phi, making it a bit different than usual. I know that for some of you this could represent a terrible shock, but I’m confident that with a little bravery we can overcome this trauma and go on with the lecture.”— Calculus professor','“This part is just tedious derivatives, so let’s just say we outsourced this to the Calc I students and move on.”— Calc III professor','“I’m gonna make you memorize these, or you’re gonna go stress shopping online and end up at Uncommon Goods and find a little ceramic toothpick holder in the form of a little man, writhing in pain, and you’re gonna buy it and pretend it’s me.”— Calculus teacher','“I don’t answer phone calls from anyone, including my students… excluding my mother.”— Linear algebra professor after answering a phone call in the middle of lecture','“This part of the equation is ugly, so I’m gonna do the other part first and hope I get hit by an asteroid and die before I get to it.”— Calculus professor','“Most of our attempts are failures. Like artists.”— Quantum Mechanics Professor','“In this universe we have created, I am god.”— Statistical methods professor during a lecture about long run simulations','“See? Integrating a primitive is just like a derivative, but the opposite, which you all already failed last test.”— Calculus teacher','“This is not a math class.”— Statistics teacher','“No! Just don’t divide by zero. Why? Because the world will burst into flames.”— Pre-calculus teacher when a student asked why too many times','“And you’re off like a herd of turtles!”— Algebra teacher after assigning classwork','“Suffering builds character.”— Calculus professor on homework, University of Wisconsin-Madison','“Happy Halloween everyone! I’m glad we have class to day so I can show off my costume. Look I’m a hy-POT-enuse!”— Linear algebra professor while pulling a pot out of his backpack','“First you put on your shirt and then your jacket. But when you want to take off your clothes, you have to take the jacket off first. Undressing is inverse to dressing. Obviously for Superman this doesn’t apply. He puts his pants on before his underpants.”— linear algebra professor trying to explain the importance of order','“You didn’t do your homework over break? Guess who didn’t grade your shit over break either!”— Quantum Mechanics professor','“We are all creationists in this class. We create formulas out of this air.”— Calculus teacher','“Ampere’s Law just gets even greater! And by greater, I mean awful.”— Electromagnetism Professor','“Lebesgue doesn’t make sandwiches”— Measure theory professor about the Lebesgue integral','“So this is how to calculate least significant differences…but please don’t ever use it in the real world. Use Tukey’s. If you tell people that I told you to use LSD in grad school, I’ll go to jail.”— Plant breeding professor','“I have not studied calculus in over 40 years, so I’m going to look this integral up.”— Analytical mechanics professor','“I can’t integrate this! Well, I can integrate this. YOU can’t integrate this.”— Calculus professor','“The Fourier transform of a giraffe is an elephant, and the Fourier transform of an elephant is a giraffe.”— Mathematical methods professor, on Fourier transforms of box and sinc functions','“You shouldn’t be taking this long to answer the question, there are only two choices.”— Matrices Professor','“You can use the Coulomb gauge and you won’t loose any piece of your life!”— Electromagnetism professor','“Good and virtuous economists are reborn as physicists; bad and evil economists are reborn as sociologists.”— Microeconomics professor','“We are all time travelers! We travel with the speed of light to the future!”— Konstantinos Dimopoulos, Relativity professor','“Ugly is okay.”— Differential Equations Professor','“Someone was under the influence, and created a metal bar with temperature 12+3cos(4x)+7cos(42x).”— Differential equations professor','“So if you’re a mathematician, you just write ‘no solution’ and great; you’re done. But mathematicians don’t live in the real world.”— Matrices professor explaining the importance of best possible solutions','“You all look sad!”— Physics TA during a final review session','“So, to address the ultimate question as to whether light is a particle or a wave. The answer is yes.”— Modern physics professor','“What is this ‘math’ you are saying. I’ve never used this word once in my life.”— Calculus professor','“I just don’t understand how you all wrote those things down after listening to what I’ve said all semester.”— Astrophysics professor after every student failed the exam ','“Arithmetic isn’t for humans.”— Math professor','“You have a hole and you have a pile of sand next to it. If you stand in the hole and say “I’ve filled the hole,” you haven’t solved the problem.”— Organic chemistry professor on how not to do a reaction mechanism','“Rings will be commutative, except when they are not.”— Algebraic Groups lecturer','“If you know the model, you’ve got it! If you don’t know the model, you’ve got a headache.”— Calculus professor on complex volume integrals','“One time I really needed to use the restroom during class, so I told my students I would draw a line as long as this answer. I started at the other end of the chalk board and ran out of the room.”— Linear algebra professor on illustrating infinity to a previous class','“I’m surprised that so many of you missed the limits question on the test…Actually, no, I lied. I’m not surprised at all.”— Vector Calculus professor ','“I mean, you could do this with logic… like a primitive human.”— Electrical engineering prof on the merits of VHDL','“And these are the XOR and XNOR gates. The X is for Xtreme!”— Digital logic professor','“I’m not going to solve that, it looks gross, I don’t even know if it has a solution. So why did I put it on the board? Because I’m going to guess.”— Real analysis professor','“I am exponentially many cats, never mind. Something happens. I don’t see it, so I poke it and now the cat is dead.”— Computability and Complexity professor explaining quantum computing','“We’re gonna be using our right hands a lot in this course.”— Cambridge rotational mechanics lecturer','“Oh, looks like we lost someone. Yet another unsatisfied customer.”— Math professor, after a student walked out of the lecture','“A summary of physics: Use physics principles to derive equations that regulate the behavior of a system. The equations are too complicated! Approximate the equations using Taylor polynomials. Profit.”— Physics professor','“Gauss discovered the pairwise addition trick to spite his teacher. And now we call him the Prince of Mathematicians. Sometimes being a little shit pays off.”— Theory of Interest professor, Clemson University','“That’s me.”— High school math teacher, pointing to a picture of an ancient mathematician. ','“Let’s kill the number 6!”— Abstract algebra professor introducing rings ','“You folks are the reason I drink at night. Well, you and number theory.”— Math professor','“Roses are red, violets are blue, omae wa mou shindeiru.”— Math professor while handing out test papers. (Translation: You are already dead.)','“In this class, we’ll be happy if we get R-squared values of over 0.98. But if you’re a sociology researcher, you’d be jumping for joy if you got an R-squared that was greater than 0.5.”— Statistics teacher','Calculus teacher: Think of real analysis like doing calculus the way you did geometry. Student: What does that mean? Teacher: Proofs. Class: *groans* ','“I don’t want you to get the impression that we’re being lazy about things. I want you to think we’re being sophisticated.”— Partial differential equations professor','“This is a reasonable abuse of notation.”— Number theory professor on the conjugate of a Dirichlet character ','“I just want you to know that I’m impressed with some of your creativity.”— Partial differential equations professor, on incorrect homework answers','“Fields and Galois theory is abstract algebra 3. This is abstract algebra 0.”— Linear algebra professor','“I haven’t had anyone drop yet. My PhD adviser would be disappointed in me.”— Partial differential equations professor','“How hard is this problem? Well if you went to the supermarket, the person selling broccoli could solve it. The broccoli itself could also solve it.”— Complex analysis professor','“Today…we learn karate.”— High school trigonometry teacher','“The world isn’t a rectangle. In general.”— Partial differential equations professor','“I have never heard someone use the word “urn” outside of probability classes. And considering that the only thing that anyone puts in urns is the ashes of dead people, it’s weird that we’re talking about the probability of pulling balls out of them. But I guess that’s less disturbing than asking about the probability of sticking your hand into an urn and pulling out a clump of ashes that contains grandma’s hand.”— Probability professor','“Wait, I’m confusing myself. Let’s start over.”— Logic Professor','“Student evaluations are by far the most corrupt data I deal with.”— Statistics professor','“Use your intuition to decide whether the following sets are open or closed.”— Calculus homework assignment','“You might be asking who cares about this topology. Number theorists and other sick individuals do.”— Topology professor, discussing the digital line topology ','“I kinda feel like God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and then there were Maxwell’s equations and that was it.”— Partial differential equations professor','“I once got into a Wikipedia editing war about cofactor expansions. Some people were talking shade about cofactors so I had to set the record straight.”— Linear Algebra professor ','“If I am going down, then I am taking you all with me!”— Real analysis lecturer on the first day of class','“Because we cannot get a solution, we will do the next best thing: wild approximations with no justification whatsoever.”— Quantum Physics professor, beginning a unit on multi-particle systems ','“Alternatively, you can apply the Texas pigeonhole principle. If you have n pigeons and n+1 bullets, there must be a bird with two holes.”— Additive combinatorics professor','“Some day I’ll line you all up in a row and see how many of you will die.”— Topology professor, on the subject of the black and white hats riddle','“As n gets large, the proportion of garbage goes to 0.”— Quantum computing professor','“You can just swap out this source function for the other ones with the other boundary conditions and it all still works, more or less by magic. And the higher dimensions look incredibly similar. Isn’t that nice?”— Partial differential equations teacher','“Gauss discovered the pairwise addition trick to spite his teacher. And now we call him the Prince of Mathematicians. Sometimes being a little shit pays off.”— Theory of Interest professor, Clemson University ','“3 dimensions means extra work.”— Partial Differential Equations professor','“If you ever take the inverse of a matrix and I find out, I will kill you.”— Numerical Analysis professor ','“Turns out, writing up mathematical theory is not the best preparation for a duel where you will get shot at.”— Galois theory professor ','“This is the story of the beautiful prince called Orthonormal Basis who was turned into the ugly beast called Arbitrary Basis and could only be turned back by Gram-Schmidt’s orthonormalization kiss of true love.”— Linear algebra professor, UC Berkeley','“It’s like a Kafka-esque parking lot, descending straight to hell.”— Algebraic topology professor on covering spaces','“So my spouse owns a bass guitar and it sits in a case in our flat. She is also a mathematician, so we always talk about the bass case. It is HILARIOUS.”— Linear algebra professor','“If you are really good at smoking weed, you may be able to imagine the fourth dimension.”— Linear Algebra professor','“If I stick a bunch of dollars in a vending machine and nothing comes out, it’s still a function. not a very good one though.”— Math Professor','“So we need to minus the sign of the minus sine because the derivative has a minus sign.”— Physics TA ','“Here’s big O notation. This is the way computer scientists wave their hands at crap.” - cryptography professor”— Cryptography Professor','“Why do we make so many assumptions? Because physicists are lazy!”— Quantum mechanics professor','“If you all make me really moody, I will give you a 5x5 determinant to do by hand for the final - that’s 120 terms.”— Numerical analysis professor','“R stands for rational numbers, N stands for natural numbers…. Z stands for zintegers.”— Mathematical reasoning professor ','“In math, a lot of letters is good, but in English I think we have too many. We should cut back.”— Abstract algebra professor who has trouble with spelling','“Searching YouTube for solutions is like pornography. It gets you there, but it’s not satisfying.”— Math Professor ','“And today is the perfect day to use this class as an example for this proof, because I do believe we have n students present!”— Discrete math professor ','“The author went through a detailed explanation of the proof if you’d like to read it at home. We don’t have time for all that hand-waving in class.”— Fourier Analysis Professor ','Professor: No smartphones, no smart watches, you cannot use smart-things during this test. Student: Great, I have no smart brain either. ','“You can skip the step of writing y’ as dy/dx, but then the TA will skip the step of giving you points on the exam.”— Calculus professor','“I’m going to go ahead and stop with the Settlers of Catan references. Not sure how many people I’m reaching with them.”— Calculus professor','“I intend to postpone my jury duty until I’m dead.”— Math professor','“My y-axis is beautiful, don’t judge.”— High school math teacher ','Student: What if there was a 6 there, instead of a 3? Physics Teacher: If my grandpa had had wheels, he would've been a cart. ','“It’s like you’re in the woods, and goats are everywhere. Just goats. And suddenly there’s a tiger! But you’re so used to the goats and you’ve been petting the goats, so you think the tiger is a goat and you try to pet it and it kills you.”— Algebra teacher','“Teaching something like computer science involves a lot of lying.”— C++ professor on pointers ','“I’m already as developed as I’m gonna be, so no I’m not going to the faculty development day.”— Math professor','“Am I wrong? No, I’m not wrong. Well, we’ll see if I’m wrong at the end.”— Linear algebra professor','“As you can see, Burnside’s formula is nothing more than advanced counting! I could teach this to my two-year-old, although her favorite way to count is 1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4. She’ll only count in modulo 4, which is strange since we haven’t taught her modular arithmetic yet. That’s next week’s lesson.”— Group theory professor','“Euler’s formula is the sexiest formula. I would get it as my tramp stamp.”— Calculus professor ','“Since everyone is lost, I am just going to write down the conclusion.”— Algebra professor','“As you can see modules are extremely useful in real life, real life being pure mathematics.”— Algebra professor','“And this is what I like to call proof by staring at it.”— Real analysis professor, proving something `trivial’ from probability.','“Interesting proposal! It’s completely wrong, but it’s still interesting!”— Real analysis professor','“We’re going to use the formula that we beat to death. In Tucson.”— Financial math professor','“So, what are the units on this one? Corn Units per centimeter.”— Multivariable Calculus Professor','“That is a philosophical problem with calculus. The better question is, why are you here, and why are you here with that attitude?”— Physics professor, responding to a complaint about never being offered a rigorous proof on why calculus works','“Do Fourier Integrals exist just to torment students? No, but that’s a worthy end in its own.”— Physics professor','“Ok, we’ve used m and n, p and q, s and t, i, j and k… l it is!”— Pure Mathematics Professor','“*draws a sphere on blackboard, adds fur, a head, tail and legs* “…Topologically, it’s a cat.””— Mathematics professor','“After you make the map, it’s too late to topologize.”— Calculus professor, defining manifolds','“The Witch of Agnesi. Is it Agnesi or AgNESi? Like the Lock Ness Monster? The hump is Nessy coming out of the water.”— Calculusteacher','“I don’t want to do any math!”— Differential equations professor','“Last time we did a lot of abstract nonsense. Today we are going to try and turn it into concrete nonsense.”— Algebra Professor','“We’ve come to the conclusion that I am a giraffe. Therefore, the square root of 2 is irrational.”— Pure Mathematics professor','“When doing the chain rule, ignore the inside because it’s just garbage. Don’t bother with garbage.”— Calculus professor','“Once you start taking more higher level math classes, you start to realize that it’s all the same. If you’re a lazy thinker, that’s good news. It’s why I became a doctor of mathematics and not an actually useful medical doctor, because that’s too much work.”— Group theory professor','“When I was thinking about the questions of the test, I was also deeply thinking about every one of you.”— Calculus professor, in an email sent at midnight the day of the test','“Did you learn statistics in maths? Oh, great! Finally high school maths has a real life application!”— Biology teacher, discussing ecology statistics tests.','“That makes this ‘yucky,’ which is a technical math term.”— Discrete math professor, regarding non-linear recurrence relations','“Some topologists refuse to work in non-Hausdorff topological spaces because they say it’s almost like being in the jungle.”— Topology professor','“O-s-c….i? U? Oscillating plane. ‘I’ right? Shit man, I don’t speak English.”— Math graduate assistant','“The duration of a yeet can be shown on a graph using parabolas.”— Linear algebra professor ','“Have you guys heard of Meghan Trainor’s song about vector spaces, ‘All About That Basis’?”— Linear Algebra TA','“From now on, you can only use L'Hopital’s rule twice per semester, and you’ll have to ask me first!”— High school calculus teacher','“0.999… = 1. This is the fundamental theorem of mathematics education.”— Set Theory professor ','“Concepts of calculus will serve you well in any future occupation; it is a new way for the brain to process thoughts.”— Calculus professor','“As my sophomore calculus professor used to say, ‘you couldn’t be wronger.’”— Calculus professor on his calculus professor','“First we should panic, panic is always good.”— Electromagnetics professor','“This is called a box plot, for obvious reasons.”— Statistics professor','“Remember, no mass transfer within students during the exam.”— Mass Transport professor','“Now do you want to work on the exam review problems in groups, or do you want me to do them in front of you on the board, like a trained seal?”— Life Insurance Contingency Modeling professor ','“So we have our square here…”— Topology professor, drawing a circle ','“Why are you smiling?! Stop it! It makes me nervous. Maybe I should make the problem harder. I want my students to be terrified.”— Differential Equations professor','“And now I’ll erase the scratch in this proof so you don’t know that I don’t know what I’m doing.”— Linear algebra professor','“I am never going to hold office hours in my office. The building is scary. The pipes leak. And, worst of all, it is full of other mathematicians.”— Calculus professor','“There’s just so much math that I know that you don’t even have the vocabulary for me to describe to you. It’s like … It’s like if you as students are fetuses in the womb and I’m trying to explain with post-birth life is like to you. You just can’t conceptualize that.”— Calculus instructor','Calculus Professor: Class, what happens when we distribute exponents to addition inside parentheses? Student: We go to hell. Calculus Professor: That’s right! A very special place in hell. ','“This is a Lego piece.”— Aerospace Engineering Professor, introducing a new concept','“So this process of adding up areas of rectangles under a curve is called a Riemont Sum, spelled r-i-e-m-o-n-t.”— Calculus professor','“Prog Rule”— A calculus professor’s name for the product rule, inexplicably','“Get used to thinking about it anywhere it is safe to think about it. Not while driving. I’ve solved big math problems while sitting on the toilet.”— Machine learning professor','“If you can derive the mass of the electron from first principles, that’ll guarantee you a Nobel Prize.”— Physics Professor','“Java’s coding convention is ‘screw you.’”— Data Structures professor','“This program does nothing of import and it does it forever.”— Organization and Architecture professor, on an infinite loop','“That’s catastrophic. You’re going to kill people. That’s not okay.”— Aerospace Structures Professor','“Have the common decency to put your vectors in a column.”— Linear Algebra professor','“And this follows from… Oh for fuck’s sake! It’s the identity or something.”— Linear Algebra professor','“Subscripts on subscripts, now that’s serious math!”— Abstract Algebra professor','“Topologists don’t care about size.”— Math professor at Willamette University','“It’s right– there! It was hiding! You found it. Good detective work. Probably a lot of openings in the CIA when you graduate, you should look into that.”— Calculus teacher, when a student pointed out she’d dropped the 2 while factoring','“So, for problem 1b I noticed many of you had used a lot of words for your explanations. This is not quite rigorous enough in my opinion. I wish more people would do it properly with mathematics, instead of using a lot of words. This is not economics.”— Stochastic Processes teaching assistant ','“It’s easy.”— Physics professor, on deriving Schrödinger Equation','“Let’s do this mathematically, I’ve waved my hands quite enough.”— Quantum Physics lecturer ','“In the presence of Riemann, there is no such thing as time!”— At a student looking at the clock during a lecture that went over time (originally in German) ','“This theorem looks very good. In fact, it is so good, it really should not be true.”— Galois Theory professor, describing the fact that if a finite degree field extension is the splitting field for some polynomial, then every polynomial in the ground field splits there. ','“Today we are learning about Archimedes. He was born in… a very long time ago.”— History of Mathematics professor ','“You can all do this, it’s calculus. It’s not a hard thing.”— Combinatorics Professor','“I should be teaching you about sets today, but honestly, you all know how to Google. If you have any questions on the homework, Google it.”— Discrete Structures professor, on showing the class complicated proofs instead of teaching about sets','“‘Through me the way into the suffering city, through me the way into eternal pain,’ or something to that effect.”— Complex Analysis professor, quoting Dante’s Inferno at the start of a proof. ','“You all have forgotten more math than the average American ever learns.”— Differential equations professor','“Representation theory is the only group theory there is – unless your groups are simple, and it’s useless.”— Topics in Groups professor','“Trying to learn the material during the final is generally not a good strategy, anyways.”— Dynamics professor on why the final exam is open-book open-notes ','“In life, it is impossible to go back. And since we can’t go back, what do we do? We define irreversible thermodynamical transformations.”— Physics professor','“The lion, the fox, and the ass decide to go hunting in the woods. They find a big game and the ass decides to divide it up for them. The lion gets so angry he decides to eat the ass.”— Contemporary mathematics professor','“I’m going to spend the next two periods telling you why everything you know is wrong. Don’t panic.”— Aerospace Structures Professor','“Radius-s.. Radiusise.. Radiusisusisi.. Radii?? Radiuseses? Radiuses. Yeah.”— Math professor','“I tried to start a ‘God equals math’ cult, but, uh, I didn’t find much interest.‬”— Partial differential equations professor','“Now, I can’t show you the graph for this, but I can show you the equation, and you can draw it on your wall. This should pique your interest in polar curves.”— Calculus Professor after writing a polar curve equation that generates a weed shaped graph','“Everything works so well, it’s like a Trumpism.”— Complex analysis professor on the difference between real analysis and complex analysis ','“Uhh…whatever, I’m bad at math.”— High school geometry teacher','“We cannot analyze ideas. We only analyze algorithms here.”— Numerical analysis professor on how every humanities subject apparently does impossible things','“Linear algebra is like an******. And not because it makes you cry.”— Linear algebra professor','“If your hypothesis is bogus, say whatever you want!”— Discrete Math professor on implications','“You know how to do this, don’t try to fool me. Your linear algebra teacher is my wife, I know she taught you this.”— Calculus teacher','“As mathematicians, we know one of our first rules is no math in public. We want people to think we know how to do it without having to show them we can do it.”— Partial differential equations professor','“I’m sure you all remember from your kindergarten vector calculus class…”— Calculus professor','“I don’t like fractions. You do it.”— Calculus professor','“You get the idea. Just do the stupid algebra”— Number Theory Professor','“This disturbs me, because the natural numbers shouldn’t start at one.”— MatLab professor','“I like giving you ugly problems for homework. It builds character.”— Calculus professor','“And then we use the sophisticated mathematical technique of staring to construct a matrix.”— Quantum Mechanics Professor','“I would tell you what I wrote my thesis on, but the eight people who would give a fuck aren’t in the room.”— Topology Professor','“If you’re a mathematical vegan and want to use natural logs, you can.”— Pre-Calculus Teacher','“I would only give you a really hard problem like this if I was a masochist. Wait…sadist. I meant sadist.”— Physics professor','“This is going to be a gambling problem.”— Statistics professor, giving an unfortunate example of the central limit theorem','“It does NOT look like a butt!”— Calculus professor introducing cardioid graphs','“We can’t leave an f in radical in the denominator.”— Math professor on simplifying rationals with radicals','“I know you didn’t have any calculus classes yet, but I’m sure you can see this is the derivative function. I bet you remember this from primary school.”— Linear algebra professor','“Common denominators are like socialism.”— High school math teacher','“Their agony is at least equal to yours.”— Linear Algebra professor, after hearing a student say “I just love when you push your chair back and it just screams.”','“If you divide by zero, you will go to Hell. If you don’t divide by zero, you will have a chance to not go to Hell. Don’t divide by zero. You will go to Hell.”— Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Professor','“A permutation, according to this definition, could be both even and odd. Which would be odd.”— Abstract algebra professor','“So why the fuck should we care?”— Quantum mechanics professor','Professor: So we can finally bring in Watson’s Lemma. Professor: ... Professor: Lemma entry, my dear Watson! ','“That can’t be my handwriting, it’s too neat.”— Statistics professor ,walking in and seeing algebra on the board ','“I asked my friend, ‘what made you do this?’ He said to me, 'I like taking shrooms and looking at these things.’”— Thermodynamics professor, referring to an art exhibit his friend made that made use of the refractive properties of soap bubbles ','“You’re bleeding? On the floor? Who told you you could bleed in my class? Are proofs by induction really that painful?”— Topology professor','“You’re going to multiply many matrices. At least 78.”— Linear algebra professor','“THIS IS THE BAZOOKA OF MATHEMATICS!”— Calculus professor on the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus','“We’re down in the weeds, but these are good weeds.”— Algorithms professor','“Anytime someone tells me they can’t do math, I tell them I’m illiterate. Can’t read or write a word.”— Calculus professor','“We’ll pick this up next time, and I’ll explain it again for people who didn’t understand it. For example, me.”— Graph theory professor','“If you have any questions, go to Khan Academy.”— Calculus professor','“It’s a topological circle, so it can be pretty squiggly.”— Plenary speaker at MAA section meeting ','“Six times seven is what, eighty two?”— Linear algebra professor. No one corrected him. ','“Check the board for any mistakes. I haven’t slept and I am way too bored for teaching you today.”— Real analysis professor','“In my head, physicists do nothing but measure springs.”— Group theory professor, on the application of complex numbers in differential equations ','“Pure mathematicians would not approve but this notation is so convenient we will use it anyway. It’s all part of living dangerously!”— Classical Mechanics: An Undergraduate Text, by R. Douglas Gregory ','“If you do enough math, you basically have to learn the entire Greek alphabet. On rare occasions, the Hebrew alphabet.”— Linear algebra professor','“A wiggle times a wiggle is always another wiggle.”— Differential equations professor','“I’ll try anything once. I tried dividing by zero once. Never divide by zero.”— Math professor','“Discrete spectra dominated the physics of the 19th Century. Everybody was completely confused but having a good time.”— Physics professor','Student: but in the Feynman lectures… Math Professor: Feynman was an idiot. ','“Oh, you culturally illiterate bunch! It’s a Heffalump trap!”— Quantum physics professor, on a picture from Winnie the Pooh ','“I saw that is was raining outside and thought to myself, ‘Ah, these must be the tears of my students.’”— Calculus professor, on the day of the final','“When we make a cone of a diagram, we put the morphisms on the left. Dually, in a co-cone, the morphisms go on the… co-left.”— Abstract algebra professor on category theory ','“Look at that beautiful board work. What I should have done back when I lived in New York is be a graffiti artist. I could’ve done calculus in the subway.”— Calculus professor','“This is called an imaginary number because you only deal with these in your dreams.”— Abstract algebra professor ','“How do we prove this? Well on an exam, one would have to consult the prayer and fasting department.”— Functional analysis professor on a hard proof','“In polar coordinate, one point can be represented by an infinite number of pair coordinates. Of course, normal people stick to one revolution”— Calculus professor','“So we’ve shown that r(x,y) = r(x,y), well, up to a factor of n factorial.”— Linear algebra professor using the same notation for different functions ','Calculus Professor: So what do all of you like about math? Student: I like how you don’t have to write essays. Professor: I used to be just like you, until I went to graduate school. ','“Less chatty chatty, more calculus calculus.”— Calculus professor','Student: Will you curve our marks if I cry in front of you? Calculus Professor: No, but it would be a funny as hell story to tell the students next year. ','Multivariable calculus professor: Does anybody have any questions about divergence? Student: What does it mean? Professor: Now, now. Let’s talk about curl. ','“Calculus, it’s boring and totally messy, just like life.”— Calculus professor','“Mother FUNCTION!”— Complex analysis professor','“These results should be evident. Well, the demonstration is long and complicated. But evident. Yes.”— Galois theory professor','Linear algebra professor: Do you want me to demonstrate this? Entire classroom: Screams no in utter horror Professor: Ok, I’ll do it. ','“I like to take a photo of my lecture on the first day of class and the last day of class. There are much less people smiling right before finals.”— Engineering mechanics professor','“So take this meter stick, and imagine it’s a wire – a curved wire going in a loop.”— Engineering professor','“I need to kill it or I can’t do my job.”— Calculus professor, after killing a wasp with a student’s rolled up homework ','“If you have any questions about this, don’t forget we have tutoring downstairs. Don’t hesitate to visit it. We need to keep our grad students busy somehow, or they get bored of being chained to the walls.”— Physics professor','“Interest rates are exponential, that’s why the rich are getting richer. They’re also cheating on their taxes.”— Differential equations professor','“Let’s suppose we’re Babylonians, so all we have arethe rational numbers and commutative rings.”— MSU Abstract Algebra Professor','“And this is true because infinity equals infinity. Whatever that means.”— Analysis professor','“The Laplace transform was made up by a real smart mathematician, probably Bernoulli.”— Engineering professor','“M_{i,j} is NOT pronounced ‘Midge,’ and the M stands for minor, you assholes.”— Precalculus professor','“I don’t believe in real numbers anymore.”— Linear algebra professor ','“You want to do calculus with numbers? Accounting is over there, here in math we do calculus with letters.”— Calculus professor','“Think outside the Parallelepiped.”— Math professor','“Closer and Closer, is that the real analysis musical?”— Real analysis professor','Student: Is possible for two students to have different answers to this question? Math Professor: It is definitely possible for that to happen, but one of the solutions will be wrong. ','“I’m a math teacher, please stop trying to engage me in small talk.”— Abstract algebra professor','“This approximation is a underestimation. That is okay in this case, but never let anyone underestimate you.”— Calculus professor','“When I first heard of the movie Divergent I thought an appropriate sequel would be Convergent.”— Calculus professor','“The universe only exists to simulate math, anyways.”— Physics professor','Math Professor: Does that answer your question? Student: No. Professor: Well, let’s move on anyway. ','“Is the earth a perfect sphere? No? Then assume it is.”— History of Math professor ','“Please come to this class next week. I made a bet that this wouldn’t scare off more than half of you, and I want to win that beer!”— Algebraic Topology lecturer after introducing Category Theory','“Some Taylor series, like the Taylor series for e^x and sin(x), converge to the function very rapidly. You might call them Taylor Swift series.”— Calculus professor','“I don’t know why they keep releasing new editions of the physics textbook, it’s not like physics changes very much. If physics did change that much, it would be called psychology.”— Physics professor','“I’ve always believed that a good liberal arts education should teach you two things: One, that you don’t have free will, and two, that you don’t exist. Today, I’m going to teach you why you don’t exist.”— Statistical Physics Professor','“Real numbers don’t exist.”— Automata theory professor','“If you fart in front of a source of heat, the fart will quickly spread through the whole room. That is why, if I had the power to be invisible, I would just sneak into important business meetings and fart in front of the radiator.”— Physics teacher','“Since we’re doing things that make no sense whatsoever, there is no reason to stop.”— Differential equations professor, treating dy/dx as a fraction ','“I need some coffee, because I’m about to draw something hard.”— Physics professor ','“Life is like a logistic curve.”— Calculus teacher','“We call this the angle of depression. It describes over-long trigonometry homework.”— Physics teacher','“40% of the class got this wrong last year. I was so pissed off I wrote a haiku about it.”— Hyperbolic Geometry Lecturer ','“I am not good at addition and subtraction and division.”— Differential calculus professor','“Memorizing proofs is a bad idea. Examples of this include death.”— Abstract algebra professor','“Why are people like lobsters?”— Real analysis professor (Answer: we’re always growing.)','Differential Topology TA: Did you talk about manifolds with boundary in class? Student: No. TA: Well, a manifold with a boundary is like a manifold, but with a boundary. ','Student: There are no solutions. Math Professor: No. The number of solutions equals zero. ','“Drugs are illegal and not permitted on campus. Coming to my class stoned might make it a lot more interesting but you won’t remember anything.”— Astronomy professor','“Now we use the normal FTC given to us by the calculus gods.”— Calculus professor','“Listen to the pearls of wisdom as they flow out of my mouth.”— Calculus professor','“If only all of life was as simple as the law of sines!”— Math professor','“Good idea. You wouldn’t want to get your test wet. That’s what tears are for.”— Proofs professor, seeing a student wiping water off a desk.','“I like this unit because it’s like hazing.”— Precalculus teacher, on rotating conics','“Once your x gets hit by zero, your whole series will collapse.”— Calculus professor','“If you want to see the inverse function, just go through the wall, turn around and tilt your head.”— Calculus professor','“Taylor Series are like red meat for me. Seriously. We’re friends.”— Calculus professor','“If you do it this way, it is wrong. If you do it this way on the exam, I punch you on the head.”— Engineering mechanics professor','“D is X1-X2. You want to get the D.”— Statistics professor','“Oh. I guess I’m done. I’m done with this question. But who cares? Let’s keep going!”— EWU Calculus Professor','“Now this one is rather small, but my mother always said great things come in small packages.”— Physics professor, giving a student a small calculator','“The Quotient Rule, don’t be scared, it starts with V, and ends with V squared.”— A Level Maths tutor, spoken in his jolly Irish accent, trying to get us to remember the Quotient Rule. (And it clearly worked, because it has stuck with me for the 5 years since)','“Y'know, this has nothing to do with AP Chem, BUT…”— My AP Chemistry teacher every day','“I bet if you get stoned you could watch this for hours.”— Calculus professor, regarding a gif about generating a cycloid.','“Are you an open cover? Cause U beautiful”— Metric Spaces TA, after hearing the professor say “U beautiful” instead of “calligraphic U” when talking about open covers','“Eyes on the stars but feet on the ground”— Math Professor when I told him I want to study abroad','Student: Why is it called a ring? Abstract Algebra Professor: Because there are two operations which are getting married. ','“I’m ok with making finitely many mistakes no matter how big they are.”— Probability Professor while explaining how you will get PDF which is discontinuous at finitely many points.','“I don’t know about you, but 6 personally strikes me as greater than 2.”— Quantitative methods prof','“We’ll leave that for the Numerics to figure out”— Diff. Equations professor, having got a messy looking constant value ','“And next to this white ball, we have a blue ba–I should have chosen a different colour chalk…”— Real Analysis professor','“When there are dots between the integrals, that scares me.”— Calculus of several variables professor on the subject of integration over n-dimensional spaces','“It is not unlikely that probabilists have a deck of cards in their pocket.”— Probability professor while dramatically removing a deck of cards from his pocket for a shuffling demonstration.','“L'Hôpital’s only contribution to mathematics was an example of how no one in mathematics gets credit for the theorems they create.”— Calculus II professor, beginning a 20 minute rant on this subject ','“If you screw this up, you won’t be applying to grad school. You’ll be applying to heaven, and I don’t think you could get in.”— Physics Professor','“Oh we’re struggling! I love it when we struggle!”— Geometry teacher ','“Ah, I forgot to normalise. And I lost track of a minus sign. You see, I don’t like normalisations. Or minus signs.”— Advanced vector calculus professor','“This graph is decaying faster than your GPA.”— Precalculus teacher','“It’s okay to forget some things. You’re not machines.”— Analysis professor','“I won’t show you that because I hate doing the algebra”— Algebra teacher','“I know it’s kind of gibberish-ey, but it’ll make sense eventually.”— Linear algebra professor','“Mathematicians are lazy.”— Advanced Calculus professor, on telling us to skip re-proving a theorem for our homework','“The nightmare goes on!”— Chemistry teacher, resuming things studied in the previous years','“Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Aim to make your proof impossible to be misunderstood, rather than merely possible to understand.”— Abstract algebra professor.','“When people ask you what you do in this class, it’s okay to just say ‘Really hard stuff’”— Foundations of mathematics professor, after defining the word “and”','“If you have a right triangle you’re cash money, but we don’t, so we have to use the law of cosines.”— Calculus professor','“I am not impressed by your ability to do math. Rather, I am impressed by your ability to be kind.”— Calculus III Professor, just a few days before the final exam','“You have two nervous twitches when looking at complex numbers.”— Grade 12 Math HL teacher','“It looks like one of those half-pipe water roller coasters.. what are they called again? Oh yeah, water slides.”— Calculus professor on a 3D graph','“If you finish the test at least ten minutes early, I’ll award bonus points. Be aware that I didn’t specify how many bonus points. It could equal any value, and that value could be zero.”— Differential Equations professor','“So we say this sequence is monotonic, or monotone - like my voice. And we say this sequence is bounded - unlike my enthusiasm for this course.”— Calculus professor','“Either I’m missing something obvious or this proof doesn’t work.”— Abstract algebra professor ','“As always, pay attention to what I should have written rather than what I wrote.”— Real Analysis Professor, regarding a mistake in a proof on the blackboard.','“It’s almost a natural disaster when it comes to the notation of generating ideals of rings.”— Algebra professor, when explaining the use of parentheses in ideal generation.','“Although apples and oranges are both fruits, we cannot add them together unless we make juice.”— Calculus Professor','“And Newton’s Law of Cooling can be applied to dead bodies too.”— Ordinary differential equations professor after doing a problem about coffee cooling','“You all failed the test – I don’t even know what you did wrong.”— Calculus professor ','“I don’t curve exam grades. If you all do well, fantastic. If you all fail, well… let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”— Calculus professor ','“So as you can see, you can divide by zero! You just need to do so very, very carefully.”— Complex Analysis Professor','“Some people hate Geometry. Some people hate Algebra. In this class, you’ll learn to hate both.”— Algebraic Topology TA','“I’m ok with making finitely many mistakes, no matter however big they are.”— Our Probability Professor while explaining that you can integrate PDFs even if the are discontinuous at finitely many points.','“If you want a property for 3-manifolds, check it 1 dimension lower. It’s either easy or false.”— Topology professor','“It’s called an F distribution, standing for ‘fuck, it’s another distribution.‘”— Statistics professor','“This problem is ridiculous. There’s no need to be that precise.”— Stats teacher estimating the “interestingness quotient” of the most interesting man in the world','“It’s just sexier to refer to a single electron on a single atom.”— Grumpy postdoc ','“And you can’t divide by zero, it’s in the Bible.”— Foundations of Mathematics professor','“Well, if we all lived in a dictatorship we wouldn’t have the bill of rights and I wouldn’t have to go to jury duty tomorrow. Unfortunately, we don’t, so Kevin will be teaching.”— Calculus professor','“If your wealth is logistically decreasing to 0, that’s poverty. If everyone’s wealth is logistically decreasing to 1200, that’s socialism.”— Calculus professor','“I wonder if Newtons Law of Cooling applies to a dead body.”— Calculus professor, just before going on a long explanation of the best way to kill someone as deduced from watching CSI','“Just because it’s a 64-entry group table doesn’t mean you get to complain.”— Abstract algebra professor','“I don’t know how old people do it. I’m old and I get tired so easily. Ask me what I did before this class. I napped because I ate a big breakfast.”— Axiomatic Geometry professor','“We can’t all do math like we’re in the Matrix. Have you all seen the Matrix? I bought it on VHS a couple months ago!”— Calculus Professor, lamenting about mental math','“So here we have a pendulum, but pendulums are boring, so lets make it a cat.”— Calculus lecturer ','“Do not use the ideal gas law for steam. If you do, you will turn into a pumpkin, just like in Cinderella.”— Thermodynamics professor','“Life is non-linear. We do not expect easy rules in life. There is no quotient integration rule, that is PSEUDO RULE. Write it down… life is non-linear, quotient integration rule is pseudo rule.”— Calculus professor','“The nightmare goes on!”— My math teacher, every time we have to use again some stuff we thought we could just leave behind us and never talk about again','“The chain rule is easy to remember, you just cancel those two ‘DYs.’ But you can only do that when there’s no mathematicians looking.”— Geoffrey Hinton, on the Chain Rule (from Neural Networks for Machine Learning, Coursera)','“You need to know your Unit Circle just as well as you know your name.”— PreCalc Teacher','“Tastes just like dog food. I used to eat dog food. Sometimes I still do if I don’t have time to go to the store and buy snacks.”— AP Statistics Teacher on jelly beans ','“Taylor Series are important to learn. In the coming apocalypse, when calculators don’t work, we can still do calculus!”— Calculus professor','“Integrals are something that will help you in your real life. Each time I am shopping at Wal-Mart, I have to do Integrals in order to be rung up.”— Calculus 1 Instructor','“And this is a 45-45-90 triangle. Gosh, I hate using degrees.”— Calc I professor','“And speaking of Pythagoras – he was a vegetarian, but he didn’t eat beans. That is really strange.”— History of Mathematics Lecturer','“If you’ve seen The Matrix, you’ll understand binary.”— Numerical analysis professor','“I’m here. I’m infinitely close to you. I’m sorry.”— Topology professor explaining set density',' I love you, mathprofessorquotes. Please come back. Anonymous I am sorry for abandoning you. #phdcandidatelife is hard. I am back <3 ','“Just like students, currents always choose the path of least resistance.”— Basics of Electrical Engineering professor','“Even though there are thousands of volts going around this guy, he seems to be perfectly fine - except for maybe his terrible fashion sense.”— Physics professor, on this picture:','“It couldn’t be a *better* integral; they’re all good. They all deserve a trophy!”— Calculus Professor','“Marcus loves magnolia paint, OK? Don’t judge him!”— Whilst discussing the cost of paint “these days”','“I get that you physics majors don’t have time for anything. It’s all Dr. K’s fault.”— Differential Equations Professor, after berating the class for not spending enough time on the homework','“As long as we are engaged in this orgy of unnecessary terminology and notation…”— David J. Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics 4th Ed., pg. 186','“This isn’t a real math class so we’re not gonna prove anything.”— Differential Equations Professor','“Look, there’s the zero function. It’s pretty flat. Just like North Dakota.”— Differential Equations Professor','“Never listen to anything your math teacher tells you.”— Differential Equations Professor','“In sequences, you care about the future, not about the past. Like life. Actually in life you need to understand the past. Well I dunno, never mind.”— Calculus professor','“If you can find the proof, you’ll get a 4.0, publish something, and get a job.”— Foundations of Mathematics Professor on conjectures','“Matrices are Roman Catholic.”— Linear Algebra Professor on distinguishing between rows and columns','“You want to be a math teacher? You’re not disturbed that most people hate math?”— Foundations of Mathematics Professor','“You can Google this thing, but I don’t know what it’s called.”— Foundations of Mathematics Professor describing Collatz Conjecture','“Say we are drawing three balls from a bag with ten blue balls and four red balls. How many ways can… What, you’re asking if the red balls are identical? But they’re not, see? I can bounce them one by one off of your face.”— Intro to Proofs professor','“I’m excited for this lesson. It’s a little nerdy, but so are you all, so it works out.”— Chemistry teacher','“Powers is like super super multiplication!”— Physics professor','“Now if you understand how to use a Power series, you can approximate almost anything. You just need patience and good arithmetic skills. I’m hoping you all have at least one of those.”— Calculus professor to a room of engineering students','“I know at least 3 of you in this room want to punch me right now. I don’t know who, but I can feel it.”— Multivariable calculus professor when introducing triple integrals in spherical coordinates for the first time','“This is not cheating, this is math. Math is tricks not cheating.”— Integral Calculus TA','“If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck….then it’s a Taylor polynomial, as 99% of the population knows”— Honors Calculus Professor','“Be patient. Computers, much like people, do not like being told what to do.”— Calculus professor while trying to help a student use a calculator','“I’m afraid I have to postpone this proof. My notes have betrayed me.”— Vector calculus professor','“We now feel emboldened to try to do the nonlinear pendulum equation!”— Lecture Notes','“Your calculator is trying to become Skynet. Smash it with a hammer.”— Statistics professor','“There’s no such thing as a brine factory. No one makes saltwater. There’s plenty of saltwater in the ocean; actually, we try and remove the salt from the water. So no salt tank problems here. They’re just absurd.”— Differential Equations Professor','“I’ve never had a piece of furniture collapse under the weight of an integral before.”— Applied Fourier Analysis professor after a desk broke mid-lecture','“I’ll give you a more precise definition, which we’ll never use again. But it’s nice to know it’s there.”— Professor in introduction to proofs','“That’s the good thing about being hit by a car. Scientifically speaking, it does ‘work’.”— Physics professor on Translational Kinetic Energy','“The root test is the ratio test’s ugly cousin.”— Calculus professor','“If you can’t remember this formula, set it as your wifi password.”— Linear Algebra Professor','“No magic. Just calculus.”— Differential equations lecturer','“Too much.”— Further maths TA, mumbling after trying to fit all statistics curriculum into three days worth of classes','“And now we will set out to lay the cherry on top of this big creamy cake….of maths.”— Topologist giving Real Analysis lecture','“…anyways, let ε = 1728.”— Calculus professor','“And then you want to take that power series out as far as you can without dying”— Physics professor','“*sirens sound from across the street* Oop- looks like somebody decided by zero again"”— Calculus Professor','“Ambiguity is a pain in the ass.”— Math professor','“Engineering is over there.”— Algebra professor, after a student messed up some very easy multiplication.','“If you can’t find the smallest one you can find, then find the smallest one you CAN find.”— Colloquium on rational squares','“What is energy? I don’t know, but it’s conserved.”— Thermodynamics professor','“In math, there is one rule: there is no rule.”— Calculus teacher','“I’m supposed to know what I’m doing, I’m your teacher!”— Precalculus professor, not understanding what she did wrong','“And since all of you, other than the one junior in the class, have taken Algebra II and Trigonometry, you should know where the sin button is.”— Physics teacher','“I’m a math teacher, not an artist.”— Geometry teacher, after drawing a triangle that was definitely not to scale.','“So what we do when calculating integrals from a to infinity is we take a look forward, we take a look into the abyss, and then we decide, no. We don’t want to deal with that.”— Calculus professor','“This is l factorial, or another way to pronounce it: (shouts) L!”— Quantum mechanics prof, on defining the Legendre polynomial','“‘Now the Mohs Scale is not very accurate at all, it’s mainly used by geologists, and geology isn’t really science, but you need to know that this scale exists … crap, are there any geologists here?’”— Solids Professor','“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to learn rockets on your own. It’s on the syllabus, but I hate that topic - those of you who came to see me in afterclass know my strong opinion on rockets”— Physics professor','“Don’t be afraid to mess around with models.”— Mechanics Professor','“The second you start to trust your instincts, you will fail this test. Just do the opposite of whatever is intuitive, basically.”— Physics I professor before Newton’s second law test','“A lot of mathematics is selective forgetfulness.”— University of Denver Multivariable Calculus Professor','“You have three times as many fingers as you have hands!”— Physics teacher who was actually talking about Iron Chloride.','“The object goes down the slide or as you call it here a “slippery dip”…”— Physics lecturer','“It’s math magic!”— Calculus teacher','“And pi cancels with four…”— Astrophysics Professor','“Nobody’s saying anything, but I know in their hearts, they’re saying ‘yes, let’s integrate this.’”— Calculus Professor','“I might have to go home. Sit under a tree.”— Calculus Professor, in reaction to a student mentioning Riemann Sums','“I don’t know, I can’t do math.”— Calculus Professor after making several arithmetic mistakes','“Get excited! Remember polar coordinates? Well now we get to do double integrals with them! Yeah! Why do none of you look excited?”— Calculus professor','“I don’t understand physicists’ obsession with hanging balls.”— Biology professor on pendulums','“We want to get u out of the problem and therefore our lives. No offense or anything.”— Calculus teacher, on u-sub','“This class is not about calculus.”— Advanced calculus teacher','“You can choose an arbitrary interval if you don’t want to use black magic such as the axiom of choice.”— Complex analysis professor','“So hang on: the next two pages are rough going… but the answer is worth the effort.”— David J. Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics','“Those bubbles are big. Kind of like chunky bubbles.”— Aerospace Engineering Professor','“I promise I can do math.”— Calculus TA','“This is why you don’t make up problems on the fly, then you end up needing to use integration by parts and everything gets ugly.”— Physics professor after 10 minutes on an example problem he thought would be simple','“Did you just say “two” for the answer? Bless your heart.”— Calculus professor doing addition','“Yes, that’s right, I am a wizard.”— Physics professor after doing the bicycle wheel gyroscope demonstration','“Argh, I always jump in centuries!”— Professor, trying to cover wave diffraction historically','“See everyone, I showed you how to get pi, and now I just showed you how to get e! (lowered voice) …not that kind of e.”— Calculus professor','“You know, I’d give you a proof for the theorem, but I have only a little bit of chalk left and you didn’t even understand the theorem, so why should I waste this last piece of chalk only to confuse you even more?”— Advanced mathematics teacher','“Don’t be like the student I had last year who multiplied this by 1 over 0 and gave me a vector of infinity. At least he normalized it and got 1 over root 3. I still have no clue what he did.”— Linear algebra professor','“Chemistry is just too abstract for me. What the f**k is “mole”, for example?”— High school math teacher','“Boom! It’s like magic. It’s mathemagics!”— Calculus professor','“After that I guess they ran out of imagination, because it now continues alphabetically (g, h, I, but skip j – just to be utterly perverse, k, l, etc.)”— Griffith, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, Chapter 5.2','“…the norm of small delta, which is small because delta is small…”— Calculus professor','“Thats a good question, here is my answer: dont worry about it!”— Calculus Teacher','“If infinity is to hard to imagine, try 7, which is a very important number because it’s the number of holes your face has.”— Math professor','“Get this formula tattooed on the inside of your eyelids. It’s that important! Or I guess you could just memorize it. That works, too.”— Calculus professor','“The great thing about these proofs is that they can never be disputed. If aliens came down to Earth and showed us their proofs, they would be doing it the same way.”— Calculus professor','“Everything’s a vector when we look at it!”— My linear algebra professor','“Don’t waste your bullets! If you shoot someone, don’t shoot them again. Shoot someone else! That way you can kill everyone!”— Linear Algebra professor explaining how to determine if a linear transformation is onto.','“A Green’s function is a function that is green.”— Calculus TA','“It’s a big, nasty differential equation. But don’t worry, someone smarter than you has solved it.”— Physics professor','“It’s a curve because it’s curvy.”— High school calculus teacher trying to explain functions','“This isn’t rocket science. You just did the rocket science. Now you have to write about it.”— Physics professor','“Wait, what? How did I prove that, again?”— Professor, 2 minutes after solving a proof ','“This statement is true 100% of the time, but it’s not always true.”— Multivariable Calculus professor, discussing a probability problem','“So, uh…let’s try to…..focus on logic today.”— Calculus professor arriving to class the day after the presidential election ','“We should start using wingdings instead of Greek letters.”— Quantum mechanics professor','“Why do I bring all these notes with me? It’s so that I’m not carried away into space.”— Algorithmic professor','“That is not an N, that’s the Greek letter Eta. If you call it an N you will expose yourself as an illiterate clod.”— Thermodynamics professor','“We’re proving that GCD as in ‘our GCD’ is the same, in our meaning, as GCD as in ‘not our GCD.’”— Algebra professor','“We may have a Taylor series– may he rest in peace, the Taylor guy.”— Mechanics professor','“I like to think of Laplace Transforms as a costume party. Your jerk friend who eats all the chips is still your jerk friend who eats all the chips whether he’s wearing a Chewbacca costume or not.”— Ordinary Differential Equations professor','“Usually when I use a corkscrew, it’s not on a potato.”— Physics professor','“Y'all ready to get mathed up?”— Math Teacher','“It probably would not occur to us to say that Vladimir Putin is not in [set] P.”— Richard Hammack, Book of Proof','“♪♫ Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools ♪♫”— Calculus teacher, while explaining the chain rule','“Some infinities are bigger than others.”— Calculus professor','“It’s just Algebra!”— Calculus teacher','“Okay everyone, time to make like Frozen and let it go.”— Advanced Calculus professor, when time was up for the exam','“I will prove the triangle inequality since you are still in high school.”— Complex analysis professor','“I’m sorry, but we are running out of Greek letters, and this is the standard notation.”— Electrodynamics by Griffiths, Chapter 7','“Okay, so I’ve pressed every button I can press. Why wont it work?!”— Astrophysics professor while trying to turn the projector on.','“You’re going to need to integrate the Schrodinger equation, which shouldn’t be too hard because I know you all learned to integrate in fifth grade.”— Quantum Physics Professor UMN','“Exciting numbers, they call them. It’s not just a five, it’s a FIVE!”— EWU Calculus Professor on factorials','“In general, life is tough, and it can be awkward. We all just have to deal with it as best we can.”— Differential Equations Professor, while explaining integrating factors.','“Intuition.”— My differential equations professor, upon being asked, “How will we know which terms to combine and which terms to directly take the inverse Laplace transform of?”','“Obviously this is very unstable; if your canary’s great-grandmother sneezes in Peru, your balanced pendulum in Cardiff will tip over and start to oscillate.”— Differential Equations Lecture Handouts ','“And that is how you graph a Super Mario mushroom.”— Precalculus professor on graphing polar inequalities','“This ambiguity is harmless.”— Linear algebra professor','“When it comes to math, I’m a bit of a communist. We can share all the math knowledge, no reason to try and claim the math by naming it after yourself.”— Calculus professor explaining the difference (or lack thereof) between Taylor and Maclaurin series','“You folks can solve the integral. I won’t solve the integral. I’m too old to solve integrals.”— Vector Calculus Professor','“Practically speaking, in terms of problem solving, the Hamiltonian is a complete wash.”— Classical Mechanics professor when asked about the advantages of the Hamiltonian compared to the Lagrangian','“I could split you guys into death squads and make you kill people for me.”— Advanced Math Teacher','“Remembering Bessel functions will eventually be like addition, like 2 + 3”— E&M professor','“You know, I think I’ll put part 4 on the homework. So that’s proved.”— Intro to Proofs professor','“Just imagine I waved my magic wand and simply changed the fundamental laws of the universe.”— Modern Physics Professor','“Do you know who created the minus sign? The Devil. Why did he do it? To confuse us.”— A Level Maths Teacher','“Our message will be 9. That’s a beautiful message. It means ‘I love you’ in some language.”— Cryptography Professor','“Actually, the answer is because of the sperm whale.”— Calculus Teacher','“You know what I call it when kids don’t show up to class? Job security.”— Calculus professor','“The electric current is like a marching band, all moving at the same rate.”— E&M professor','“We’re running out of time, so we’ll just skip chapters 8 and 9. They shouldn’t be on the district final exam…hopefully.”— Precalculus teacher','“My intern made this review guide a few years ago, and it has all the methods of statistical inference we’ve done this semester, all of them. As you can see, it’s titled ‘God.’”— Statistics teacher','“Do not believe in anything. Do not even believe in your own mother. Believe in a valid proof.”— Numerical Analysis Lecturer','“When I circled something and said ‘why?’ it’s 'why are you making things so hard?’”— Differential Equations Professor','“Here’s another example of the empty set: {(other math professors at the university)’s jokes|they are funny} So our universe is the jokes they’re telling, and our set is the ones that are funny, so it’s empty.”— Math professor','“Have you ever heard the expression, ‘It’s like teaching your grandmother to suck eggs?’ I feel like I’m doing that right now.”— Intro to Proofs professor, giving an example computation of an integral','“I thought that was harsh marking. I lost two marks on this question!”— A Level Maths Teacher','“This isn’t relevant, but it sure is fun! Now, who knows enough about rock climbing to not drop me 45 feet?”— Physics 1 Professor, asking for a volunteer to hold the other end of the rope he just used to pull himself to the ceiling of the lecture hall on a seat via pulley system','“Screw matrixmultiplication. I’m a mathematician, I don’t do calculations. That’s what you are for.”— A frustrated TA after the 10th or so calculating error ','“*reading the course overview* To support the course, the teacher may use the resources provided by the university (videos, projectors, DVDs, video cassettes- wow they have video cassettes”— Physics professor on the first day of class ','“Never ask a physicist what is energy, a mathematician what is infinity, or a poet what is love.”— Professor Julio Cesar Ruiz Clayssen.','“This pendulum problem is simple. I can always add complications. Do you want to see the pendulum from hell?”— Mechanics professor','“Look, umm, negatives are hard! So I’m right and you’re wrong!”— Differential equations TA','“Please do me a favor and promise to never, ever drink. You will become an alcoholic.”— AP calculus teacher, after a student (me) had a mild panic attack over the answer key being wrong','“So today, we’re gonna go over the Maxwell Stress Tensor, which is really stressful.”— Physics professor','“Science is incestuous on a level you can’t imagine.”— Physics alumni','“‘Exciting’ is not a technical term in probability as far as I’m aware.”— Probability professor','“Any of you take a mathematical methods course yet? No? It’s OK, Mathematica is good enough for me.”— Physics professor','“I need you to be careful when working these because it is a sign minefield out there”— Calculus teacher on 2nd derivative using product rule','“Can you use algebra as a verb?”— Real analysis professor','“The deity was good to us in analysis. In combinatorics, the deity played practical jokes.”— Combinatorics & Advanced Calc professor','“The simplest explanation is that giraffes don’t actually exist.”— Biophysics professor','“Because money is, of course, the best motivation for doing physics.”— My physics professor, after telling us about the grant he just received.','“I am actually a space cadet human.”— Differential equations professor, after messing up on the board 4 times in five minutes','“*sigh* … I can’t do this.”— Topology professor, upon forgetting the equation for a sphere','“*Stops writing on the board, turns and stares into room* Is somebody trying to saw the desks in half or something? Oh wait, that’s me! It’s the mic!”— Thermodynamics professor','“Oh… that’s… a horrific number. Ew.”— Maths teacher','“First, we get epsilon from the devil.”— Calculus professor','“God has been kind enough to gift us with an inverse-square-relationship universe”— Physics professor','“The lives of physicists tend to follow these same trajectories. Boltzmann, as you know, killed himself. I guess I shouldn’t end class on that note, though.”— Statistical Thermodynamics professor, on the tragic ends of Sackur, Tetrode, and Boltzmann.','“The null vector is a bit strange, since it doesn’t really have a direction. So next time you want to travel somewhere, go to a ticket office and ask for a return ticket. If they ask you where do you want to go, just say: Here!”— Math teacher','“I don’t care about significant figures. If you’re a chemist and get something off by a tiny bit you end up killing someone, but if you’re a few feet off when calculating how to throw a grenade, you still get your target.”— Physics professor','“We spell normal distribution with a small n, because there was no Mr. Normal.”— Statistics Teacher','“Now, we don’t know what Brownian motion is. But imagine for a moment we know what Brownian motion is.”— Partial differential equations professor','“You have to apply both rules to get the derivative, then simplify. And after lots and lots of yelling, this is your final answer.”— Calculus professor','“As you all learnt in highschool, Newton’s Law of the Conservation of Vinegar states that vinegar can be neither created nor destroyed.”— Engineering Mathematics lecture on the Oil and Vinegar Problem','“This is not a class on gravity where you learn there is no gravity.”— General relativity lecturer','“Division. It’s harder in the afternoon.”— Group theory lecturer','“Ah…the dangly parametric path.”— Vector calculus professor to the projector screen cord','“You’re looking at me like this is magic.”— Electromagnetism lecturer, after writing the uniqueness theorem, to a sea of blank faces','“I’m really good at two things: breathing and screwing up.”— Calculus Professor','“The derivation of 4/2 is 2/1 and that equals one. Is that what calculus is all about?”— Philosophy professor trying to do maths','“Do you know what ‘integration’ should be called instead? Trickery.”— Calculus professor','“Welcome to integral vector calculus, or as I like to call it: integrals on steroids.”— Brenda Johnson, Union College Calculus','“So, now we need to consider the moment about a point p, not the origin. Why? Because life isn’t always at the origin, because life sucks! In a positive way, life can suck in a positive way!”— Engineering Professor','“So, that’s how it will go… assuming all goes well. HAHAHAHA!”— Calculus professor','“1 plus 7 plus 7 plus 1, 15. I didn’t even need a calculator”— Linear Algebra tutor','“Now I’m going to find out if Mountain Dew is an illuminati face by calculating the confidence interval.”— Statistics professor','“We should all say thank you to Mr. Stewart for writing our calculus textbook. Except he’s dead, so we can’t thank him anymore.”— Calculus professor','“One day, when you’re having beers with friends in Arts, you can say to one of them, ‘Well, you look very isobaric today’ and see where the conversation goes.”— Thermodynamics professor','“Now if you can’t figure out how to use a stapler to staple your homework together, I would be happy to demonstrate on your fingers.”— Linear analysis professor','“Does everyone like my halloween costume? I came as an applied mathematician.”— Group theory lecturer','“No, there won’t be any integrals on the test that you have to use more than three methods of integration for. I’m not a sadist bastard-well, not in calculus, anyway.”— Calculus professor','“I have to make teaching interesting for me, and sometimes that means crushing your hopes and dreams.”— Statistics professor','“So the average score of this class’s test was 80.8%. The other class got 76.8%. Assholes.”— My statistics professor','“Help.”— Calculus teacher while looking at what he wrote on the blackboard','“Now, mathematicians see this and start foaming at the mouth and shout “helix!” But its really just a spiral.”— Calculus professor on parametric functions','“It’s just called the fundamental theorem of calculus, not the first fundamental theorem of calculus. Just like Shrek and Shrek 2 aren’t called Shrek 1 and Shrek 2.”— Calculus professor','“They didn’t teach this when I took Calc 2, I learned it on the streets!”— Calculus Professor on Rational Functions and Partial Fractions','“For those of you who are physics people, you’ll find that this section makes a lot of sense. For those of you who aren’t physics people…well, you’re probably in the wrong major.”— Vector Calculus professor after lecturing a section on physics applications','“And then the Dark Ages came, and people couldn’t do mathematics because there were no lights.”— History of Math Professor','“With polynomials, all your dreams come true.”— Calculus TA','“You should get well acquainted with this equation, because it’s going to become your best friend. Forever.”— Thermodynamics professor, on the steady flow energy equation','“And now, we shall pretend to be mathematicians”— Quantum mechanics lecturer on solving the Hermite equation','“Ten percent of a lot of money is a lot of money.”— Maths teacher, during financial maths','“This looks right, but also not right.”— Discrete professor','“If a negative thing happens to a bad person, that’s a positive outcome.”— 8th grade math teacher on how to multiply integers','“Hey, are you in my class?”— My 24-year-old calculus professor at a college party ','“If you have no money you can bi-no-mial.”— Maths for physics professor','“Issac Newton is my boyfriend. Henry Cavendish is my second boyfriend. I love them both, I like them A LOT.”— Physics teacher ','“The next time someone is bullying, and you want to say something insulting back without offending them, because maybe they’re big and scary, just say ‘you’re a real third derivative of position!’”— Calculus teacher, excitedly','“I thought I was going to say something that would make things clear, but I’m not.”— Complex Analysis Professor ','Student: How did you do that? Engineering Professor: Math! I do math! Go back and learn your algebra. ','“What are memes? Are you all memes?”— Honors Precalculus Teacher ','“Your handwriting is so bad that I took a picture and showed it to all of my other professor friends and we laughed.”— Engineering professor','“Sucks to suck!”— Statistics professor, constantly ',' milkovicho: warpstar: idk why fingers in the mouth is so hot but it is (via oolongs)','“Alternating series. The test should have a clever name. It’s called the Alternating Series Test.”— EWU Calc III Professor ','“It’s like, if you go out into a field and find an animal and come to the conclusion it’s a kitty by the test for bunny. Is it a bunny? Nope. Kitty.”— EWU Calc III Professor on the Test for Divergence ','“It’s only boring until you get deeper into mathematics.”— EWU Foundations of Mathematics Professor ','“Don’t drink and derive.”— Mathematical proverb','“Oh, this is gonna get ugly.”— Multivariable calculus professor optimizing the surface area of a fish tank ','Middle school math teacher: If you have two eggs and want to paint them, do you paint only ONE of them? NO! Student: What happens if I buy more eggs? Teacher: *walks out of classroom* ','Math Professor: If I make any careless mistakes on the board, tell me. If you tell me nicely about all my algebraic mistakes I’ll be equally kind in correcting your exams and not take away points. Student: If that’s the case, you’ve got two more errors there. ','“I’m going to California at the end of the month to judge at a modeling competition. Math modeling, I mean.”— Math professor','“Sorry everyone. I can’t do math.”— Algebra teacher, after being corrected','Math teacher 1: Tell them why we need to know the chart method. Math teacher 2: Why don’t you just use graphs, they’re easier. Teacher 1: But we need to know the chart method! Teacher 2: Not really. Teacher 1: Get out. Don’t come back to my class. ','“I’m going to put something on the board that is completely obvious and we shouldn’t have to talk about it in a sophomore level class.”— Discrete mathematics professor on the pigeonhole principle','Student: *raises hand* How did you know to do that last step? Calculus Professor: Because I have a PhD in Mathematics! Ha ha ha! ','“8th grade Algebra will help you every day for the rest of your life.”— 8th grade Algebra teacher','“Gotta catch ‘em all!”— Math professor, regarding mistakes on the board','“And POOF! It disappears. Not even Harry Potter can do that.”— Math professor','“You need to have courage. When you like something, you have to just say it.”— Calculus professor on “the most beautiful theorem in Calc III,” Green’s Theorem ','“Oh, so that’s why bridges fall down.”— Optimization teacher, after being told a step in the proof was wrong ','“If you see a question that doesn’t logically make sense, don’t answer it! Nobody needs to know the amount of force that Timmy will hit the ground with if he jumps out of a helicopter that’s 500m in the air and and he’s falling at 50m/s/s and air resistance is negligible. I wouldn’t answer it so neither should you.”— Physics professor','“If you turn in homework late, I’ll probably lose it or forget to grade it. Sorry.”— Engineering professor','“Don’t try this problem if you have a weak stomach.”— Chemistry teacher','“Oh, good morning, Kimberly. Did you have a nice nap? Also, can you tell me the formula for torque?”— Physics teacher','“This machinery is extraordinarily powerful, and in principle will let you solve any possible equilibrium problem. Even those written by the most evil, sadistic people… Yes, indeed, even including me.”— Chemistry teacher','“Are we actually doing Quantum Mechanics here? Or are we just messing around with second-order differential equations? Nay, we are doing GLORIOUS Quantum Mechanics!”— Quantum Mechanics professor','“I could be wrong, but I’m never wrong.”— Calculus professor','“Do you know the problem with the quasi-statics processes? It’s that they’re extremely boring.”— Physics professor','“Let’s do this chaos in the right way.”— Calculus professor discussing inverse trig functions','“This proof is so perfect. This proof is like a mirror. When you look at it, you see yourself, because it is so perfect.”— Linear algebra professor ','“Did you read the case? No? Okay, then you shouldn’t be talking. You’re not adding anything to this conversation.”— Business Management prof','“I’m not doing Kepler’s Laws. Screw Kepler’s Law.”— Vector Calculus professor when a student pointed out that he skipped lecturing the Kepler’s Laws section in the textbook','“Now you are probably all ready to go sign up for your next course in abstract algebra.”— Real analysis professor, after giving a horrific example','“I thought, of course I want to do a PhD. But three years later my confidence was shot and I was a shell of my former self.”— Physics Professor','“A, B, C, D, E, F…uh, what comes next in the alphabet?”— Linear Algebra professor','“This thing burns through batteries like an undergraduate burns through dinner. I hate electronics.”— Thermodynamics professor','“If you don’t like interpolating, just think of a Dalek telling you to “INTERPOLATE, INTERPOLATE”. It sounds a whole lot better than “exterminate”.”— Thermodynamics professor','“So was Newton a genius? Yeah, he was a pretty brilliant man. Though, he was also an asshole…”— Ordinary Differential Equations and Numerical Methods professor','“…And infinity times zero equals 17.”— Calculus teacher, on why you shouldn’t try to solve an indeterminate limit without factoring first','“As you can see, the rich are nonthermal. This is a proletarian distribution. Trickle down economics is not thermodynamically viable.”— Statistical Mechanics professor','“If you believe this proof, then you are ready to be a computer scientist. Because computer scientists don’t care about proofs.”— Discrete structures professor, about the sampling theorem','“One day your kid is going to ask you: “Dad, what’s the linear approximation equation?” And you’re just going to turn around and cower in shame, saying, “Sorry, I don’t know, I partied too much.””— Calculus professor','“And now to make your life miserable, which is the whole reason math professors teach, this formula is basically useless”— Statistics Professor, after explaining Confidence Intervals','“‘Segmentation fault’ is UNIX for ‘OH SHIT!’”— Computer science professor teaching C','“If you’re off by a factor of two I say: eh, it’s ok, maybe a calculator problem. I mean, maybe the Mars Rover would crash, but it’s not really my problem”— Quantum Mechanics professor','“And now, for your pleasure, something that doesn’t make sense.”— Multivariable Calculus professor, right before talking about line integrals with respect to x, y, z, etc','“I have a PhD, I should be able to figure this out…”— My research advisor muttering to himself','“What I’m about to show you isn’t strictly legal. But it’s fun so I’m going to show you anyways. I hope no one driving by is listening to anything important. Oh, and don’t tell anyone.”— Physics professor on an illegal radio interference device','“Seldom do I discourage drinking, but don’t do it while studying calculus this week. You should never drink and derive.”— Calculus professor','“Maths is as natural as a blade of grass.”— Advanced Higher Maths Teacher saying goodbye to her pupils','“After the midterm most of you will drop out. Once I ended up with seven students. I’m not legally allowed to have less than ten now.”— Linear algebra teacher.','“Frankly, this will probably only be on one problem for the test, so you don’t even have to memorize it and you can still pass.”— Calculus teacher, on the formal definition of a limit','“You know what the worst part is? I don’t know even how to draw a line and I’m married to an architect.”— Structural Engineering Professor','“It can’t be, because of the way it is.”— Structural Engineering Professor','“How could you not give me this answer? This is very important.”— Physics Professor','“I don’t understand Chemistry.”— Physics Professor','“We cannot prove this since your mathematics is weak.”— Physics Professor','“No. Alright. This is the last time I will answer this. I am not going to ride my motorbike through the halls just because all of you scored outstandingly on that test.”— My quadratics professor','“This is not a guessing game, it’s mathematics.”— Aerodynamics Professor','“Last year only 2 students took my final. I’m making it harder this year, so I hope none of you show up.”— Physics teacher','“I am not a cannibal.”— Physics teacher','“WARNING: Cheating on exams can be STATISTICALLY UNCOVERED. DON’T TRY IT! Don’t throw your future away…”— Statistics professor, in the academic misconduct section of his syllabus','“Now you can evaluate me. It’s anonymous, not that it would matter, since I don’t know your names and won’t be seeing you ever again - you can say anything to my face for all I care.”— Calculus professor, on course evaluations','“Matrices are Roman Catholic—rows come before columns!”— Linear Algebra professor on matrix notation','“Physicists are professionally lazy.”— Physics teacher','“No, no stay seated, Mr. Smith. I’m not going to push you. I’m going to punch you.”— Engineering Physics professor, explaining current potential','“Everyone’s heard of Galileo, if only from pop music.”— My special relativity lecturer','“As a math major, everyone will expect you to be good with numbers.”— Statistics Professor','“The textbook is not a mathematician”— High school math teacher after finding a large number of errors in the textbook answers','“Infinity plus infinity… That’s, uh, a really big number, lets use 2 instead.”— Calculus professor','“That’s the answer. I think. Let me check Wolfram really quick.”— Graduate Student teaching Calculus 1','“I considered having a fourth child to fill up the empty space at my table, but my wife wouldn’t let me.”— Maths Professor','“If you have any questions email me, or come see me in my office, carve your question into my door with some kind of knife… But please don’t write it on my wall in blood”— Real Analysis lecturer','“We do the stuff that everyone else hates.”— Statistics Professor','“And on the denominator, you’ll get… a big mess”— Calculus teacher, on a problem involving ratio test','“Diffeomorphisms are a dime a dozen… if you can find one in the first place, that is.”— Differential geometry professor','“I would write this in orange chalk, but I have smashed it all up in my voracious appetite for orange chalk.”— Algebra lecturer ','“Does anyone have a brain I can borrow?”— A very tired Common Core 2 teacher','“beep beep”— Math teacher, angrily, when a student’s phone vibrated','“If you love something, you fail it.”— Programming team coach, trying to keep his best team members after graduation','“Let’s quickly turn this into a lesson on how to make an atomic bomb.”— Applied Maths lecturer','“I do NOT think that all girls are isomorphic!”— Computer science teacher ','“Being normal isn’t a thing, you can only be normal within a group”— Groups lecturer','“So, I phrased this assignment ten minutes ago, and now when I’ve actually read it through, I can see that it’s nowhere as good as I thought it was.”— Statistics professor','“You thought no one would draw these terrible plots in their papers, but they still do. It makes me laugh and cry.”— Optics Professor on bad plots','“Run to the bars. Measure the viscosity of beer or milk or whatever you drink.”— Fluid Mechanics Professor dismissing class on Friday afternoon','“Some people call me mathdaddy.”— Math professor','“Now that half of the group dropped out, I can finally start learning your names.”— Measure Theory Professor','“No matter how much you ask, there will be no multiple choice; this class is theoretical proof based!”— Linear algebra professor','“Sinh is a rather odd function.”— Differential Equations Professor','“Since we aren’t theoretical physicists we care about details.”— Complex Analysis Lecturer','“It’s b because it’s not a.”— Math teacher, when asked why b was the answer to the equation.','“I hate you all.”— Geometry teacher','“Microsoft has been attempting to compete with LaTeX with their terrible equation editor for like, centuries. They will not succeed.”— Math professor','“I feel like physicists are just making up units. “Juels”? “Slugs”? and who the heck is “Henry”?”— Differential Equations Professor','“And maybe we want to say ‘Foo!’ because it’s almost Halloween!”— C++ programming professor','“Mathematics is all in the notation. If people knew how easy math was, I’d be out of a job.”— Dr. Don Spickler','“Displacement is how far I am from dis place.”— Calculus professor','“You know why I don’t go on long tirades anymore? Because I don’t care.”— Statistics professor','“This should probably blow your minds.”— Multivariable Calculus Professor','“Five is not just four plus one, five could be one plus four”— Quantum Mechanics Professor','“Nobody realises before they come to uni that most of maths is unsolvable.”— Complex Analysis tutor','“So we just built a half-adder. Next, we’re going to build a full-adder, and then you will be able to build all sorts of snakes.”— Theory of Computation Professor','“Fair warning: This stuff is going to be very theoretical and very mathematical, but I promise you it won’t be useless.”— Dr. Don Spickler','“Yes, we are going through your papers. You’ve got that bollocking to look forward to.”— A Level Maths Teacher','“Now, just what IS e? It’s a question that was often heard in clubs in my student days…”— Differential Equations lecturer','“Dividing by zero is kind of the same as multiplying by… one hundred thousand or something.”— Functional Programming Professor','“And now we plug it in, plug it in.”— Calculus teacher referencing a Glade commercial','“Make two copies of your software. One to keep at home and one to keep far away from home because your house will burn down.”— Radio Astronomy Professor','“I’m not going to require that you know this type of problem, and this example will take the rest of class, but it’s pretty cool so I’m going to do it anyway.”— Differential Equations Professor','“We choose you, we use you, and we replace you with our x.”— Calculus AB Teacher','“Just pick a way to do the problem, and then if you start to become unhappy, go back and reevaluate your choices.”— Multivariable Calculus Professor','“So there are infinities bigger than other infinities. Next time you smoke think about that.”— Mathematical Physics teacher','“It took Newton years to do this Gauss’s law problem with calculus because he had to invent it.”— Mechanics professor on spherical bodies being point objects','“This series is applied math. It applies to so much math!”— Real analysis professor, on Taylor series','“I hope you’re not allergic to math.”— Calculus professor after a student sneezes twice','“And there’s a proof for that, but you’re all engineering majors so I know you don’t care.”— Calc II/Differential Equations Professor','“You ever open up a stats textbook? And it’s like words, words, words, wordyword-words.”— Math teacher','“Now, are you ready for me to blow your mind? Imagine a circle with a radius r = infinity. How big is that circle? See, you all are lucky that you are alive in Oregon in 2016 where the stuff you need to help you contemplate these things is completely legal and widely available.”— Calculus Professor explaining why saying the radius of convergence is R=infinity makes no sense ','“Reality alone is just a dull straight line. Imagination, by itself, is just as dull. But when you combine both of them, that’s when complex stuff appears. That’s what matters in life.”— Math professor introducing the complex plane.','“So for this problem a mathematician pushes a 10 Newton box, and physicists are kinda weak so they push a 3 Newton box.”— Math professor','“Don’t be afraid of hyperbolic trig! It’s white fluffy kittens.”— Calculus professor','“Absolute value just looks boring because it makes negative things positive and positive things nothing. But it’s really important!”— EWU Foundations of Mathematics Professor ','“You’re cold? Go stand in the corner. It’s 90 degrees over there.”— Calculus professor','“I want to replace all my Xs with U.”— Calculus professor on U substitution.','“We get epsilon over two plus epsilon over two, which almost always equals epsilon.”— Calculus professor','“And we have this theorem, and I was going to show you the proof for it, but I forgot how to do it.”— Linear algebra professor','“And then it poops out the answer!”— Math teacher','“Now this is simple high school algebra. The trouble with that is that most high school algebra is too complicated for high schoolers.”— Calculus professor','“A positron is nothing to fear or be afraid of. It’s just there.”— Intro to Modern Physics Professor ','“They’re called tricks the first time we see them, then they’re called techniques.”— Discrete Mathematics professor ','“Proof by cases is basically proof by last resort.”— Discrete Mathematics professor ','“It looks kind of like a butt, and you should draw it that way.”— Physics teacher on lowercase omega','“So on this question some of you added rad 15 and rad 15 and got rad 30. After I threw up, I continued grading.”— Math teacher','“I know we’re just adding 1+1… but this is hard stuff!”— Calculus professor on geometric series ','“Don’t look directly at the sun!”— Calculus professor when discussing limits ','“This is like a soap opera. So in walks Cardano…”— History of Math professor on 16th century Italian mathematicians ','“I’m Newton. I now have calculus at my disposal.”— History of Math professor on Newton’s approximation of pi ','Student: When will this help us in real life? Professor: How about on your test next week? ','“If you spend five hours on a Sunday doing nothing else but looking at the patterns in Pascal’s Triangle, that is five hours very well spent.”— Combinatorics professor ','“You know a structural engineering postgrad is high when they type ‘bible lap’ instead of 'bipol lab.’”— Composites workshop leader ','“I didn’t sleep well last night so if it seems like I’m grumpy, its because I am.”— Differential equations professor','Chemistry teacher: So you hold the evaporating basin like this! Chemistry teacher: *drops basin* SHIT Chemistry teacher: So, now I’ll teach you what you have to do when you break something . ','“This damn algebra.”— Physics professor','“We only care about infinite groups. Finite groups are boring, finite groups are virtually trivial.”— Group Theory Professor, after giving the the definition of a virtual group property ','“F(L(T)) and FoT(T) are just names for the function. Like Susan. Let’s call the function from X to Y Susan.”— Math professor','“I can see you all are not excited about this problem. That’s very justified. We are going to do it anyways.”— Linear algebra professor','“Let’s write down all the integers. We’re gonna need a few dots.”— Math professor','“By solving those equations, we have “7A” and “2B”… or not to be! Hah!!”— Math professor','“Complex analysis is a very beautiful subject. Real analysis doesn’t have very good feng shui.”— Complex Analysis Lecturer ','Student: How deep can the nesting parentheses go? Computer Science Professor: As deep as you want. ','“The third derivative is called jerk. I met a lot of third derivatives on the road this morning.”— Calculus professor ','“The **** equation is the probably the most important. Po®^n. Only use it for population rates. That’s the only kind of **** you’d ever be allowed to do in class.”— High school algebra teacher ','“This sounds like a lab waiting to happen, but we’re not doing that.”— Chemistry teacher ','“Who cares.”— Physics Professor, answering a student’s question about how the answer came to be ','“If you don’t know the answer to a contour integral problem, just toss a coin. If the outcome is heads, write 0. If tails, write 2πi.”— Calculus professor','“If you forget stoichiometry, you are doomed.”— Thermodynamics Professor ','“Generally speaking, circles are very round.”— Math professor','“It’s just fourth dimension space, that’s all.”— Special relativity professor','“Think of the upper and lower fences as an actual fence around your life. Inside are all your friends and family, outside are strangers! And the median, well, the median is the centre, the median is YOUR LOVER!”— Intro to Statistics professor ','“Here’s the test. Pray to your gods.”— Precalculus professor during finals ','“Over simplification can get you into trouble but communication will get you out.”— Calculus professor ','Student: You spelled 'plain' wrong. Professor Donahue: Yeeeaaaahhhhh. The Donahue method. ','“You’ll be in college soon. You’ll be meeting hot guys. But look, once he says the phrase, ‘is equals to,’ he’s not hot anymore.”— High school geometry teacher','Student: So for our poster presentation are you more of a paragraph guy or a bullet point type of guy? Professor: Paragraphs are stupid. ','“So now let us solve a transform that will involve using integration by parts twice, then of course taking the limit. Nothing has changed. All I’m doing now is increasing the pain.”— Differential equations professor','Student: Sir, how could we describe the set Omega? Measure Theory Professor: Eh, you write down all of its elements. Student: … Prof: Of course it’s infinite, but we have time, don’t we. Student: … ','“If the set is closed then nothing can escape. Like Hotel California.”— Linear Algebra Professor ','“I haven’t even got to the fun part yet!”— Algebra teacher','“This result has been fully worked out in a private conversation.”— Math paper','Professor: Are you that student in the class that gives wrong answers to mess with your classmates? Student: No! Professor: Oh. You'd be good at it. ','“I went to the gym and couldn’t even pick up a bar without weights on it. Then I realized that’s what your brains must feel like right now.”— Quantum Mechanics Professor ','“Alright everyone. This is my favorite part of the semester. If I start getting too giddy and smiling for no reason, blame it on Galois.”— Algebra professor while introducing Galois theory','“There’s too many engineers in the room to do a proof.”— Differential Equations Professor','“Do you like this one? Good, because you won’t like the next one.”— A Level Maths Teacher','“Computing it is straightforward if you’re a computer. Maybe some of you are.”— Geometric Topology Lecturer (talking about the Jones polynomial).','“I love it when you make arithmetic errors. It makes me feel good about myself.”— Data Structures Professor','“We’ll learn techniques to determine if the series converges or diverges. If it’s convergent, you can approximate the sum. If it’s divergent, all you can do is party.”— Calculus professor','“I want you to be shit hot engineers, and shit hot engineers simplify their fractions!”— Calculus professor','“This type of luck rarely happens in the real world, but it happens remarkably frequently in textbooks and tests.”— Calculus professor on implicit differentiation','“It’s not magic, it’s math!”— Calculus Professor','“I seriously don’t know how you made it into my class.”— Accelerated math teacher to the kid who kept asking questions','“A specific but somewhat nerdy example is given below.”— Math professor on probability with matrices','“If we relate this back to our skittles example, then thirty-three out of fifty skittles have cancer.”— Actuarial Exam Prep Professor','“At some point I will learn how to count.”— Complex Analysis professor, on Möbius transformations.','“I give up. I’m doing the geese example. The bible will come next week.”— Statistics professor','“In theory this would break physics, but math is just fine.”— Differential Equations professor on the Dirac delta function','“That’s the secret to 3D graphs. They are all actually fish.”— GT Algebra professor.','“In the book it says that orientation of the contour is immaterial, but you could say that mathematics is immaterial too.”— Complex analysis professor','“It’s all about suffering.”— Real Analysis Professor, before handing out the take-home exam','“Someday, as a result of my teaching, I would like to see a physically accurate double rainbow t-shirt.”— Physics professor','“. and from this theorem here, we can get 1 plus 1 to be more than or equal to 2”— Game Theory professor','“Now, let’s get the F out of this root. That’s official math terminology, ‘get the F out.’”— High school math teacher','“I’m not allowed to mark my own class’s papers in case I’m biased and go, ‘Oh look, it’s ~infamously argumentative yet popular person’s paper~ Let’s give her a C-!”— Calculus teacher','“People call these numbers complex, but they’re really quite simple.”— Complex analysis professor','“This equation is more beautiful than any of my future children will ever be.”— High school algebra teacher, on Euler’s Identity','“Design a box to keep freedom in.”— Professor with a love for mathematics teaching design','“Are you taking a photo of that proof Well, don’t get me in the photo. I’m ashamed of that proof.”— Proofs professor','“If you want to get technical, you could say ‘for all x greater than or equal to zero.’ Except the negative of zero is just zero, so we don’t need to care about zero. Wait, do we need to care about zero? Someone look that up on google!”— Linear Algebra professor','“What is the current meaning of BFF? Best Friend Forever? Geometric Sequences are going to be your BFF.”— Calculus Professor','“You know what I say about logs, kids? It’s all about that base, about that base…”— A Level Maths teacher','“Can you tell me where the library is at, asshole?”— Statistics professor','“Oh, I used the wrong sign. That was the worst mistake of my life.”— Linear algebra professor, very seriously','“Do you want to see an example with actual numbers? Really? I thought we left those behind at A Level.”— Real Analysis lecturer. At the end of the lecture, the example he made up on the spot went horribly. “I’m never going to offer you numbers again.” ','“The people who once believed that this was a doppler shift are all slowly dying off nowadays.”— A very dark segue from limb darkening in an upper division astrophysics lecture at UMN.','“I didn’t write your midterm grades on your report cards because I didn’t want you all to be a disappointments to your families.”— Calculus Teacher','“This is called the sandwich theorem. Now, I know you’ll remember it because its name is food.”— Calculus professor ','“When organisms die, they stop inhaling.”— Modern Physics Professor','“This is the sort of definition you ought to be able to give if someone breaks into your house and wakes you up at the middle of the night.”— Intro to proofs professor on the epsilon-delta definition of a limit','“Never work with children, animals, or indices.”— Real Analysis lecturer','“The proof of this theorem is left as an exercise for the reader.”— Every damn textbook','“Categorification is about taking things that are easy to understand and making them hard to understand. Why do we do this? Well, we’re all insane.”— Abstract algebra professor outlining the topics of her class.','“DON’T TELL THEM!”— Calculus teacher after he told me that he had his workout group do a Fibonacci-themed exercise routine without them finding out','“Let us consider a three-dimensional box. Ah, here is a box! *tries to pick up the box* Uh, unfortunately the box is nailed to the ground.”— Multivariable calculus professor','“There are lots of people in this world who know just about enough maths to make an arse of themselves”— Modern Physics Professor at Durham University','“I transposed the transpose. It was back to normal.”— Linear algebra professor.','“What math is to physics is what masturbation is to sex.”— Calculus professor','“I found the perfect visual aid to help demonstrate orientation.”— Vector calculus professor, before taking off belt and making a Mobius strip out of it','“This does not affect your statutory rights.”— Abstract maths lecturer, after showing you cannot cancel when multiplying congruence classes.','“If something is called a theorem, it must be important. If a theorem is named, it must be very important. Is a theorem called fundamental becauese it’s fun, dumb, and mental? NO! It’s very *very* important!”— Calculus I professor, introducing the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus','“Say I were to make tea for everyone in the class. Well, I won’t - you’re all horrible and I’d never make tea for you. But lets just say.”— Physics teacher','“Thus the unit of surprise is that which we experience on being told that a flipped fair coin showed a head.”— Communication Theory professor on defining the surprise of an event occurring','“Smooth curves are just that: smooth. There’s no sharp angles. Your mother would let you run with a smooth curve.”— Calculus professor','“I’m not stupid, I’m just hungover.”— Calculus professor after a big night','“This would be useful for architecture. that’s about it’”— Maths teacher','“You can treat these like fractions, but don’t tell the maths department!”— Differential Calculus lecturer, Physics','“Your midterms are marked, but I forgot to bring them, sorry. I hope you don’t give me bad comments on course evaluations, but to be honest I have tenure so nothing you say really matters.”— Linear Algebra Professor','“I’m not that worried about where you get your data from, okay? You can ask a small sample. You can make it up. Wait… I didn’t say that.”— Statistics professor','“Think of this vector function as a swarm of bees. The origin, that’s you.”— Multi-variable Calculus Professor','“I could give the lecture in Norwegian - you’d probably understand just as much of it.”— Computability professor','“Ah yes, Pythagoras strikes again.”— Precalculus professor','“The complex numbers are a little more complicated.”— Proof-writing professor','“If you see the word ‘all,’ it’s universal. If you see 'some,’ it’s existential. If you see 'A,’ you’re in Canada.”— Proof-writing professor','“‘If you say a thing loud enough, it’s true,’ is not a valid method of proof.”— Proof-writing professor','“What kind of curve is y=2x? It’s actually not a curve; it’s a fastball.”— Proof-writing professor','“‘A set containing the empty set is the empty set, because if you put nothing in nothing, it’s still nothing!’ says a high school student. Well, his argument is nothing.”— Proof-writing professor','“In relations, we said if (x,y) was an element of R, then x R’s y. Now with functions, when (x,y) is an element of f, we don’t say x f’s y.”— Proof-writing professor','“Using the Riemann-Integral is like drinking champagne. It’s not really good like you realize the next morning but it has some obvious benefits.”— Real Analysis Professor','“Row reduce that puppy down.”— Linear algebra professor','“One plus one does not equal zero. Not in this class.”— Linear algebra professor','“There are more than like 11 vectors in R^3”— Linear algebra professor','“This is less descriptive than our previous characterization, but has the advantage of being correct.”— Measure Theory professor','“If you’re like me, you might need to stare at it for a while to get it. But I can’t stare at it for you.”— Thermodynamics & Statistical Mechanics professor ','“Where is everyone? Lost in battle?”— Topology professor during the final week of classes','“So a 50 degree beer is sitting in a room at 70 degrees for…30 min? What? Clearly a professor made this problem, only academia leaves a beer undrunk for that long.”— Differential equations professor','“This is where you here banjos playing.”— Civil Engineering and Architecture Teacher','“We get nine, which is significantly less than infinity.”— Combinatorics professor','“I was looking at your homework and as usual it made me very sad.”— Calculus Professor','“Taylor Series are the shit!”— Calculus professor','“Don’t ask why, just accept this.”— Quantum mechanics professor','“Don’t drink and derive.”— AP Calculus teacher','“Calculus was created to predict the rotation of the planets. I think you can bother to simplify your fractions.”— Calculus professor','“I provided some solutions, but I don’t guarantee their correctness.”— Database systems professor','“Being a college student is like professional hazing.”— Probability professor ','“For this course generally you should have a bit of combinatorics background, and some general mathematical maturity, probably you need some probability. I not sure why I put Complex Analysis over here. That seems like a strange thing, but hey you know, why the heck not?”— Extremal Combinatorics Professor after addressing the prerequisites listed on the course website','“Can you see what it says in the formula? No? Well, imagine that you do.”— Instrumental analytic chemistry professor when presentation displayed a math formula as a series of random symbols ','“The answers in the back of the book aren’t written by the authors, they are written by grad students locked up in basements being fed generic Oreos.”— Math Professor','“So, you want to morph your photo on Instagram and still have your eyes look like eyes and your teeth look like teeth, just apply an analytic function.”— Complex Analysis Professor','“What I like to do is show you something that makes sense, and then show you something that doesn’t make any sense, because that’s the way that science works.”— Quantum Mechanics Professor','“Ignore the answer at the end of the questions 2, 5 and 9. I usually use questions from the review, and I forgot to delete the answer for a few.”— Data Management Teacher','“So a mathematician, a physicist, and a statistician are all on a train in a country none of them have been in before. At the same moment they all see a black sheep on the landscape outside the train. The physicist says that it should be assumed that all the sheep in the country are black. The statistician disagrees and says that it should be assumed that there is one sheep in this country and it is coloured back. The mathematician disagrees and says that it is safe to assume that there is one sheep in this country of which at least half of is coloured black.”— Math professor, trying to get his point across about how accurate mathematics is and needs to be through a joke','“Here a space, there a space, everywhere a space space”— Functional analysis professor','“The people downstairs can go screw themselves!”— High school Physics teacher, after dropping a bowling ball to explain acceleration','“Come on everyone, this isn’t rocket science! Oh, yeah I guess rocket scientists do these kinds of problems. Well, come on everyone, this is rocket science!”— Precalculus professor upon realizing that vectors, magnitude, and direction is exactly related to rocket science','“I don’t want to influence you, but every self respecting person believes Zorn’s Lemma.”— Linear Algebra teacher','“There is power in simplicity.”— Physics Professor','“Miracles do not occur with C-infinity functions; boredom occurs with C-infinity functions. Everybody knows that.”— Analytic Number Theory Professor, explaining complex analysis','“Up until here it was art class, now we do math.”— Calculus professor after a chapter on vector functions and space curves','“Now I’m just fine with a mathematical explanation because I have perfect pitch, but I’ll give you all your precious symbolic representation because you’re all GREEDY BASTARDS LIKE THAT.”— AP Physics teacher explaining beat frequencies.','“Brilliant minds always think in unorthodox ways! Like the guy who invented logarithms – he got his neighbor’s pigeons shit-faced, you know.”— Calculus teacher','“Okay, now how am I gonna legitimately do this if I encounter it in the wild?”— Pre-calculus professor','“‘How many hats do I have?’ I’m gonna make that the last question on the final.”— Linear Algebra professor','“Now I don’t want to worry you, but last year I had a student crying in my office after I gave this lecture.”— General Relativity and Cosmology lecturer, at the start of a lecture on tensor calculus','“This is outside the scope of the class. I’m afraid I’ve overstimulated you guys. Your imaginations are running wild.”— Calculus professor, complaining that we ask too many hypothetical questions','“That’s what physics is. It looks really nice but there’s horror music playing in the background.”— Physics Teacher','“I like the Axiom of Choice. I definitely have no problem using it. I guess you could say I’m Pro-Choice.”— Real Analysis Proffessor','“Squares kill negative signs, poor innocent negative signs.”— Algebra professor','“Lejos de ser un problema, va a ser la solución/Far from being a problem, it is going to be the solution.”— Calculus professor','“My proof is a disaster, perhaps, but it is very, very elementary.”— Measure theory professor (via mathprofessorquotes)','“Which nipple?”— Math teacher','“It’s not sexy if you don’t get the signs right.”— Mechanics professor','“It’s called real analysis because it is really ****.”— Real analysis professor, introductory lecture.','“Derivatives are a big black box that kills things.”— Calculus TA','“It loops around to infinity, go out to infinity and see for yourself.”— Electricity and magnetism physics professor','“Oh, I call it the rabbit property so it’s easier to remember how to do it. Just say that these numbers on the outside are the boy rabbits, and the ones inside the cage are the girl rabbits, and you know what rabbits do, they wanna… multiply… with everything in this cage..”— Algebra Teacher on the Distributive Property','“1 plus some finite little numbers plus big equals infinity.”— Calculus Professor','“Lots of the rules in math are completely arbitrary, it’s just what the Dead White Guy Committee said to do thousands of years ago.”— Geometry Teacher','“If you fail trigonometry you fail life!”— High school teacher, crushing students’ dreams','“If you want to tell me this integral can’t be done, you need to be so confident that you flip me off while you’re telling me.”— AP Calculus teacher','“I’ll check the professor’s notes because in this class, his word is gospel and my opinion doesn’t matter.”— Game Theory TA','“It’s spiritually more satisfying to use completely linearly independent vectors.”— Linear algebra professor','“Oh no! We forgot to celebrate pi day in our last lecture. I promise that we’ll celebrate the next novelty calendar date. You know, April 20th is coming up soon.”— Complex Analysis Professor','“I love this next theorem. Honestly, I remember the first time I dated this theorem.”— Calculus professor, on monotonic and bounded sequences','“Negative huge plus huge… I don’t know what that equals.”— Calculus Professor on indeterminate forms','“Sometimes I just type into my calculator 1 times x^2. Do you guys ever do that? I do it cause I just wanna make my calculator work more. Work, calculator, work! Now if I’m feeling especially petty, I’ll do 1 times 1 times 1 times 1 times x^2.”— Linear Algebra professor','“Who in here isn’t an engineering major? [Hands raise] wow that many… what do you all do?”— Multivariable professor','“You can try come ask me questions during spring break, but who the hell knows where I’ll be during spring break.”— Math TA','“There’s nothing better to do on a rainy day than calculus, and there’s nothing better to bring some sunshine into your life than trigonometry.”— UC Davis differential calculus professor','“This is not a mathematical agreement. This is a social contract.”— UC Davis differential calculus professor','“Forgetting your calculat0r once, that’s human, it happens, but after that point, not anymore.”— Math professor','“You have to be Magellan, you have to explore the world. I can’t give you a rule for how many times you must try until you give up.”— Calculus professor to a frustrated student','“Ross, keep your turkey fetish to yourself.”— Applied Maths Teacher on Newton’s Law of Cooling','“How do we prove that the space is complete? Well we take a Cauchy sequence and we pray… do you pray often?”— Functional Analysis professor','“Here is the process for completing a direct proof. Step 1: Prove the thing. Just do it. Nike. *draws Nike swoosh on the board* Oh great, now they can finally sue me.”— Fundamentals of Mathematics Professor','“We’re gonna take the Amperean loop the opposite direction because it’s Friday and we’re REBELS! Yeahhhh!”— Electromagnetism professor','“There’s no point in me doing this. I’ll just make a mistake on the board.”— UC Davis differential calculus professor','“The definition will not clarify anything whatsoever, but I will write it down anyway.”— UC Davis differential calculus professor','“So if we have that r=1 then the terms of the series are just: c, c, c, c, c… see?”— Calculus professor','“Well, step one is essentially admitting you have a problem.”— MIT Math professor whilst helping with a precalc problem set','“The whole point of math is to be clever and lazy.”— Game Theory TA','“In these classes we will concentrate on the finite case, because infinite matrices are really hard to fit in the page.”— Probability lecturer','“I actually do know math. I just pretend I don’t when I’m teaching.”— Statistical Thermodynamics Professor','“Everything in this section is Frencher than you’ve ever imagined.”— Electromagnetism professor, getting to the Biot-Savart Law','“If you want to get technical, you could say ‘for all x greater than or equal to zero.’ Except the negative of zero is just zero, so we don’t need to care about zero. Wait, do we need to care about zero? Someone look that up on google!”— Linear algebra professor','“I’ll only do this once, but you should never find the inverse of a matrix in front of an audience. It’s a truly obscene thing to do!”— Linear Algebra professor','“So, this is called the antiderivative or primitive. I don’t like this name. It reminds me of cave men.”— Calculus Professor on undefined integrals','“There is no ‘y’ in the numerator. No kids, dy is not 'y.’”— Calculus lecturer','“The zero vector is like that kid in gym who never gets picked on the basketball team cause they don’t do anything and always get in the way.”— Linear algebra professor','“So what we’re going to get in this denominator is the square root of z…. times something good!”— Complex Analysis Professor','“Even though most of you are engineering majors, physics majors, math majors, some of you might end up doing econ.”— Multivariate professor','“Today we will be talking about imaginary numbers, which frankly are no more made up than anything else we’ve done in this class.”— Differential Equations Professor','“You studied this in your first year. This is degrading! You should feel offended that I’m even showing this to you.”— Affine geometry TA','“If you guys like this I recommend you take differential geometry, though it will make you tensor.”— Complex Analysis Professor','“You can have a negative time. Negative 2 is two seconds ago. Two seconds ago I said two seconds ago.”— Calculus teacher','“So if we can do this, we can find the position by manipulating the velocity. Wait, so we can know the position and the velocity at the same time. Take that, Heisenberg!”— Calculus professor','“It’s not sexy to be cavalier about math.”— Mechanics 2 professor','“On one hand, this is very simple. But on the other, it’s not.”— Algebraic Number Theory Professor','“You’re still a good person if you fail math.”— Precalculus teacher','This is my favourite part of calculus. See, this graph turns me on. Calculus and Economics professor','“If 80% of the class gets above 80 in this next test, I will bake you all cupcakes.”— Math Methods teacher','“So this turns into a double integral using polar coordinates, and if you haven’t taken multivariable calculus yet you’ll learn why everyone just started crying soon enough.”— Probability Professor','“It’s about nothing, and, at the same time, about everything.”— Calculus professor when asked about the importance of math ','“Actuaries are a lot like super villains. They both think they know when you’re going to die.”— Statistics professor','“This formula is important enough to have earned its boxed in status.”— Physics professor','“All you lazy, white adolescent pubescents need to stop thinking your button pusher is a magic answer fairy”— Math professor','“Mathematicians are crazy… They’re partiers too, ooh boy.”— Calculus teacher','“Today we’ll be learning about Euclid’s bestie, or his homie, whatever you kids call it these days.”— Geometry Professor','“Be careful, I might Pooh on you.”— High School Algebra 1B teacher holding a Winnie the Pooh toy (he had a lot of happy meal toys as decorations in the room)','“Human brains are not made for integration. But you still have to do it.”— Calculus for physics professor','“You’re all a bunch of geese: geese wake up everyday eat because they’re hungry, procreate because they need to, and sleep when the sun goes down. The next day, they do the exact same thing and never question. Throw in smoking dope, and you’re all geese. Question things and think, dammit!”— My linear algebra professor after no sleep and collectively bad test grades','“I’m running out of variables! Quick, someone give me another greek letter….lambda? great! I know how to write that one.”— Analysis Professor','“The rationals and the irrationals are both dense in the reals, and no, that doesn’t mean they’re dumb.”— Analysis Professor','“We’re doing this because it’s going to help us later when we look at cyclic groups. But also this is a pure mathematics course so we can do whatever we want.”— Abstract Algebra Professor','“There’s no ASS theorem!!”— Geometry teacher talking about triangle congruence postulates','“If you don’t get caught, you didn’t break the law!”— Precalculus teacher','“It’s boring, but it’ll give you nutrition to make bonds or something.”— Number Theory Professor talking about a proof','“Topology’s great, but I never know when I’m done with a proof because it’s mostly pictures and hand-waving.”— Abstract Algebra Lecturer','“Why are you so anti-decimal, man?”— Geometry teacher','“That is a horrible bastard of a paper.”— Mechanics teacher going through an unseen mock exam.','“I am the master of my origin.”— Analytical Physics professor in reference to graphing vectors','“We cannot compare infinities.”— Calculus teacher','“Actually, this concept is from physics… but that’s statistics, we steal from everyone.”— Mathematical Statistics professor','“I’m Dr. Evil! I didn’t go to seven years of graduate school to be Mr. Evil.”— High school math teacher','“Finally a lemma, finally a proof!”— Partial differential equations professor after spending the last hour on examples and application','“When you recognize the probabilities associated with playing cards, you realize it’s better not to gamble.”— Statistics professor','“That is not to say, of course, that all real worlds have air. For this problem assume that we are on a world with air.”— Integral Calculus Professor','“The hardest part of math is… adding.”— Cryptology teacher','“If we want to solve this problem, we chop the function into tiny pieces. Really, that’s how we solve problems in real life too - especially in marriages. You chop your husband or wife into tiny pieces.”— Calculus II professor, on Reimann Sums','“I was so happy I forgot about time!”— Calculus Professor','“I can compute without computing! It’s the dream of mathematicians because mathematicians don’t like computing things.”— Complex analysis professor','“I will not allow anyone to get a 100 on the midterm. There have been many 99’s, but no one gets a 100.”— Calculus teacher','“We’re going to draw a circle to demonstrate this. Pretend that’s a circle.”— Linear Algebra professor after drawing an awful circle','“We are assuming here that the user is competent. In reality this is always false. Users are very dumb and will do weird things.”— Intro to Computer Programming Professor','“If you don’t like this class it means you just don’t like math. That’s terrible and you should change your major. Or it means that you don’t like me, which is much, much worse.”— Fundamentals of Mathematics Professor','“Thanks to Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, everything you thought you knew about math is wrong. So basically, you’re all getting a degree in lies.”— Abstract Algebra Professor','“You may call it whatever you want; what’s important is the feeling.”— Galois Theory professor','“I’m going to draw a suggestive line up here. That enough for you?”— Calculus professor','“In equations, you’ve got to do things to both sides or it’s not fair. Those immortal words, ‘it’s not fair’.”— A Level Maths Teacher','“You bet your angle-side-side.”— Geometry teacher','“This graph is out of scale, but if there’s justice in the world the derivative of sin at pi is negative one.”— Calculus professor','“Turn to page ocho, which is Spanish for… ocho.”— Geometry teacher','“Gee, I’m a tree!”— Geometry teacher','“People who can write curly brackets fast are not to be trusted.”— Linear Algebra Professor','“As your teacher I have to tell you I don’t give a damn about digits of pi. I know it’s bigger than 3.”— Advanced Calculus professor','“How can you tell if a number is ‘0’ or ‘undefined,’? You can put a doughnut in a table, but you cannot put a table on a doughnut.”— Algebra Professor','“True randomness is long and painful.”','“Now, this theorem is certainly not saying that nothing weird ever happens, it just almost never happens…which is pretty good in math!”— Differentiable Manifolds professor','“Someone asked me that last week! I tried to answer, but you got either frightened or frustrated or both. I can’t tell any more.”— High school precalculus teacher','Student: What is the test on? Calculus Professor: Paper. ','“This is not a friendly chapter.”— Math professor','“This is math. We don’t cry, we calculate!”— Numerical analysis professor','Student: Can we write on both sides of this paper? Professor: You are free write on all six sides. ','“Damn it damn it damn it. Come on, this is simple algebra.”— Math professor, muttering','“Remember your Pythagorean identities from last year? Here’s a good pickup line: If you were sine squared and I was cosine squared, we could be one.”— Calculus teacher','Algebraic Topology Professor: So, if you imagine the pancakes after this lift, they’re all stacked on each other. Question? Student: Does it look like a Cinnabon? Professor: YES!!! ','“Oh, don’t do that, you’ll get an orgy of cross products.”— Calculus professor','“Sometimes it’s true in a dumb way, sometimes it’s false in a dumb way.”— Discrete math professor','Student: *walks into the classroom* Professor: Are you here for Bio? Student: Noooo... Professor: Good, because this is Graph Theory! ','“Are negative number depressed?”— Math professor','Professor: Well, what map would make sense here? Student: The determinant? Professor: That’s exactly right! Professor: *pauses* Professor: *switching to Arnold Schwarzenegger accent* I am the determinator. I will determinate you... I’m sorry, I try to talk about determinants without doing that, but I just have to. ','“If integration by parts is like a sledgehammer, then partial fraction decomposition is like the Kamehameha Wave of integration techniques.”— Calculus professor','“This data sorta, kinda looks normal. I guess you could say that its not horribly not normal. So we are going to go ahead and make the assumption that its normal and do our calculations, but I’m not going to feel good about it and neither should you.”— Statistics professor','Student: Can you give us some sample problems to study for the final? Physics professor: Sample problems?! Why, what's the point? You're just going to get a 30% anyway. ','“You don’t need to fill your head with junk like trigonometry.”— Calculus professor','Engineering Professor: So how would we prevent this refrigerator from losing heat as quickly? Student 1: Make the refrigerator spherical instead of rectangular? Student 2: Wrap the refrigerator in fiberglass? Engineering Professor: No, we plug it in! ','“Now we will define the sum of vector spaces. You don’t know, but you are already able to do so! Everything is a vector space, even meatballs. And you do not eat a single meatball, you eat two, right?”— Geometry professor','“If you’re a ham-eating person flying around in three-dimensional space, you want to be inside the ham, not outside.”— Calculus professor on triple integrals ','“Terrible! This is stupid math, I hate this!”— Complex analysis professor','“Here’s a triple integral, here’s the region, and here’s the answer. Do it yourself. I can’t hold your hand forever.”— Calculus professor','“Stop asking me how to prepare for the exams and just practice more problems, assholes.”— Calculus professor','“There’s not a lot of homework, so party moderately.”— Math teacher','“If you are interested in physics, but must know why it works, you better be religious because you will not understand why it happens.”— Math professor','Student: So you distributed the t and factored out the b? Professor: I don’t know! Maybe! ','Math Professor: So what would you call this symbol? *draws ^ on the board* Student: A hat. Professor: Alright, I can see that. How about this? *draws v on the board* Same student: UPSIDE DOWN HAT. Professor: …you know, we actually have a name for that. That’s V. ','“This is just the distributive property gone wild!”— Discrete math professor on the binomial theorem','“I call this straddling the mean!”— Statistics teacher on normal distribution question ','“This one looks pretty normal. Actually it looks pretty damn good! Sorry about that, I get excited about this subject pretty easily.”— Stats teacher looking at graphs of Sampling Distributions ','“I can only explain this so many ways. Like look at my purse. It’s red. I can’t really describe it’s color any other way.”— Calculus professor','“Don’t experiment in your car; experiment with math.”— Multivariable Calculus Professor ','“You know, there is a lot of good polymer chemistry happening in a garbage fire.”— Polymer Chemistry Professor ','“Let’s call this theorem Wiki’s theorem because I found the demonstration on a Wikipedia’s page and surprisingly it was actually pretty good!”— Analysis professor ','“Now you have got to tell me if I mess up, I’m absolutely bricking it here.”— Differential equations lecturer','“Okay. So instead of using shadows like I planned you folks figured out how to measure a tree with just a stick and your friend. I don’t know. Do you have friends? Let’s just go with a stick and an acquaintance susceptible to blackmail. That works.”— Geometry teacher','“I won’t be giving extra help today. I know I normally give it for about 2 hours on Thursdays but it’s so nice out so I’m going to go home and ride my bike.”— AP Calculus teacher','“Now that we have described natural numbers, come back next week so we can prove 1 is greater than 0!”— Real analysis professor','“If I stay abstract enough, I won’t have to do any computations.”— Linear Algebra Professor','“You guys remember this from your physics class, right?”— Calculus professor, at a school where calculus is the prerequisite for physics','“I’m on drugs. Well actually you’re probably the one on drugs. But I’m gonna pretend it’s me so I don’t have to remember that.”— Calculus teacher','“Is this right? Yes. It is. I’ve rearranged the Greek alphabet, but addition is commutative, so it’s okay.”— Geometry Lecturer','“Which means x equals zero, and life is over.”— Math Methods professor','“I wanna sketch more level curves! I’m not a math major, I’m a frustrated art major.”— Mulivariable Calculus TA','Student: What’s up? Professor: Everything but your grade. ','“When someone gives you a matrix you can impress them by putting it in reduced row echelon form.”— Linear algebra professor','“Let me spare you the indecency of differentiation in public.”— Vector Calculus professor','“Fortunately for me, my father-in-law is now dead.”— Physics teacher','“I can’t remember a time in my life when this hasn’t been trivial” -Algebraic Topology Professor','“I wish it were acceptable to cheer in situations like this. This conclusion is awfully exciting - I believe it deserves a ‘woo.’” -Algebraic Structures professor after finishing a proof of the First Isomorphism Theorem','“If you ever want to really get back at somebody, just sneak into their house and paint the back of their refrigerator silver.”— Physics professor','“Now we come across the things I don’t expect you to memorize.” - Vector calculus professor','“Just to let you know, it’s you, not me.”— Vector Analysis professor returning grades','“The cat is not a wave. And if you think the cat is a wave, see me at office hours.”— Physical Chemistry professor, talking about Schrodinger’s Equation','“Abelian, also known as baelian, means you can switch the elements and they equal the same thing.”— Automatic groups professor','“As of now, anyone who complains about logs owes me $2 per offense”— AP Calculus teacher','“Drawing pictures is bad, you can’t prove theorems by drawing pictures. I draw pictures on the board, but you must not look at them.”— Logic professor','“This ain’t watered-down chemistry, this is the real stuff. Ya’ll can blow up stuff in here!”— Chemistry teacher ','“You add up the gerbils, you get the mass of the rocket.”— Dynamics professor','“So try it out when you get home, find yourself a hairy ball and see if you can comb it. You’ll find that you won’t be able to. But if you get a hairy donut, you will. So try to find a hairy donut, too.”— Geometry professor','“I’ll show you a picture of a Swiss cake and you’ll be like ‘Whoa, that’s like eating a capacitor!’ But don’t eat a capacitor.”— Physics Teacher','“What you call a variable really doesn’t matter, so let’s use “beers” instead of “X’s””— Calculus professor','“You will all be Masters of Calculus!”— Multivariable calculus professor, as she cackles','“There are a lot of things that look like you should be able to prove them, but don’t be fooled. In mathematics, there is no such thing as “should be able to”.”— Real analysis professor','“I’ve actually seen this tattooed on someone. Not myself, though.”— Calculus teacher, on the definition of the derivative','“You broke your X, so no need to question Y because there’s still somebody better, just like Z.”— Math professor on love','“I don’t know whether I should finish class with the first option, the second option, or deciding which option to do.”— Algorithms professor','“I never really understood complex analysis, because the entire subject comprised of one theorem: Assume you have function from the complex numbers to the complex numbers, with any interesting property whatsoever. Then the function is a constant.”— Algebra professor','“This example is a little abstract.”— Abstract Algebra Lecturer','“Some people call it Hypotenuse-Arm, and some call it Hypotenuse-Leg. Really Hypotenuse-pick-your-favorite-body-part is probably fine.”— Geometry Lecturer','“You give me a “z” and I say thank you and then we plug it into our polynomial”— Complex Analysis professor','“I only remember bits and pieces of this.”— Vector Calculus Professor','“Now when you do approximations, be careful to not mess up. Otherwise you’ll end up with a swirling vortex that gets you further away from your answer”— Calclulus teacher, as he proceeds to write swirling lines across the board','“Mathematicians use as much Latin as possible so they seem even more unreachable.”— Real Analysis Professor','“There are functions that are differentiable but don’t have continuous partials. There exist such horrible things.”— Vector Calculus Professor','“We are not afraid. Why? Because the goddess of calculus walks with us.”— Physics professor','“Natural log is the only log that’s actually worth using. Log base 10 was created by man. Ln was created by God him or herself. And in real physics physics ln is the only log we use so when I say log I really mean ln. Log base 10 is for wimps.”— Calculus teacher','“The equilibrium constant equation is the equation you can write to figure shit out about your equilibrium constant.”— Chemistry teacher','“I’ll give you the theorems but I won’t prove them. They’re too hard for you, you’re only little.”— Calculus Professor','“Ah, arithmetic. My old nemesis.”— Calculus lecturer ','“For ten extra points, draw a unicorn and a dragon battling for world supremacy, and underneath a bunny eating some flowers.”— Math Methods professor, in reference to our midterm exam','“I love Bessel functions more than I love my great aunt Mildred.”— Quantum mechanics professor','“The boring way is to set A equal to zero. In which case there is no particle in the box. Go home, have a sandwich.”— Statistical Mechanics professor','“This notation is unfortunately standard. You just want to say “Come on, you’re a function! Act like it!””— Differential geometry professor','“Discrete Math strikes again!”— Abstract Algebra Professor','“Problem 1.22 (for masochists only)…”— David J. Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics','“This is a really good textbook. Everybody likes it because it has answers to both odd AND even problems in the back.”— Differential Equations professor','“You’re right, this stuff is 100% counter-intuitive. Welcome to Abstract Algebra.”— Jathan Austin - Salisbury University','“It’s nice messing around colouring diagrams, but this isn’t an art class or a geography lesson, so we should, like, prove a theorem or something.”— Geometric Topology lecturer on knot 3-colourability','“If you accidentally get on a bus to Chicago, you can think about the Goldbach Conjecture.”— Number Theory Professor','“Oh, that’s actually correct. It’s still early, so I should be screwing up shortly.”— Linear algebra professor, immediately before screwing up the next row','“I don’t know how you celebrate proving theorems but I celebrate them by proving corollaries.”— Linear Algebra Professor','“Minimum efforts, maximum smarts!”— Calculus Professor','“You can’t solve all your problems by drawing pictures, but it’s worth a try.”— Math professor','“I don’t want you to worry about your grades. But don’t slack off either. This class is like the Rocky movies. Like you know he is going to win but he doesn’t win because you know he’s going to win, he wins because he works hard…and drinks eggs. But you don’t have to drink eggs to do well in this class.”— Abstract algebra professor','“There’s a lot of things you can do in the dark. Mathematics is not one of them.”— Math teacher after a power outage','“You’re at wizard level math. People come in here to deliver passes and they just stare at the board in horror.”— High School Calculus Teacher','“Someone back in like the 1800s was like, wow, life is boring. Let’s do calculus.”— Calculus professor','“Like every result in number theory, this theorem will be beautiful, useless, and the method of proof will lead us to further study.”— Dr. Efim Zelmanov','“The best way for you to get a good grade on this test is to answer the questions right”— Probability and statistics professor','“The education field is all about begging, copying, and stealing”— Algebra teacher','“P = NP could cure cancer.”— Computational complexity professor','“When I go to the club people are like he is so awesome because he can add integrals to both sides of an equation wow.”— Calculus professor','“If you drop the integral off it becomes an algebra problem. Like 2y = trig stuff, then divide by 2 and you get y = trig stuff over 2.”— Calculus professor','“The zero vector has no direction, just like many of today’s youth.”— Math professor','“What’s the contour integral around Eastern Europe? Zero, all the Poles are in Western Europe!”— Complex Analysis professor','“I mean come on, even a rake fights back when you step on it.”— Philosophy and ethics professor','“I found a stick. Who wants a stick? You can hit me with it when I mess up.”— Math professor','“Suppose I find an ancient coin in the La Brea tar pits and instead of speculating on how valuable it would be, I want to know if it’s a fair coin or not. Because I’m a statistician and we don’t think logical thoughts like that.”— Statistics professor','“No. No. No. No. No. No. No. -7”— Precalculus teacher, written on a trig proofs test','“Perhaps asking you to draw was a bit much. You can just derive the equation instead.”— Math professor','“Tangent is such a handsome curve.”— Calculus Professor','“A simplicial complex is like an apartment complex for people that like to live in things made out of triangles.”— Math methods professor','“Sometimes there are people who like to mess around with your research. For example, I had a student conduct a survey asking people how many times they ate fast food in a week, and one person said 48. But that’s not possible! There’s only 21 meals in the week (breakfast, lunch, and dinner x 7)!”— Psychology Statistics Professor','“I don’t want any friends!”— C++ professor on the downside of having friend functions','“Now some of you have been saying, ‘but professor you never taught us this chapter, why is it on the final’ and to that I would say, well sometimes life isn’t fair.”— Physics Professor a day before the final','“No math ****! No naked numbers, label them.”— Physics professor on word problems','“You know if you think about it, math is a lot like smooth jazz”— Multivariable Calculus professor','“Sextillion! That’s the sexiest number.”— High school math teacher','“Well, that’s a hard one to prove. But hey! Night is long and coffee is cheap.”— Calculus professor on a hard to prove theorem','“So basically, my neighbour’s dog keeps eating my chickens… Anyway, if I shoot the neighbour’s dog, it’ll change quantum states.”— Quantum theory professor on states of matter','“Here we like to use lambda, but I know that as math majors you guys are all x-lovers…well not THAT kind of ex-lover. At least you’re not MY ex-lover.”— Linear Algebra Professor','“A few words on roots and unity, A good name for a band.”— Complex Analysis Professor','“There’s your party-word for the week. Go to a party, run into a mathematician, you say, ‘So, how about those Riemann Surfaces?’”— Complex Analysis Professor','“So, if conformal mapping comes up at the next frat party, you can ask what region they like.”— Complex Analysis Professor, after introducing different ways to plot multiply connected regions','“Be careful of the Gremlin. You don’t want him to get you when FOILing polynomials.”— Precalculus Teacher','“I really hope nobody ever says, ‘Hey Riley, can you hold my baby?’ because he’s always dropping things. Like negative signs.”— Calculus teacher','“So, in other words, dog plus face equals x.”— Precalculus teacher','“You can’t get smarter by imagining you’re smarter.”— Probability professor on the tower rule for conditional expectation','“If 3 ever stops being a positive number GET OUT NOW THIS IS NOT A DRILL”— Calculus professor','“You can use kittens and smiley faces instead of x’s and y’s if you want, in fact I encourage it!”— Calculus professor','“When Fred gets a hold of x, this is what he does to it.”— Algebra teacher on f(x)','“Don’t blow up my space probe!”— Dr. John Trimboli, Middle Georgia State University, referring to using proper units','“Time to put on our big-boy panties.”— Middle school math teacher','“Could B. Wright? That’s a terrible name for the person in this problem. Could isn’t even a real name! May B. Wright is so much better. That’s not even hard to think of either. That’s a linear problem.”— Advanced Math Programming Professor','“We don’t include zero in the set of natural numbers. Otherwise we’d be French.”— Abstract algebra professor','“Physics is not a democracy.”— Fluid mechanics professor','“Who uses u substitutions? U du.”— Calculus Teacher','“No, you see, math is great because in like history, you can’t just memorize a formula to see if you’ve got the right president”— High school math teacher','“Sweetie, if you really want to know the atmospheric pressure of Mars, build a rocket. I’ll give you the chemicals and you can ride an explosion out of my classroom”— Chemistry teacher to a disruptive student','“If a quiz makes you quizzical, what does a test make you? TESTICLE!”— 7th grade algebra teacher','“If you like mental exercises, you can try to picture the fourth dimension.”— Complex Analysis Professor, on plotting complex functions','“Degrees are simply a human convenience.”— Complex Analysis Professor, after being asked if we should be using degrees or radians','“But we’re mathematicians, and we’re all powerful, so we can do things.”— Complex Analysis Professor','“Great word to use in proofs: likewise. Cuts out half the effort.”— Geometry Professor','“Don’t do what the book says. The book is dumb and wants you to suffer. Do what I say, it works everytime.”— 7th grade math teacher on solving proportions','“People who cannot do integrals are not welcome here. People who can’t do integrals aren’t even people.”— Quantum mechanics professor','“When finding area under a curve, we partition a rectangular graph into sheet cake subintervals. On a polar curve, we partition intervals into subinterval pie slices. We are no longer mathematicians. We are bakers.”— Calculus professor ','“I used to be with my x but now I’m with u”— Calculus professor on u substitution','“Has anyone hugged a piecewise function lately?”— Calculus professor','“By the way, the article I’m assigning you to read until next week is in French so if you don’t speak French… well… learn it.”— Abstract algebra professor','“You started off ok, but see here, now it’s like you’re swinging with the wrong end of the bat.”— Math professor','“Don’t kill a cat!!!”— Precalculus teacher','“What would you do when you get to this question? And don’t say ‘walk out’.”— A Level Maths Teacher','“You all seem so quiet today. Is all of this trivial to you or does it look like black magic?”— Partial Differential Equations Professor','“It is a beautiful day! We should be out enjoying nature and enjoying the weather. But instead we’d rather learn calculus. We’re sick people.”— Multivariable Calculus Professor','“So how are we going to tell if a vector field is conservative without looking at its voting record?”— Multivariable Calculus professor ','“You get to a point when you study mathematics for so long that basic arithmetic, you know addition and subtraction, just becomes impossible because you’re always over thinking it.”— Discrete Professor after failing to calculate 6 + 7','“This is a contrived example, but it’s contrived for the greater social good.”— Number theory lecturer deriving quadratic reciprocity from class field theory','“It’s a fucking mess, with sines of theta flying in every goddamn direction.”— Quantum mechanics professor, on the Schrödinger equation in spherical coordinates','“My first instinct when I see a differential equation is to hide under the table and wait for somebody else to solve it.”— Quantum mechanics professor','“Driverless vehicles are a pretty simple linear algebra problem.”— Linear Algebra Professor','“That really rankles my sheeves.”— Computer science professor','“Hyperbolic functions are like regular trig functions, except from the evil universe, the one where Spock has a beard.”— Calculus professor','“We have defeated gravity!”— Calculus professor','“I’m basically an art teacher. I spend all day drawing sine and cosine”— Pre-calculus teacher','“Cause it’s really super scientific and stuff.”— Physics teacher','“I can’t believe I just spent 10 minutes doing precalculus…again.”— Calculus professor','“Obviously there’s no such thing as an ‘instantaneous’ relay switch. In my experience there’s fast relay switches and REALLY fast relay switches, the rest are like, take your sweet time relay switches”— Engineering Professor','“If you do really well on the final, you’ll probably get a C. It you do poorly, you’ll probably still get a C.”— Quantum mechanics professor','“Alright, I know we have 20 minutes left, but my notebook says “STOP”, so I’m gonna stop. …plus I’m outa coffee.”— Discrete Structures Professor','“Why am I explaining algebra? You paid for calculus. I’m being paid to teach calculus!”— Calculus Professor','“We’re dealing with whole pigeons here. You can’t put pieces or fractions of pigeons in a hole.”— Discrete Professor explaining the Pigeonhole Principle','“It’s not a doughnut; it’s more like a badly formed doughnut. You wouldn’t want to eat that. Well, would. Never mind.”— Multivariate calculus professor','“The question says 16 people were surveyed, but the provided data says 15 people. Just use 15, pretend one person died.”— Statistics TA on a typo during a test','“What’s gonna happen in the next few pages is gonna be a huge amount of algebra, but you’re not gonna be afraid because you’re okay with that”— Differential equations professor','“The curve is curving, as curves tend to do.”— Math professor','“If you write sinx without x, you have just written sin.”— Math professor','“In life you have one objective: know what a metric is and when it’s complete.”— Analysis Professor','“We can show this using integration by parts, but we don’t need that in our lives.”— Statistics professor','“When we’re talking about whether a person is guilty of a crime using our null and alternative hypotheses, like, say, shoplifting…or murder…”— Statistics professor','“Just because A=B and B=C doesn’t mean A=C in statistics. This isn’t math.”— Statistics professor','“…and now everything is just peace, love and gogo boots”— Chemistry professor after doing a quantum mechanics problem for an hour and getting the wrong answer 4 times','“The teacher who was in this room this morning asked me if she sould leave the projector on for me. ‘No, I’m a mathematician!’ I said. She thought she was doing me a favour or something.”— Group theory professor','“We learn about optimization in real world situations because, for example, manufacturers want to know the minimum cost for the volume and surface area for storage cans. Of course, it’d be cheapest to use a sphere, but we do not live in a spherical world.”— AP Calculus Teacher','“I’m not going to write down the whole calculation because I… ehm.. because chalk is expensive.”— Information systems lecturer','“You need several synonyms of ‘therefore.’ These might include 'hence,’ 'ergo,’ and 'any darn fool can see,’ though you might be inclined to use a stronger expletive.”— Proof-writing professor','“In mathematics, you leave no turn unstoned.”','“Please don’t be surprised when I tell you I was born on earth and have lived here all my life.”— Proof-writing professor','“One valid method of proof is assignment.”— Proof-writing professor','“You’ll only use the terms ‘surjection,’ 'injection,’ and 'bijection’ if you drink your beer out of a frosted glass. If you drink it from the bottle, you’ll use 'one-to-one’ and 'onto.’”— Proof-writing professor','“The middle terms when you’re foiling are what we call riffraff.”— Proof-writing professor','“I’m going to pull out the big guns now. Do you remember the fundamental theorem of arithmetic?”— Proof-writing professor','Student: Why don’t we hear about Quantum Mechanics outside of classes, like in the media or the news? Chemistry professor: Well, the math usually makes most people crap their pants. ','“We only need to check up to 30. Everything bigger than that is either prime or a multiple of 2.”','“The variables on this side are the nice animals, and the ones here are the evil animals.”— Abstract algebra professor','“Yesterday I gave accidentaly one wrong definition because i was confused, the twins from the first row didn’t sit next to each other.”— Linear algebra professor','“If you put a porcupine through an integral operator, what you get out is a ball.”— Numerical PDE professor','“Limits are our friends! You can manipulate and split them up easily. But sigma notation is your backstabbing frenemy. You can have fun with him one day, and the next day he’s unsolvable!”— Calculus professor','“Actually, if you’re having an affair in Newark then you probably deserve to be tracked.”— Cryptography professor, during lecture on locational privacy','“Your displacement can never be imaginary. Unless you are in heaven. I guess in complex analysis we borrow things from heaven and use them to solve things.”— Differential equations professor','“Rolle’s Theorem is literally just the Mean Value Theorem when the two values are equal to each other. That and the thesis for some guy’s undeserved PhD.”— AP Calculus teacher','“Not many people showed up today. I don’t blame them. Did anyone bring pot?”— Linear algebra professor','“The easiest part of calculus is the calculus, the algebra is the hard part.”— Calculus professor','“Sketch out some solutions, and then check yourself. And if you can’t tell what your mistake was, then ask me. And I won’t tell you.”— Linear algebra professor','“Well, I don’t believe in magic, but the closest thing to it, in my opinion, is matrix multiplication.”— Linear algebra professor','“And you’re thinking, ‘Why should I believe you in this?’ Well, don’t believe me. Just prove it yourself; it’s easy.”— Linear algebra professor','“Whatever question I have about how to do something, you say ‘row reduction’ and you’re probably going to be right.”— Linear algebra professor','“It is a sickness with mathematicians. They try to make everything perfect. I do not do that.”— Complex analysis professor','“I didn’t name The Law of Total Probability but if I did I would have called it wishful thinking. What did we wish we knew. Well, you are probably wishing you knew all the answers to this exam!”— Statistics professor','“Of course, we described only the top two energy bands, but there’s a shitload of other bands too. But we’ll ignore them, because we’re heartless.”— Electronics professor','“Part of this class is learning how to be cool at a math party and that was not cool.”— Real Analysis professor','“My favorite color is shiny.”— Linear algebra professor','“The world does not suffer from an excess understanding of multivariable calculus.”— Analysis Professor','“This really big prime number was found by Euler. The second biggest was found 40 years before that, also by Euler. This was a guy with a lot of time on his hands.”— Discrete math professor','“If you’re a pleb, you can plot the points individually.”— Multivariable Calculus Professor','“Mathematicians tend to use f for any function. F this, f that…”— Fourier analysis lecturer','“It is a slope, but the slope changes when you move. Slope is a convenient geometric hook.”— Econometrics professor','“Most professors give you billshit. I give you flaming bullshit.”— Metallurgy thermodynamics professor on burning manure to preheat gases.','“The thing about these equations is that if you just randomly, by chance, happen to find 2 linearly independent solutions that fit you can just say ‘I found these randomly’ on the exam and we pretty much have to take them.”— Differential equations professor','“If you’re interested in the proof, you can read the original paper I’ve put up on the class website. It’s in French, but that’s basically English.”— Algebra professor','“This is what I refer to as the part of the problem that sucks.”— Calculus professor','“Yes. Now, how do you say that in Math?”— Number Theory professor','“I’m sorry, there’s a plate of ketchup up here, and it’s very distracting.”— Real Analysis Professor','“Rather than look this up on Wolfram Alpha, I would prefer to live in the desert on peanut butter and lizard spit.”— Physics professor','“I calculated this two ways: using a computer, and with mad skills.”— Combinatorics professor','“I will teach you all the hard stuff, but I cannot count.”— Algebra teacher','“The test will be on everything we’ve learned up through this problem set. Is that quiet screaming I hear?”— Physics professor','“You have destroyed the language of mathematics.”— Differential Equations professor when a student tried to divide by zero. ','“And now, I hope you’ve eaten enough garlic, because here comes a monster.”— Linear algebra teacher','“5 is only equal to zero on December 32nd, which is also the day beer is free.”— Algebra teacher','“Mathematicians don’t like not being able to solve something, so they made up imaginary numbers.”— Algebra teacher','“Now, segment JK is 4, and I’m not JK-ing you.”— Geometry teacher','“I hate using the word ‘huge.’ It makes me think of Donald Trump. HUUUGGGE.”— Abstract Algebra Lecturer','“We’re doing math here, so we don’t have to deal with reality.”— Calculus TA','“The log log of any number in the universe is effectively less than five.”— Math instructor','“Adding quantum to the front of bit does as adding quantum to the front of anything does. It means you’re going to have a hard time understanding it.”— Quantum computing professor','“It’s not like that in reality, but we’re already doing enough injustice to reality anyway. So if we’re gonna make it wrong, we may as well make it easy.”— Computer science professor','“So these are proofs by contradiction. Be careful with them. They are cannons students often use to blow off their feet.”— Discrete mathematics professor','“Now, statistics has been shown to be the class most likely to make you cry. The statistics department is really happy about this.”— Statistics professor','“Well, I thought that was fairly obvious, wouldn’t you agree?”— Abstract algebra professor','“If you can make it this far and take all these derivatives, but don’t know secant of pi over 3, something is wrong”— Caculus professor','“Oh, hello to you too! This is going to be a class full of old friends!”— Logic professor greeting students retaking the class','“What’s purple and commutes? An abelian grape.”— Abstract Algebra Lecturer','“If you separate variables then you get Fourier series, they just drop out of the sky!”— Partial differential equations professor','“I came transposed today.”— Graph theory teacher when confusing rows and columns in a matrix ','“I’m an evil maths wizard. A mathemagician, if you will.”— Math teacher','“So, these are the Navier-Stokes equations, and they’re disgusting.”— Math teacher','“Oh, I just wrote random numbers for this equation, but they work out really beautifully. I am very proud of myself.”— Calculus professor','“My brain’s feeling sleepy this morning. I’m really just pretending to know this stuff.”— Abstract algebra professor','“The graph of this function looks like an upside-down cereal bowl. No wait, a right way up cereal bowl. Don’t turn your cereal bowl upside down or all your cereal will fall out.”— Algebra lecturer','“I really wish I was a student again, just so I could skip this class”— Algebra professor','“And at this moment, when Tom Sawyer gets Huck to give him a rat on a string I think: OOH! Tangent vectors!”— Multivariable Calculus professor','“This is the definition of integration I give first when I teach single variable calculus. Even though they haven’t let me teach it in a while. Wonder why.”— Multivariable Calculus professor','“So, I’m not quite sure how to teach this.”— Physics teacher','“Torque. Not twerk. But we can talk about both if you want.”— Physics teacher','“This is cooler than a penguin in the Arctic, or a frozen cucumber. Oh wait, penguins don’t live in the Arctic, so finding one there would make it doubly cool!”— Calculus professor','“And now in a devastating act of simplification we turn what looks like a 747 into three masses and two springs.”— Dynamics lecturer','“We like the Romans because they were excellent at concurring and killing, not because of their prowess at mathematics and numbering systems.”— Calculus professor','“We’re mathematicians dammit! We don’t need to know the applications of this!”— Calculus professor','“I would like to state that I have never requested that the math department building be burnt down so that I can get a bigger office.”— Math professor, after learning that the physics building caught on fire','“I was really good at solving problems, but I had no idea what I was actually doing. I just knew put this here, put this there, get the answer out, go home, drink beer. But I don’t advocate that.”— Classical mechanics professor','“If you’re accusing me of handwaving, I’m guilty as charged.”— Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics professor','“The field of thermo and statistical mechanics is full of miserable people. Maybe there’s a lesson in that.”— Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics professor','“You’ll have to accept that I’m bullshitting you a little bit.”— Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics professor','“If you have some free time this weekend, you might want to try calculating the efficiency. Actually, if you have a lot of free time you should take a walk in the woods, but if you have even more free time you could try to calculate the efficiency.”— Thermodynamics Professor','“It’s difficult to listen and write at the same time. Actually, you probably have a lot of experience with that.”— Linear Algebra professor','“Over you learn how to do Fourier Series, then you can do real magic.”— Differential Equations Professor','“There’s a lot of slugs in this world.”— Calculus professor','“Okay, here’s a theorem you’re all gonna love! Well, maybe not love, but you’d at least like it on Facebook.”— Real analysis professor','“The problem is the polygon sort of wanders off and then it comes back later to mess with you.”— Euclidean Geometry Professor','“I have no idea what’s going on with Euclid sometimes.”— Euclidean Geometry Professor','“Here we have the Mona Lisa, or equivalent.”— Linear algebra professor, when drawing a smiley to demonstrate matrix operations graphically','“I’m a doctor, not a row reducer!”— Abstract algebra professor','“That reminds of that new Christopher Nolan movie that I just saw, Interstellar. It was a pretty good movie, and it was non-trivial too.”— Linear algebra professor after discussing the implications of Lorentz transforms','“Now, after have studied all theory about differential equation systems, we must drop our pants and solve only the simple ones.”— Differential equations professor after a dense theory lecture','“The students haven’t been practicing the problem like I thought they would have over break.”— High school algebra teacher','“When I looked at this problem, I knew the students would like it. I was like this is a problem the students would enjoy.”— Math teacher','“You could do it that way. You’d eventually get the same answer but you’d have to go to Narnia and come back first.”— Linear algebra TA','“You won’t have an error if you just guess right the first time.”— Physics professor on the direction of friction','“Don’t be afraid engineers. Once, a textile engineer was here trying to be physicist. That was hard for him, but now he’s an expert in superstrings!”— Physics professor','“As the inner points of a torus are hyperbolic points, we now know you can ride a donut as a horse if you sit on the inner part”— Differential geometry professor','“How can you play the drums if you don’t know what a Bessel function is?”— Partial differential equations professor','“Infinity is just another form of not existing.”— Differential Equations Professor','“That’s the thing with students. They think there are only three dimensions.”— Multivariable Calculus Professor','“You got this. Probably.”— Combinatorics professor right before starting the final exam','“If you meet some random vector field on the street, how do you know if they’re conservative or not?”— Calculus Professor','“This vector field is not conservative. You won’t find this vector field on Fox.”— Calculus Professor','“What does ‘is’ mean? I feel like a politician. 'Is' means 'is isomorphic to.’”— Algebra professor','“Note that lambda was real. Wait, I mean “is” real. I don’t think that it changed its mind all of a sudden.”— Linear algebra professor','“Just type linear system into Wikipedia and you’ll find that. I know because that’s where I got it.”— Control systems professor','“The conjugate of 30 will always be 30. Never write -30 on an exam. It will be wrong every day of the week, even Sunday.”— Electrical Analysis Professor','“Grunt if you understand…. Now grunt if you don’t understand…. Now grunt if you have lost all will to live…. Ok there’s a few of you.”— Physics professor deriving electromagnetic wave equations from Maxwell’s laws','“Oh, calculus. I don’t remember that.”— Linear algebra professor, on an inner product defined by an integral','“Using that theorem for this proof would be like trying to swat a fly with a hammer.”— Abstract algebra professor','“Science majors, you have to remember this. This is important to your life. But not your love life.”— Calculus Professor','“I’m not indecisive. My first two decisions cancelled each other out.”— Professor Halfaf, discrete math','“Transitivity is like flights. For every layover flight, there’s a direct flight.”— Professor Halfaf, discrete math professor','“The answer is either that or a different number.”— Professor Halfaf, discrete math professor','“We’re going to keep on doing this symbolically, even though at this point you could just scream ‘HEY, LOOK! TRIANGLES!’ and end the problem right here.”— Calculus professor on integration','“Isn’t that slicker than a weasel that’s been dipped in diesel?”— Differential equations professor showing the method of Laplace Transform','“Math is like going into a dark room and searching for a black cat that isn’t there.”— Calculus teacher talking about limits','“This problems is like a gorilla, but you have a machete! And by using a system you can chop the gorilla into little pieces.”— Physics Professor','“For some reason in mathematics we always draw sets as weird curvy objects.”— Discrete mathematics professor','“You can choose to begin or end a variables life. You have a lot of power as a programmer, use it carefully.”— Numerical Analysis Lecturer','“The best teacher that I ever had was George Booth at Brooklyn College. He died in 1995, but when I went to go give him a rating on Rate My Professors, two other professors had beat me to it! He’s dead and he has a perfect 5!”— Geometry Lecturer','“I asked this question on an exam once. It was a bloodbath.”— Abstract Algebra Lecturer','“I wish I had thought of this guy when I was naming my children.”— Discrete mathematics professor on Pascal','“You’ll have to accept that I’m bullshitting you a little bit.”— Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics professor','“I always say you should try to blind people with your brilliance. And if you can’t blind them with your brilliance, bury them with your bullshit.”— Classical mechanics professor','“There are two ways to do this problem. The first is my favorite because it involves magic.”— Probability Professor','“Calculating a volume is just like calculating an area: who the hell cares.”— Math professor','“This is an example of a very bad proof. If this was my proof, I would crumple it up and eat it so no one could ever see it.”— Real analysis professor','“I think the function needs to be continuous for this theorem. Eh, I don’t care.”— Differential equations professor','“Sorry, I was drunk when I wrote problem 1.”— Physics professor','“Are we seeing a pattern here? Of course.”— Algebra textbook','“I’m disappointed in you children.”— Calculus professor','“I think I missed an important arbitrary constant somewhere. Sorry, guys.”— Differential equations professor','“It will be the solution, the only solution, by some uniqueness theorem. Which one? I have no idea.”— Differential equations professor','“Now, you couldn’t get one of those at the Walmart in Ancient Greece.”— Geometry Lecturer','“It’s not a math class if we don’t go over something named after Gauss.”— Numerical Analysis professor on Gaussian Quadrature','“I wrote the wrong equation on the last problem on the exam, but some of you did heroic things with it.”— Numerical analysis professor','“It’s either easy or wrong.”— Homology professor','“Don’t you see all the cute little kittens riding the roller coaster? No? The roller coaster of slope? What about puppies in a stroller on a roller coaster?”— Calculus professor','“I’m just exposing you to culture…it’s like eating a very stinky cheese. Now you can say, ‘Yeah, I’ve tried that!’”— Real analysis professor on a proof of the Heine-Borel theorem','“The whole universe jiggles.”— Linear Professor talking about vibrations and quantum mechanics','“Physics is about physical things. You’re here because you like physical things. Or because you were forced to be here.”— Physics professor','“Sometimes I feel like we should just say ‘I’m going to integrate the shit out of this.’”— Quantum mechanics professor after watching “The Martian”','“Ah crap. We need to talk about compact sets.”— Series and sequences professor','“This efficiency would be sufficient if we were engineers, but we are mathematicians, so we do it because it’s beautiful.”— Mathematical physics professor','“You probably only understood 1% of that last part. That was intentional”— Engineering professor','“The chain rule and setting the derivative equal to zero are your only friends.”— Calculus professor','“There’s no magic in the world. It’s all math.”— Discrete math professor','“Graduate school is really fun, but it’s also like, ‘AAAHHHHHHHHHHH.’”— Statistics lecturer','“This is certainly true by strange universal nonsense.”— Homology professor','“I make you construct the real numbers and you think you’re going to get away using a logarithm in this class? What the hell is a logarithm?”— Real analysis professor','“Alright, the class is over. Tell your friend he can wake up now.”— Calculus professor after explaining series expansion','“All you’ll need is a pencil and a calculator. If you have a bottle of water? That’s okay. A bottle of vodka? Even better.”— Statistics professor before taking an exam','“Now don’t be stupid and cheat off the person next to you. There are two different copies of the exam; cheat off the person beside the person next to you!”— Statistics professor','“Remember Daylight Savings ends this Sunday, so that means you have an extra hour to complete next week’s homework assignment.”— Probability professor','“The limit reminds me of a cookie I had the other day: DNE.”— Calculus professor','“Some days I wonder how you kept up your grades long enough to even make it into my class. Other days I wonder why more of my students can’t get your grades. Today it’s both, because you just factored incorrectly, but your test came back as one of the top ten.”— AP Calculus teacher','Thesis Advisor: But isn't that cool? Me: Mathematically cool? Yes. Real world cool? No. ','“Stuffing pigeons into pigeonholes is a crucial idea, but it may not be good for the health of pigeons”— My discrete math professor (via everything-is-a-sum ) ','“This data sorta, kinda looks normal. I guess you could say that it’s not horribly not normal. So we are going to go ahead and make the assumption that it’s normal and do our calculations, but I’m not going to feel good about it and neither should you.”— Math professor','“Terrible! This is stupid math, I hate this!”— Complex analysis professor after his spur-of-the-moment example problem turned ugly ','“Here’s a triple integral. Here’s the region, and here’s the answer. Do it yourself. I can’t hold your hand forever.”— Calculus professor','“Stop asking me how to prepare for the exams and just practice more problems, assholes.”— Calculus professor','“Yesterday I heard an awful thing. I mentioned change of bases and you all groaned.”— Differential Equations Professor, right before spending an hour on change of bases ','“We want a general rule to compute limits that works for NICE functions.”— Calculus professor ','“Let’s call this theorem Wiki’s theorem because I found the demonstration on a Wikipedia’s page and surprisingly it was actually pretty good!”— Real analysis professor','“Now guys you have got to tell me if I mess up, I’m absolutely bricking it here.”— Differential equations professor','“Okay. So instead of using shadows like I planned you guys figured out how to measure a tree with just a stick and your friend. Well actually I don’t know… do you guys have friends? Let’s just go with a stick and an acquaintance susceptible to blackmail. That works.”— Geometry teacher','“These flowers are not for you, they are for linear algebra. Sorry.”— Linear algebra professor','“Now, the way I look at it is like this: The MacLauren Series is a Taylor Series that the guy must’ve gotten a cheap PhD out of.”— Calculus professor','“It’s not that hard. It’ll take a little remembering, but remembering doesn’t hurt that much.”— Calculus Professor','“What’s an anagram of Banach-Tarski? Banach-Tarski Banach-Tarski.”— Linear Algebra professor','“We’re going to be coloring with squares and triangles.”— Professor Halfaf, discrete mathematics','“Even though this is a calculus course, I grant you the privilege of using common sense.”— Calculus teacher','“So now using this new method, we have found the particular solution to this differential equation. Who would have known this is the solution? God doesn’t even know.”— Differential Equations professor','“We learned this a while ago. Now it’s coming back to haunt us.”— PreCalculus Professor','“A better name for ‘Real Analysis’ would be ‘Applied Triangle Inequality 101’”— Complex Analysis Professor','“You should always try to make an even number of sign errors”— Physics professor','“I’m permitted to use terms like ‘clearly,’ 'obviously,’ 'it is self-evident,’ and 'it can be shown’ and skip over vast quantities of information to leave you wondering how it is 'clearly’ the case.”— Physical chemistry professor','“Imagine, then, that you’re rolling a joint. You can approach this either by rolling an extremely short joint as wide as a house, or an extremely thin joint so long that it reaches the next town over. Which would you choose?”— Calculus professor','“I like to do away with ambiguity where I can, unless of course it is to my advantage.”— Physical chemistry professor','“Why must you do all that distribution just to get rid of it later? You’re wasting my marker. Times are tough.”— Calculus teacher','“And now we do the slope thing.”— AP Calculus teacher before taking the derivative of a function','“Dude. You left 58/2 as a fraction. I know you’re damn near blind but I stuck myself in the eye with a pitchfork over spring break and I saw that mistake.”— Precalculus teacher (who actually DID hit himself in the eye with a pitchfork and now has a blind spot)','“An inclined plane! From all the way back in Physics 1!”— Physics 2 professor upon seeing a student shoving a door jam under a door','“There’s a Sigma on the bottom right region, which is my favorite region.”— Combinatorics professor about the ΠΜΕ shield','“If you get a straight line graph, then that is the holy grail of physics.”— Physics teacher briefing us on our data analysis','“The function is x^x. Nobody gives a shit, it’s as simple as that.”— Classical mechanics professor','“It may seem like a lot of work, but remember: the night is long and coffee is cheap.”— Calculus professor','“If you forgot the definition of a homogeneous system on the exam, you’re not the only one. But you should still feel really bad.”— Linear analysis professor','“Trying to solve this integral on the real axis is like running headlong into a wall, whereas if you flip to the complex plane, you can run on the wall, like a ninja”— Complex analysis professor','“I must have done something to make the room-scheduling department mad. Two of the three classes I’m teaching this semester aren’t in the same building as my office.”— Abstract Algebra Lecturer','“When you finish a direct proof, you’ll write QED. When you finish a proof by contraposition, you’ll also write QED but you’ll also write Ta da! Because you’ll feel really great about yourself.”— Discrete math professor','“Venn diagrams are the weakest things to ever get named after someone. Makes me feel like I should keep trying.”— Discrete math professor','“Ethnicity is categorical not numerical data. We can’t average ethnicity.”— Statistics professor','“When I was in high school, my math teacher told me that I would never be a mathematician because I wouldn’t accept the obvious. After I got my PhD, I wanted to go back and tell him to shove it up his butt, but, fortunately or unfortunately, he was dead.”— Abstract Algebra Lecturer','“Doesn’t that work out nicely? It’s almost as if this lecture was planned!”— Abstract Algebra Lecturer','“Math is beautiful. This is complex analysis, so it’s going to get pretty ugly, but just think about the beauty for now.”— Complex analysis professor','“I didn’t really find out why (-1)(-1)=1 until I started studying ring theory.”— Abstract Algebra Lecturer','“Go by bus. Go by bicycle. I want to see you at school.”— Vector calculus professor when asked if any specific form would be required when describing planes. ','“What does Q.E.G.D.D. stand for? It stands for, Q. E. God Damn D.”— Math professor','“This stuff is so useless, that it’s beyond useless”— Calculus teacher describing limits (via chickencordonblog)','“I’m glad that you like me, but your first exam is in one week, and that’s the point when everyone starts to not like me.”— Said in response to a student who commented on his teacher’s teaching style.','“I respond to pretty much anything other than ‘hey stupid.’”— Calculus professor when introducing himself on the first day of class','“It is a common, but horrible, mistake to think that the dot product of two vectors yields another vector.”— Multivariable calculus textbook','“Taking homology makes you a better person.”— Abstract algebra professor','“You know, there is a lot of good polymer chemistry happening in a garbage fire.”— Polymer chemistry professor','“Can I rub this off, now? No objections? You can still panic and I’ll leave it. In the future, I’ll stop cleaning the chalkboard if you panic loud enough.”— Abstract algebra professor','“This is the variable, which varies.”— Quantum mechanics professor','“Did I already erase it? No! What a fortuitous thing! Usually when I want to talk about something, it’s the thing that I just erased.”— Geometry Lecturer','“Memorize this formula sheet or you will fail this course.”— Engineering calculus professor, on a legal-document sized formula sheet','“You will never get a satisfactory answer to why zero factorial equals one. But, imagine it this way, if it didn’t work out, ALL OF MATHS would break, and I would break down and cry”— Combinatorics lecturer','“Yes, there’s a radical in the denominator. That’s okay in calculus for some reason, so just leave it. But if you don’t want your parents to find out you can go ahead and rationalize it.”— Precalculus teacher','“And as you can see from the equation – you can all see this, right? Yes? It’s not even maths at this point, it’s just eyesight.”— Stochastic processes professor','“This next bit is going to be a bit of a wavy hand gesture.”— Calculus professor','“Tensors are wonderful. Y'know, you don’t want to marry one, but they’re great fun to… manipulate.”— Linear algebra professor','“It’s rad/s but we just say s. Why? Blame the mathematicians. They can take it. They’re strong.”— Electronics professor','“If I draw a number line, zero will be on it. If I can point to zero on a fucking number line, then zero is a fucking number!”— Differential equations professor, replying to a student claiming that zero is not a number ','“You show me real understanding, and I’ll flip back a few pages to a mistake and say, “That was stupid… But now it’s right.””— Statistics lecturer, explaining his system of ‘bonus points’ for the exam','“Now this is the part that will make you all tingly inside.”— Calculus professor, on Taylor series','“And that, folks, is why you should never drink and derive.”— Physics professor, after messing up on a calculus problem','“Stand back! I’m about to do some basic arithmetic!”— Differential equations professor','“A differential equation is something with a lot of x’s.”— Differential equations professor','“I’m going to do something very mathematical on this proof: I’m throwing this part in the trash.”— Calculus professor','“I’m not an expert on differential equations. I’m just teaching this class because no one else wanted to.”— Differential equations professor','“This problem is like cutting an******: lots of layers, and you’ll cry the whole time.”— Number theory professor','“One of you answered a problem on the test with ‘Only god knows this.’”— Statistics professor','“And do this, and there’s the answer. Except, that’s too long and too difficult, and it takes so long to grade exams, so tomorrow I show you a short-cut.”— Calculus professor','“Proof by contradictions are pointless. There is never a good reason to use a proof by contradiction. No excuses…Oh. Except here. We’ll probably need a proof by contradiction.”— Cryptography profesor','“Suppose for a moment that we are two-dimensional humans. In Flatland, no one can see in three-dimensions. That’s why we use contour maps.”— Calculus professor','“I’m going to admit cyclotomic polynomials aren’t the most useful thing for what you’re gonna do. In fact, they’re completely useless to you.”— Number theory professor, right before giving us a long class on cyclotomic polynomials and a list of problems that didn’t use them','“Rieman’s Sum is the best thing you will never want to do again. Just like how Yes Man is the best movie you will never want to see again.”— Multivariable calculus professor','“Now this is called a Mobius transformation. It is named after a guy named Mobius, because, believe it or not, Mobius was a man before he was a strip.”— Complex analysis professor','“Infinity is just an 8 that has gone to sleep.”— Real analysis professor','“15. No, another prime number… 93!”— Number theory professor','“The chain rule is like Shrek; it has layers”— Calculus Professor','“I teach calculus for money, I research algebra for my soul”— Calculus professor ','“There’s no such thing as theoretical mathematics. It’s all just mathematics. However, almost all mathematics is theoretical, including applied. Now, you may be asking, what does this have to do with the chain rule? Probably nothing.”— Calculus professor','“Imagine you’re on a mountain and you look down - wait, imagine the mountain is transparent and you look down to see the xy-plane. Yes, you’re on a see-through mountain and earth is now a flat plane so you can see that you’re on the point (x,y). How do we find the slope of the invisible mountain at where you’re standing?”— Calculus professor','“Sure, you can learn all of that stuff if you, you know, want to be a mathematician and not have a job and do math all day.”— Pre-Calculus professor, when asked about obscure trigonometric identities.','“Solving differential equations rigorously is like getting a sexually transmitted disease from a toilet seat: it can be done, but there are better ways.”— Differential equations professor','“We are going to visualize atoms as fuzzy little tennis balls. The fuzz is important because it represents the electron cloud.”— Physical chemistry professor','“We don’t let math push us around; we push math around.”— Physical chemistry professor','“Let’s look at something more precise than, ‘Dude, look at them, they’re totally the same.’”— Abstract algebra professor, on isomorphisms','“I bet you didn’t realize that math research was about 60% writing and 10% actual math. The other 30%? Tears and blank stares.”— Cryptography professor','“The interesting thing about this set of nesting dolls is that they go on forever. Infinite nesting dolls. I can prove this with induction.”— Multivariable calculus professor.','“Math is like a jealous lover, it demands all of your attention.”— Calculus teacher','“Imagining the fourth dimension is good for you. It’s like doing pushups with your mind.”— Number theory professor','“That sounds like some sort of Christmas story or something. ‘The Product of the Moduli.’”— Cryptography professor','“Now we must trick the gods of mathematics.”— Number Theory lecturer on finding primitive roots.','“A teeter-totter that has dimensions of 0.25 m by 3 m has a decorative metal rim along its border. Two college students are goofing around on the teeter-totter when the sun explodes.”— Electricity and Magnetism professor ','“So then we divide by 5-1, or 4 if you’re feeling fancy.”— High school math teacher','“Now we just need to take the derivative of x. Does any ONE know the answer?”— Calculus professor','“A cat falls out of a plane at an altitude of 20000 meters (I know, absurdly high…), and has an initial velocity of zero. Assuming the cat is a sphere, the drag coefficient of the cat should be roughly 0.5.”— Differential equations professor','“This function at point x has every directional derivative but is not even continuous. This is very insulting.”— S. Shahshahani, multivariable calculus professor','“Newton is my hero.”— Physics professor, talking about Newton’s laws.','“An ansatz is a good guess, I guess.”— Physics professor','“This doesn’t work because KCL doesn’t add to 0. But you could convince a liberal arts student that it does. Or get a degree in philosophy studying it.”— Circuits instructor, explaining why current sources with different values cannot be placed in series','“The technical term for not parallel is… not parallel.”— Linear algebra professor','“Bricks inside washing machines are interesting, but we need to get back to graph theory.”— Discrete math teacher','“Well if you do that, no mercy.”— Calculus teacher','“As this demonstrates, I am neither good at drawing pictures nor handling numbers. Those are qualities a mathematician does not require.”— Geometry professor','“So because the judge has taken calculus, he realizes that the lawyer is using the MVT in order to prove that yellow car guy must have been going 80 mph at least in the thirty minutes between the speed guns, and yellow car guy pays the biggest fine ever and you go down in precinct history as the man who stopped him!”— Calculus teacher','“When a professor makes a mistake, they pretend it was on purpose and call it didactic. Physics teachers are the most didactic of all.”— Calculus professor','“This all seems insane, but that’s a common property of all Fourier transformations”— Electromagnetics lecturer','“So kappa is large. It’s huge! But it’s not too large. As a matter of fact, it’s small in a sense.”— Set theory professor','“The proof is simple as life.”— Differential equations professor','“Now be careful here or you might lose a limb.”— Calculus teacher','“Formula books are for the weak.”— Physics professor','“Here’s a definition for you, straight from Wikipedia.”— Analysis instructor','“Say it takes me one second to open your booklet… that’s 800 seconds altogether, just opening the papers. I don’t even have that much sex in my life.”— Stats lecturer','“And if life is good, the limit exists.”— Multivariable calculus professor.','“So say you’re locked in a dark room, you’re two dimensional and trapped on the surface of a doughnut.”— Rod Gover, describing topology','“There are two important series. Wait, I take that back, there are three important series. First, the harmonic series, second, geometric series, and last but certainly not least, Game of Thrones.”— Real analysis professor','“Remember, second law of thermodynamics: efficiency is death’s sister.”— Analysis professor.','“All of you will make great engineers, all four of you.”— Calculus professor','“This is probably not the answer in the back of the book. I bet your book does something fancy and magical.”— Calculus professor','“Now we have to find the potential function. Do you remember Finding Nemo?”— Calculus professor','“It looks like magic, but it’s not magic, it’s maths, which is better than magic!”— Calculus lecturer','“A series is just a big-a** polynomial.”— Complex analysis professor','“So you all knew this was a homomorphism, whether or not you even knew what a homomorphism was!”— Representation theory instructor','“Zero is never invited to the eigenvector party.”— Linear algebra lecturer','“Now you’re all familiar with the Cartesian coordinate system. Invented by Descartes, who was kind of a ****, but that’s another story.”— Calculus Professor','“Try not to write down things that aren’t true. Especially avoid writing “X=Y” unless X really does equal Y. It tends to wind people up.”— Linear algebra professor','“I swear on my children -which I don’t have, but if I did I would love them very much.”— Calculus professor','“Everyone raise your right hand and repeat after me: ‘Not every function has an inverse function.’”— Metric Topology professor','“What’s one dimension between friends?”— Physics professor','“It’s faster to think it than to say it.”— Professor Halfaf, upon realizing that the “two minute proof” took 10 minutes.','“There is actually a way to solve this, but you’re not going to like it. You’re really not going to like it. It’s guessing. It’s always guessing.”— Differential equations professor','“Not even in a totalitarian dictatorship can you divide by zero.”— Calculus professor ','“I don’t even know why we offer an undergraduate geometry class, you need at least two years of Topology to understand it!”— Topology professor ','“A couple of years ago the math department decided to get sweatshirts. We decided to get numbers on the sleeve and everyone started fighting over which number to get. Funny enough, none wanted a normal number, there was the square root of three, e, pi, et cetera. there was one woman who wanted the square root of negative 1, because you know, she was all I, I, I. I myself wanted 0! because I am number one. Turns out in the end we couldn’t get numbers on our sweatshirts because it was too expensive; we still spent 4 or 5 days arguing over who got which number.”— Precalculus teacher giving a story so that we remember that 0!=1','“Being a good citizen means knowing the Taylor Series for e^x.”— Computational mathematics lecturer.','“We’ll prove this so we don’t have to read some poorly worded equation in the book.”— Operations research professor ','“I got this online, so if you find this out there, don’t think I’m a hack. Full credit to what’s-their-name.”— Cryptography Professor','“I made my handwriting small and illegible. You’re welcome.”— Cryptography professor','“This is all just stand-up comedy. That’s the way I view my job.”— Cryptography professor','“A unit vector has a magnitude of 1, so it’s pure direction… Which is also a good name for a boy band.”— Calculus professor','“This is not an easy integral to compute, by the way. But I did do it! On Wolfram Alpha.”— Complex analysis professor','“At this point you’re probably all thinking, “What the fuck is going on?”— Statistics professor ','“Most of the time, 0 is not equal to 1. That is not the case here.”— Abstract algebra professor discussing the 0 ring','“You don’t need that resistor, that’s just…that’s just a Christmas present from me to you. Ignore it, don’t open it.”— Electronic engineering professor explaining an op-amp problem','“Now, in order to see what’s going on behind the curtain here… actually C is a little rough around the edges so what’s behind the curtains is, well, you.”— Computer Science professor complaining about C','“It’s insulting to dead mathematicians to say that if the limit is zero by ‘convergence test’ it is convergent.”— Calculus professor explaining that the divergence test cannot prove that an infinite sum is convergent.','“This is a true symbol. Also known as a T.”— Discrete math professor','“It’s not just that this limit does not exist, it’s… dramatically nonexistent.”— Complex Analysis professor, on essential singularities.','“If you divide by pizza on one side, you have to divide by pizza on the other! It’s basic algebra!”— Math teacher ','“I’d like to think that good teaching involves intentionally putting mistake on the board and seeing if anyone catches it. But no, my mistakes were unintentional.”— Complex analysis professor','“It’s a game, see? I give you an epsilon, and you have to find the N! It’s a very fun game, I promise.”— Real analysis professor teaching the epsilon definition of the limit','“This piece of chalk will never write anything this beautiful ever again.”— Combinatorics professor, before throwing the piece of chalk across the room ','“Look, don’t try to memorize these equations - even I don’t know them by heart. If you put me in a very stressful situation and said, ‘Name this quadratic surface or the kitten gets it!’ I’d probably go to pieces.”— Linear Algebra lecturer','“It’s cruel to make you solve this problem at the end of a 75 minute lecture. That’s what I’m about, cruelty to students.”— Calculus professor','“Isn’t it refreshing not to use a calculator? Doing math by hand cleanses your spirit. It’s wholesome.”— Calculus professor','“Being wrong is an essential part of being a mathematician.”— Abstract algebra professor','“Newton was really an ass.”— Calculus professor','“Proving this theorem is like suffering 20 mosquito bites. Just one would be fine, but 20 is really annoying!”— Real analysis professor on constructing the Lebesgue Measure','“What do we do when we encounter double integrals? First, we cry. When we are done crying, we solve.”— Multivariable calculus professor','“Infinity is a rainbow unicorn with a sweater on prancing through the valley. It is prancing so fast, you will never be able to catch it. You can never reach infinity.”— Calculus professor ','“I like how you take pictures of the white board while I am writing and you are seeing my back side, because it is my best looking side.”— Linear algebra professor','“I just realized that I don’t have a favourite number. I’m a mathematician without a favourite number… it’s like a crisis!”— Calculus professor','“This is a hyperbolic paraboloid, but I like to call it a saddle because - well, it looks like a saddle. But you’d have a hard time putting it on a horse and riding it because it extends infinitely in every direction.”— Calculus professor ','“It’s sort of like a pop tour. What happens on tour stays on tour. I guess that makes pop tours a vector space.”— Differential equations professor ','“This is right—this is going to be right, one way or another.”— Statistics professor','“I wrote a textbook where the first letter of every chapter spelled out ‘Milad is awesome’. The school didn’t like that.”— Calculus professor named Milad ','“You need to make your homework succinct. I don’t want to read it.”— Calculus professor ','“We’re going to get tired of writing these brackets all the time, so we’ll probably drop them. Mathematicians are always lazy.”— Abstract algebra professor','“Feel the algebra. Feeeeeel the algebra.”— Calculus teacher','“I regret not knowing about graph theory earlier, and not being born in Hungary.”— Graph theory professor','“Yes, I am aware that dy looks like a taco. Just ignore it and move on.”— Calculus professr ','“You know you can go outside and get someone to do your homework for ten dollars right? You all know that.”— Computer science professor ','“Raise your hand if you’re like ‘Dude I’m fucking lost.’”— Differential equations professor ','“Do I grade on a curve? Only in one of my classes. That would be General Relativity since I grade you on your knowlege of the curvature of spacetime.”— Physics professor','“I know the lines got blended together. The printer can’t handle calculus.”— Calculus professor','“Maybe Euler tries something like that and it’s a great idea, but for the rest of us…”— Calculus professor','“That’s all analysis is: adding, subtracting, and the triangle inequality.”— Real analysis professor ','“The textbook calls this angle alpha. When I’m dealing with a single angle, I usually just call it theta&. I’m a thetaphile.”— Physics professor','“This can be integrated by parts, but it’s much better to use a magic formula.”— Quantum physics professor','“Sometimes you’re not defeated by programming errors or hardware bugs, sometimes you’re defeated by rivers.”— Computer science professor ','“What happens when two planes intersect? They crash.”— Math teacher ','“That was simple: all we had to do was invent a new branch of mathematics!”— Complex analysis professor','“You don’t like linear algebra? Well, then, I hope you don’t want to become a mathematician, because you don’t like mathematics.”— Sean Keel, UT Austin','“I want to be able to come up to you at a math department party and go, ‘the second order elliptic blah blah blah’ and have you say ‘YES’ to what I’m saying. I just need to know you understand something, anything from this course.”— Partial differential equations professor ','“We have no use for degrees here, this isn’t a cooking class.”— Differential equations professor talking about radians','“What’s your favorite set? Mine is the set of bananas at Whole Foods!”— Real analysis professor','“They don’t have any vision.”— Calculus teacher on how his students are doing ','“This subspace has a built-in basis; it’s kind of like ‘Out pops the baby, oh! It has a birthmark!’”— Linear algebra professor ','“Truthfully, this stuff is really hard. Hopefully I’ll trick you into thinking it’s easy, but it’s actually really hard.”— Statistics professor on Pitman drift.','“I’m assuming for a moment, even though my lack of artistic talents drove me to science, that it’s symmetric.”— Engineering statistics professor drawing a normal distribution','“Cusps are dangerous things. They’re so sharp that you have to be careful not to cut yourself while drawing them.”— Calculus professor ','“A math teacher’s worst nightmare: Having to draw a perfect circle on the board.”— Physics teacher','“I turned it into cylindrical and then gave up. You would keep going.”— Calculus professor on a difficult problem ','“You can ski on the ground. You can’t ski on a wall. That’s not even extreme that’s just a cliff.”— Calculus professor on differentiability and vertical lines ','“How do you know what to set epsilon equal to? Just look at the sky! Keep on looking at the sky! You’ll eventually figure it out.”— Analysis professor at Iowa State University ','“A glide reflection is what you see when you walk barefoot along the beach, you know?”— Geometry lecturer','“Never divide by small numbers. It’s very unhealthy”— Linear algebra professor','“Anti-derivatives are a campaign against derivatives. #stopderivatives2014”— Calculus professor ','“If you want an affine connection that is pretty, clever, and cooks well, there might not be such a connection.”— Differential Geometry professor, on having too restrictive conditions when choosing a manifold’s affine connection.','“This bring us to the Finite Intersection Property, but we’ll abbreviate it to FIP as the name is barely finite.”— Topology professor','“No! You shouldn’t trace yourself out. That sounds dangerous.”— Quantum mechanics professor on decoherence','“Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip? To get to the same side!”— Calculus professor','“There are some proofs you only read once in your life.”— Analysis professor','“We haven’t shown you that formula yet and we’re not going to. It’s a mess!”— Statistics professor','“It’s the amount of ‘something’ that flows through the surface, could be water, could be oil, could be kittens.”— Calculus professor, talking about flux','“But these are not the groups we are looking for…”— Abstract algebra professor ','“I’m going to wave my hands here, but I’m going to wave them precisely.”— Differential Geometry Professor','“Does f even lift?”— Algebraic topology lecturer','“All of you have approximately two ears, right?”— Complex analysis professor','“On Wednesday, we will either begin uniform continuity or watch a movie.”— Calculus professor','“The next person to get the Pythagorean theorem wrong will be thrown out the window.”— Geometry teacher','“This? Hard? This is easy. Finding a girlfriend - that’s hard.”— Response to a complaint that multivariable calculus was hard.','“When I look at this equation I just have to smile. Its already in slope intercept form. All I have to do is plug the dots in and Im finished.”— High school math teacher ','“When a ball is a cube, Paris is in Belgium.”— Logic professor','“Now, to make this exactly match what I just said, it should really be the log base 10, but we all know God has e fingers, so let’s make it the natural log.”— Number theorist, giving a talk about the “abc” conjecture','“Let’s turn to a challenge problem and consider the infinite power tower. What is the infinite power tower? I’m so glad you asked!”— Robert Ghrist, University of Pennsylvania, Single-variable calculus course on Coursera','“If you don’t know what you’re doing, then you can always put it in reduced echelon form. Even though it has nothing to do with that. You’ll always get some points.”— Linear algebra professor ','“Now as you’re hopefully all aware, next Friday is Good Friday, so the university will be closed and there’ll be no lectures - I know, how can they call it Good Friday when there’s no linear algebra?”— Linear Algebra lecturer','“It’s just like pornography: there’s implicit and explicit.”— UCSD Math professor while discussing implicit differentiation','“Go ahead and cry! Why to be denying yourself of the simple pleasures in life?”— Calculus teacher, when told the worksheet problems were so hard they made a student want to cry','“If you don’t understand this things will get very interesting for you in the next few weeks.”— Precalculus professor ','“Whenever you make a sign mistake, you can say “Oh, but I meant modulo 2.””— Abstract algebra professor','“What is a social life? An unanswerable question for engineers…”— Calculus professor, who was a former engineer','“It’s only in matter when the value of the E field… matters…”— Electricity and Magnetism professor, talking about EM waves in matter (after being subjected to several matter puns from students)','“Water waves need water, sound waves need air, sports waves need boozed up fans and a boring game.”— Physics professor ','“That’s the beauty of abstract algebra. I can take this crazy shit and that crazy shit and POWWWW, they’re the SAME crazy shit!”— Cryptography Professor','“Hey, am I doing alright up here? It looks like I’m crushing your soul. Which is my goal.”— Cryptography professor','“This week is KdV Week! It’s kind of like Shark Week, but with less sharks and more waves.”— Differential equations professor ','“Hey, if this unsubstantiated claim in your proof were actually true it would warrant another whole paper! You could title it ‘The Riemann Hypothesis is Trivial.’”— Professor upon reading a student’s paper ','“Our classrooms are not as nice as those of the engineering students because we’re mere mathematicians. It could be worse: we could be in the fine arts.”— Math professor ','“Polynomials in one variable, in ten variables, in twenty seven variables, who cares? (long pause) As long as it’s finite.”— Abstract algebra professor ','“Today we’re going to continue with this seemingly endless section.”— Differential equations professor','“If you’ve ever wondered why we taught you all that stuff in first year, it’s all for this. It’s only taken you three and half years to get here though.”— Ergodic theory lecturer','“L’Hôpital’s rule is an accident of history. No one believes that L’Hôpital actually discovered it, he wasn’t really a good mathematician.”— Real Analysis lecturer, on describing the origin of L’Hôpital’s rule (or Bernoulli’s rule, as he prefers to call it)','“If it’s written in math then it’s probably a proof.”— Calculus TA ','“I won’t teach you how to find a branch cut because we won’t need it here; I teach this in my graduate class. Usually people cry when I make them do these things.”— Complex analysis professor ','“Careful, don’t tell your vector fields they have no potential. You don’t want to hurt their feelings.”— Multivariable calculus professor','“For this to work we have to assume the molecules experience no attraction to each other. They’re just friends.”— Physics teacher','“Many relations are not transitive. Love, for example, is not transitive. If ‘a’ loves 'b,’ and 'b’ loves 'c,’ then it is not the case that 'a’ loves 'c.’ In fact, it is often the case that 'a’ will hate 'c’!”— Mathematical Theory professor','“Napier would have wet his pants if he could have seen those log buttons you have on your graphing calculators.”— Math history professor','“Your parents said you’ll come to college and hear all this liberal nonsense. Well, here it is!”— Professor on modular arithmetic ','“Oh home on Lagrange!”— Multivariable calculus professor on Lagrange Multipliers','“And so, when you integrate this by using a website called Wolfram Alpha, you get…”— Physics professor, walking us through derivations for charge distributions','“Logarithms are everything. Logarithms should rule the world.”— Physics professor','“What was it we were trying to prove?”— Real analysis professor','“This is a free variable. It can be anything. Pick your favorite number. The national debt, for example.”— Differential equations professor ','“As a young math professor I used to ambush my students with tough questions, but then the bodies began to pile up.”— Calculus professor on composing examinations','“I’m not really familiar with electrostatic charges, but I don’t care. The math is really cool.”— Calculus professor','“Can you see this vector field is describing a twist? Like you’re opening a giant peanut butter jar.”— Calculus professor','“This makes me hungry, because it looks like a piece of candy corn.”— Calculus professor regarding a wedge-shapped cross section','“Round off error is like being bitten to death by a thousand ducks.”— Numerical analysis professor','“Using calculus to solve this problem would be overkill, like using a bazooka to kill an ant.”— Calculus professor','“That is how you start your morning: You wake up, recite the Schrodinger Equation, then you brush your teeth.”— Quantum Mechanics Professor','“That’s algebraically equivalent but morally reprehensible.”— Foundations of mathematics professor','“If you’re listening carefully I have to speak carefully. Before, I was just talking.”— Number theory professor','“Does anyone have any questions about this junk?”— Real analysis professor','“I certainly don’t regard this as interesting, but the result is interesting.”— Real analysis professor','“I think I’m gonna get this right, but who knows.”— Real analysis professor','“This isn’t mathematics, this is theology.”— Number theory professor','“In mathematics, it’s not like your professors understand everything. It’s just at some point they get comfortable with not understanding.”— Algebraic topology professor','“Probably, but probably not.”— Algebraic topology professor','“It’s algebra, so it’s a little messy.”— Algebraic topology professor','“It sounds like the sequel of some cheap horror movie.”— Topology professor','“This is a terrible lecture, there’s no question about that.”— Real analysis professor','“Why do we care about eigenvalues? Think Pokemon: ‘A wild Matrix appeared!’”— Linear Algebra TA','“You may see a SGCE on your paper. This stands for Super Gross Conceptual Error, because eww.”— Calculus professor after handing back exams','“Have you ever wondered why Algebra is all about equalities while Analysis is all about inequalities?”— Linear algebra professor as he saw the blackboard of the previous lecture.','Student A: If you take R^9 and throw it in the Marina Trench, you’ll get Deep Space Nine! Student B: Then they won’t find it till the Next Generation. Student C: Maybe Voyager will find it. Linear algebra professor: I swear I’m going to fail you all. ','“Rows into columns, Columns into rows, Now you get The Matrix Transpose.”— Linear algebra professor','“It’s not just virtually true, it’s true.”— Number theory professor','“Hilbert spaces are general spaces. If you have a Hilbert space, you can really dance.”— Real analysis professor','“We grab a little piece of mathematics and run off with it.”— Real analysis professor','“Did somebody make this up to torture students?”— Real analysis professor','“What’s the use of solving this equation? Who cares?”— Real analysis professor','“If I put my hands over it, I can feel things vibrate, so it has to be a function.”— Real analysis professor','“Is this clear? Wait, no, I was taught how to approach this. Which questions do you have?”— Number theory professor, trying out some new teaching techniques','“Don’t forget that all of those other terms pale in comparison to the infinite.”— Calculus teacher','“Now if any of you had trouble taking the derivatives because you couldn’t remember what the derivative of e-to-the-something was, then let me take this opportunity to give you a virtual shake because no no no nonononono.”— Calculus teacher','“I feel like I need to convert to Catholicism just to confess the things you kids say in class.”— Advanced functions teacher','“…And these are the droids we’re looking for.”— Graph theory professor','“I’m gonna send a you pic of these trees that only peel differentiably!”— Calculus teacher on sycamore trees','“Tough beans if it looks like shit.”— Multivariable calculus teacher about a weird looking tangential acceleration component ','“People who have only had one semester of algebraic topology may not believe this, but homology is your friend. It’s actually pretty nice.”— Algebraic topology professor','“It turns out, that our wish that every set is measurable is too good to be true.”— Real analysis professor','“The gauntlet has been thrown down. Let’s attack it.”— Combinatorics professor','“And so the standard deviation is 20, which is actually less than on your test scores.”— Statistics teacher','“Negative signs are your friend. And what don’t we do to friends? That’s right! We don’t leave friends behind!”— Trigonometry instructor','“And this term dies a horrible death.”— Maths teacher, while expanding loci formulae into cartesian form','“There’s not enough syllabi to go around. If you didn’t get one, just email me. My email is on the syllabus. Oh wait, that doesn’t work, does it?”— Discrete math professor','“Oh, of course it works! 4/2 is 6. No, wait, that’s 2. Never mind.”— Discrete math professor','“Horizontal asymptotes are like an electric fence: you can get close to it, but if you touch it, you die.”— Calculus professor','“In general, finding global minima and maxima is hard. We have 2 strategies for this. The first is: suffer. But in general, this is not a strategy for life, so we use the second strategy, which is to only work with a special class of functions where this problem is easier.”— Analysis and Optimisation professor','“So, this is the basic fact, and the rest is just some sort of … aftermath.”— Analysis and optimisation professor','“My goal is to show that a divides c. Actually, my goal is to spell ‘goal’ correctly.”— Discrete math professor, trying to write ‘goal’ on the board','“Up until now we’ve been doing all the easy stuff. Now it is time to cry.”— Calculus professor','“I don’t know how much I’m gonna turn up, but I will turn up by an x amount.”— Calculus teacher, on derivatives','“So we’ll take a bug, and we’ll make it walk until it gets back to its original position…”— Vector calculus professor, on orientable surfaces','“I’m assuming that the math should be right because I have a class full of students checking it. Of course, you won’t have that advantage on the exam, so you should probably be more careful.”— Differential equations professor','“This matrix doesn’t match the one in my notes. I must have made a mistake, as usual.”— Linear Algebra Professor','Professor: Actually, I kind of cheated here. Student: Can we do that too? Professor: If you do it well. ','“DID YOU SAY UNARY OPERATION! I LOVE YOU FOREVER! We should continue to see other people, BUT I STILL LOVE YOU”— Feedback from calculus professor','“I never know if I pronounce it as ‘FEE’ or ‘FI’ because you say ‘line’ with the ‘I’ and ‘linear’ with the ‘i’.”— Italian linear algebra professor, on the pronunciation of ‘phi’','“Okay, let me check my notes to see if this is right. OH MY GOODNESS, IT IS!”— Differential equations professor, after a board full of algebra and arithmetic','“Wow, trees are easy! Let’s make everything a tree!”— Artificial Intelligence professor, comparing graph search algorithms to tree-structured search algorithms','“Sorry I’m late. The abstract algebra professors are at war with the number theory professors again. They said abstract algebra is unnecessary torture and I said number theory is so intuitive third graders could take over their classes.”— Abstract algebra professor','“Um… it’s kind of just a feeling.”— Calculus professor on setting up integration by parts','“Does everyone understand this? If not you are walking through the forest with a blindfold on. You are going to run into a tree, on the exam.”— Linear analysis professor when reviewing eigenvectors','“Now we can swap the order of integration by the Dominated Convergence Theorem, which ISN’T about 50 Shades of Grey but IS too rough for second years.”— Measure theory lecturer','“How can we modify this to make your life harder?”— Calculus professor talking about convergent sequences.','“Addition: it almost always works.”— Differential equations professor','“50 Shades of Limits”— Real analysis professor','“Please pay attention as I do this, because I literally JUST made it up and I might be lying to you on accident.”— Abstract Algebra professor, proving a theorem regarding permutations','“This is not a straight object, but it has a straightness to it.”— Calculus professor','“I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but sometimes a dead horse just needs to be beat.”— Linear algebra professor, during row reduction','“If you lie to me about completing your homework, you will go to hell. And you will see me there.”— Geometry teacher','“After today, all you will think about are D’s. You’ll dream about D’s. You’ll see D’s everywhere.”— Differential equations professor on the differential operator','“Variables that are non-basic are called non-basic variables. Stop laughing. This is not trivial. You wouldn't have known what to call it if I didn’t put that one-liner there.”— Linear and Network Optimisation Professor','“And therefore, the Devil is real. Q.E.D.”— Multivariable Calculus professor, recounting a nightmare he had ','“When you are working with radians, you usually just do some… mathy-type stuff then stick pi on the end.”— Calculus professor','“That exclamation point doesn't stand for factorial, it stands for, ‘WOW!’”— Complex analysis professor','“What do you get when you cross a mountain climber and a mosquito? Nothing. You can’t cross a scalar and a vector!”— Calculus professor','Professor: Now you should be able to explain Linear Algebra to my mom. Student: Why can’t you just do it? Professor: I try to, but she just doesn't listen to me anymore. ','“The only differences between mathematicians and philosophers is that our trash is full while theirs is empty.”— Linear algebra professor','“See, this is the problem with studying reliability; everything around you seems to keep failing. You know, that reminds me of my buddy who teaches queueing theory - he always seems to pick the slowest lines. Eh, maybe that’s just God trying to balance things out.”— Computational probability and statistics professor after his stylus stops working during presentation about life data analysis ','“Be brave. Multiply by whatever you have to multiply by.”— Linear algebra professor','“If you’re like me and you played a lot of ego-shooters in the 90’s, this will seem oddly familiar.”— Topology professor on triangulations ','“The z-Transform of X is like an******. It contains all the moments of X if you know how to peel it, but the more you peel it, the more you cry.”— Queuing theory professor who thinks onions are infinite','“No one in their right mind would extrapolate quadratic data out of testing range. But, that’s exactly what I did.”— Statistics professor, on plausible models for reliability data analysis','“So Java was developed from another language called C, which is probably the grade they got when they presented the language.”— Computer science professor','“You have to have the dorkiest operation in the world for associativity not to work.”— Chemistry professor, presenting group theory','“Well, there’s almost no evidence supporting it.”— Cosmology professor, after explaining the theory for half an hour','“That’s what homework is for. It brings you closer to the maths. By making you suffer.”— Linear algebra professor','“I learned more math drinking beer than I did in any classroom.”— Topology professor','“It’s not rocket science.”— Real analysis professor','“In a way, this formula is like if you had a bad meal, woke up in the middle of the night, and started to write stuff down.”— Real analysis professor','“Think of f as a wet noodle. No, a rigid noodle. No, a noodle I get wet as I throw it.”— Real analysis professor','“We want a maximum obscuring of this nice little formula.”— Real analysis professor','“This proof is left as an exercise - I mean, we all know what’s gonna happen, right. You write down your set, write down your metric, and you go right ahead and stare at both of them for a good while.”— Topology lecturer','“The trick to learning math is to complain constantly.”— Topology professor','“And now we can cancel out the problem child…”— Calculus teacher on trig substitutions','“We’re not talking about Schrödinger’s Shrubbery here.”— Math teacher','“I’m really excited because I can use all my color pens.”— Calculus professor, getting ready to do an integration problem requiring multiple colors for clarity','“Nobody should be allowed to have this much fun.”— Calculus teacher','“Understanding is one hell of a mnemonic device.”— Linear algebra professor, upon remembering how to prove the rank-nullity theorem','“You literally didn’t even do the test. This is blank. Why the hell did you even bother turning it in?”— Calculus teacher, while grading','“You can’t just change algebra laws that are older than Jesus.”— Trigonometry professor','“Now, what is this creature here?”— Abstract algebra professor, pointing to a very basic polynomial','“This function is getting; a little ‘squirrely!’”— Real Analysis professor while showing us Cantor’s Devil’s Staircase function','“It starts with a D, and ends with ‘erection!’”— Physics professor','“I love that your acronym for the steps in a related rates problem is DREDS, since this is the most dreadful part of the year.”— Calculus teacher','“It’s on the board, so we covered it!”— Statistics professor going down the list of material for the exam','“The funniest question I ever got was, ‘Can I marry your daughter?’ I asked that guy, ‘What is your name?’ He told me, and I failed him.”— Discrete math professor, who holds a 5-minute “ask me anything” session during each lecture','“I love balls! They’re everywhere. You can do everything with them. I meant, RHO-balls!”— Real analysis professor','“There’s no need to worry about all the problems, you can just take it easy and make whatever you like. Also, some problems are worth more than others. You might think, when looking at relative surface sizes on the paper, that the first problem, being the biggest, is worth the most credit, followed by the second, being smaller, and finally, the third problem being worth the least credit, as it’s the shortest. It’s a natural thing to think and I’d think the same thing. Anyway, yes, that’s the case. Good luck!”— Statistics professor, before an exam','“This will probably not help you on the exam, but it will help you in Life.”— Linear algebra professor, on an orthogonal diagonalization tangent','“What is this? Abstract algebra? Go away, shoo abstract, shoo.”— Statistical models professor coming into class with ring theory still on the board','“What is the definition of a polar bear? A Cartesian bear written out in a different form.”— Geometry professor','“Lets make the limit 1000. You only live once.” swimmingsunrise: My Calculus Professor','“Bacteria and children are functionally equivalent in this example.” (Later) “Eventually there may be some baby bunnies in the field. If you don’t know how that works by now, you should probably figure that out quickly.””— Differential equations professor, discussing population dynamics. (via oliwhail)','“Don’t think too much. Have a beer.”— Differential Equations II professor (via market-icon)','“Your faces look just like mine did when I first took Analysis and was introduced to the epsilon. They said “do you understand?”, of course I said yes…. I was LYING.”— Analysis 1 lecturer (via wakingthfallen)','“So we need to be really good at killing zombies and reproducing.”— Computational mathematics professor, talking about zombie predator-prey simulation ','“I argued with an angle once. It was right.”— Geometry professor','“Calculus like slippery fish. Hard to grasp!”— Calculus professor (via julius-o) (via julius-o-deactivated20190704)','“If anyone ever says ‘It’s easy to check that ____ is true,’ the proof they just showed you is fake.”— Linear algebra TA','“It’s like a gumdrop.”— Transport phenomena teacher, explaining velocity profile in pipes','“It’s not a good math class unless your brains explode. Only don’t tell your parents that. That could get me fired.”— Math teacher','“RTFQ: Read. The. Fucking. Question.”— Calculus teacher','“Don’t have too much fun!”— Advanced engineering math professor, after giving out the first homework of the year','“Think about it this way: You can ski on the floor, but not on the wall. That’s not even extreme, that’s a cliff.”— Calculus teacher, on why horizontal lines are differentiable but vertical lines are not','“You’re never going to use this in the real world. However, I am required to teach it to you to get paid, so be quiet.”— High school algebra teacher','“Those words don’t go together.”— Math professor, in response to an upcoming math social.','“Dear god, have you caught parabola?”— Math professor, after a student burst into a coughing fit during a lecture on parabolas','“We don’t like to think negative thoughts. The world already sucks, so let’s make at least our square roots positive.”— Precalculus teacher explaining principal square roots','“Let me have your attention. I want to extol upon the beauties of this formula.”— Calculus professor','“In hyperbolic spaces, geodetic lines are exactly what you think they are. You’ll just have to think about what you think.”— Differential geometry professor','“Things that you need to know for the midterm? Everything.”— Multivariable calculus professor','“You need to learn how to solve all of these problems without a calculator because the class you are taking is AP calculus, not AP calculator.”— Calculus teacher','Student: What's not allowed on our review sheet for the test? Calculus professor: Pictures. Of my mom. ','“So, logically speaking, the sentence ‘f x belongs to the null set, then x equals Napoleon’ is completely true!”— Analysis professor','“It’s really easy to do math, you just have to know how to draw parabolas and potatoes.”— Topology professor','“I drank the Kool-Aid of calculus, so I think we should use integrals whenever we can.”— Real analysis professor','“These problems are their own little animals!”— Calculus professor on integration techniques','“Cars do not behave like fluids.”— Physics professor','“Storm or no storm, you’ll still take the test.”— Calculus professor, in a note posted on the classroom door the day after a storm announcement','“Before setting up a triple integral for an object, spend some time getting to know the object. Take it out to a movie—buy it dinner.”— Multivariable calculus professor.','“Suppose that you are in the real world!”— PhD student, when discussing practical implications of fixed point theorems','“What I said was meant to be intuition, and not really math.”— Real analysis professor','“My drawing doesn’t have to be pretty because this is algebra so it’s a diagram.”— Algebra teacher, after drawing what was arguably a four-sided triangle','“If you don’t know those equations, do not worry, I will provide you with the more complicated equations on the exam. But I expect you to know the formula for the dot and cross products. And if you don’t know those, then that is your problem, not mine.”— Multivariable calculus professor','“Gaussian distributions are too aggressive!”— Computational physics professor','“We’re going to make a vector out of a matrix. I could make a vector out of anything. I could make a vector out of fruit.”— Theoretical quantum mechanics lecturer, Durham University','“Calculus: is the greatest tool for calculating of all time! Do you all realize what you’ve signed up for?”— Calculus professor','“No no no, you’re all wrong. A monomial is not called a heteronomial just because a binomial has a sexuality name.”— Algebra teacher ','“Just add a comma. LOOK, another dimension!”— Multivariable calculus professor','“Philosophers and computer scientists have something in common. They both come up with terrible names for the things they like.”— Logic professor, talking about modal logic','ODE professor: So, the average on the midterm was pretty good. Anyone want to guess what it was? Student: 70%? Professor: That’s rather optimistic, don’t you think? ','“e is a part of life, you just need to get used to it. No, but seriously, it’s a part of life. L-I-F-e.”— Calculus teacher','“I can see victory!”— Calculus teacher, every time path to a solution becomes obvious','“Hey vector field, are you a gradient field?”— Calculus professor','“I see everything in graphs. The roads I drive, the steps I walk up.”— Precalculus teacher','“Hints can never hurt you, except on exams. Then, I can mess with your mind.”— Algorithms professor','“When you are on a date, your friends might call you and your date an eigenpair. Whether you are the vector or the number remains to be seen.”— Linear algebra professor','“A basis is nothing else than a remote controller, and a basis vector is a joystick.”— Linear algebra professor','“Am I rotating around it or is it rotating around me? Well, this depends on my alcohol level.”— Theoretical quantum mechanics lecturer, Durham University','“Common sense isn’t really a thing in mathematics.”— Calculus teacher','“You need to know this theorem, even at 2:00 am the night after Thanksgiving.”— Statistics professor','“Are you Stoked? I know I’m Stoked!”— Calculus professor explaining Stoke’s Theorem','“Proof by democracy!”— Real analysis professor','“I think the motto of this class might be, ‘You can’t induct infinity.’”— Real analysis professor','“I’m a mathematician, I don’t sit around all day looking at numbers.”— Probability professor, after doing some incorrect arithmetic','“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”— Mathematical methods of physics professor, before a final','“Let’s get down to business, to defeat, these sums!”— PHD student leading an analysis seminar','“Mathematics is perfect. It never leaves you or betrays you.”— High school math teacher','“You have confused not only yourself, but also the complex plane.”— Complex analysis professor','“Holy shift! Look at the asymptote on that motherfunction!”— Calculus teacher','“The zero vector is a little bit naked.”— Linear algebra professor','“Morally speaking, matrices should not commute.”— Linear algebra professor','“I’ll probably curve that, since I don’t trust the TA. I don’t trust anyone. I’m a math person.”','“Fractions are just annoying.”— Engineering mathematics professor','“One matrix, Two matrix, Red matrix, Blue matrix.”— Linear algebra professor','“The whole thing is pretty obvious anyhow.”— Abstract maths lecturer after inductively proving the pigeon hole principle','“So I’ve drawn this like a salami because… Well, firstly because I like salami.”— Calculus professor, on surfaces of revolution','“It’s easy to remember the digits of e because of Leo Tolstoy’s birthday. Or perhaps, like me, e is a good way of remembering Leo Tolstoy’s birthday.”— Calculus professor','“But the function f doesn’t necessarily have to map from real numbers to real numbers. We could have f mapping from the real numbers to, say, cats, with f(3) = grumpy cat.”— Math foundations professor','“Sample size matters.”— Statistics professor','“If an army of aliens came down and demanded the value of R(5,5) then we could get all mathematicians and computer scientists in the world to work on it and we could get an exact number; but if they asked for R(6,6) then the best we could do is get all the mathematicians and computer scientists to develop a weapon with which to fight them.”— Combinatorics lecturer','“5 is less than 6, but 5 isn’t less than or equal to 6. Well, it is.”— Abstract algebra professor','“I’m Newton, I have calculus at my disposal.”— Math history professor on Newton’s approximation of pi','“This is the difference between engineers and mathematicians: consider my desk to be on fire. An engineer would come over, fill a bucket with water, and put it out. A mathematician would do the same thing. Then lets say my desk catches fire again. An engineer, like before, would come over and fill a bucket with water and put out the fire. A mathematician would this time point at the fire and say ‘I’ve already solved this problem.’”— Logic professor','“Here we will apply this to a polynomial of infinite degree. It just so happens to…work.”— Math History Professor, on the proof of the sum of 1/n^2 from n=1 to infinity equaling pi^2/6','“Oh my goodness, this is like a soap opera.”— Math history professor on 16th century Italian mathematicians','“This is true for some Γ, but not all Γ.”— Logic professor, while discussing the Incompleteness Theorem','“Today we are going to learn about adult things.”— Differential equations professor, upon taking out a whip and chain and presenting them to the class','“Holy shift look at all those motherfunctions!”— Precalculus teacher','“These integrations come with a health warning.”— High school math teacher','“This n works for epsilon equal to one over ten, but if epsilon is one over a brazillion, we need a new n.”— Analysis professor','“These are called extreme values, or extrema, if you come from Victorian England.”— Calculus professor','“When you see an uppercase sigma, you know to add together what appears after it–that’s a summation. Well, now when you see an uppercase pi, you have to remember to take the product of what appears after it–I call it a pi-mation!”— Physical chemistry professor on the calculation of the reaction quotient','“Yeah, i know it’s tempting, but don’t spell Angle Side Side as ass, please.”— Geometry teacher','“Barbara, celarent, darii, ferio, cesare, camestres, festino… You know, you can’t tell anyone about this. Only engineers know about this; if you try to tell to someone else they’ll think you’re crazy.”— Logic professor on syllogisms','“Well I don’t think we really have time for another example and I know you all are bored, but don’t worry. I’m bored too so I guess we’ll just start the next one.”— Differential equations professor with 10 minutes of class left','“Why do people say it’s not rocket science? Rocket Science is easy, it’s Rocket Engineering that’s hard.”— Dean of Science, NUI Galway','“There was once a professor who taught at this school who was…really something else. I mean this guy would show up to his class and meetings completely wasted, it wasn’t a good thing. However, he had an amazing talent for multiplying matrices in his head. I’m talking like 6x6 matrices. I got to wondering ‘wow, how could somebody do something like that,’ and then I remembered that when you are intoxicated, your left eye can move right to left, and your right eye can move up and down.”— Saburo Matsumoto, linear algebra professor','“You guys have a lot of integration tricks so it’s easier to do in the continuous case, whereas adding often feels hard.”— Probability professor','“The clever thing they do in the book is, to solve it guess at the solution and verify it’s correct.”— Stochastic processes professor on M/G/1 queuing theory','“5 + 7 = 12… why is that?”— Probability lecturer','“If you didn’t like parameterizing curves, then tough luck! Now we’re parameterizing surfaces!”— Multivariable calculus professor','“Don’t go and tell your parents that we only defined what a line is in third year. They might stop funding your education.”— Graph theory professor','“See how cool this is? It’s cool, right? If there are two things you should remember after this course, it’s that the square root of x-squared is the absolute value of x, and this!”— Calculus prof, after discussing the derivation of the formula for the sum of the first n natural numbers','“Suppose we have a surface S and a solid M. What is the relation between S and M?”— Multivariable calculus professor','“Actually you won’t use any of this class’s content until you graduate and quite possibly not afterwards so if you don’t understand it, as I’m certain you won’t, just pretend you do and know that I don’t either.”— Physics professor','“Log spells exponent, it’s just spelled funny.”— Mathematics for aviation professor','“Have you ever noticed how every physics problem starts with “consider”? It’s like, ‘We know this isn’t ever going to happen, so just pretend.’”— Quantum mechanics TA','“It’s called a proposition because they were like, this is pretty important but it’s not as cool as a theorem.”— Stochastic processes professor','“Beware of the elephants disguised as other zoo animals.”— Calculus professor, on integrating linear functions','“Overall you all did pretty good. The average was 62%.”— Calculus professor','“This question is in the notes because the person who used to teach this course had no hair.”— Combinatorics Professor','“This is going to be for a polynomial of degree significantly greater than one. Like, two, or something.”— Number theory professor','“What’s 1+1? Well, it could be 0, 1, or 2.”— Physics professor, on addition of angular momenta in quantum mechanics','“This is a good point, saves some work… in theory anyway.”— Real analysis professor','Discrete math professor: Any guesses on what the associative property for propositional logic will be? Students: Professor: Well what is the associative property for algebra? Students: Professor: Somewhere, there is an algebra teacher weeping. ','“A problem being in NP doesn’t mean that the problem is hard. It just means that it’s slightly not easy.”— Computer science professor','“Nature, after many thousands of years, has given the cat the practical knowledge of the applications of angular momentum.”— Physics teacher explaining how cats always land on their feet','“There are many things that are smaller than infinity. For instance, 7.”— Calculus professor','“I gave you three options: yes, no, or duhhhhh. I see you picked duhhhhh. Okay, let’s try this again, only slower.”— Dr. Seldomridge, calculus professor','“I’m gonna put a bunch of words on the board. What do these words all have in common? “Idiosyncrasy, Restaurateur, Ukrainian, Montenegrin, Parallepiped.” It’s that people usually spell all of them incorrectly!”— Real analysis professor (Note what should be parallelepiped)','“There are two ways to learn homological algebra - the Bourbaki way, which starts with derived functors; and the other way, which starts with examples.”— Abstract algebra professor','Professor: And we do some magic. Me: Why do we say it’s all magic? Professor: Well, we could say God says so. God says that transistors are… Student 1: Does God have error bars? Professor: No. God is perfect. But transistors have lots of flaws. Student 2: You know that I’m recording this lecture. ','“Algebra is easier than life.”— Linear algebra professor','“This problem deals with the real world. But this is a math class, so we go to the math world.”— Profesor Albright, Introduction to Statistics','“I enjoy mathematically masturbating.”— Math professor on math’s beauty ','“I just pretend to be Marvin the paranoid android: ‘PhD, and here I am clapping chalk brushes outside. *sigh.*’ It makes me feel better about it, actually.”— Analysis professor lamenting the abhorrent state of classroom maintenance and cleanliness of chalk brushes.','“You guys grow up just too fast.”— Math professor on the second day of class','“Calculus is life.”— Calculus professor','“…and so it would be linearly INdependent, like INDEPENDENCE DAY. I usually teach about this stuff closer to the 4th of July, so I usually get to make all these cool jokes.”— Linear algebra professor','“Now, if the limit goes to infinity you can conclude that the function is divergent. Not the kind of divergent like in the, ah, film; the function’s not some mathematical outcast or misfit. Or maybe it is.”— Calculus professor','“We’re about to learn some gnarly new tricks.”— Calculus professor ','“Good luck and have fun!”— Calculus teacher before every test','“Solving a maths problem is like letting a wound heal. It gets a lot worse before it gets any better.”— Calculus professor','“Don’t let pi kill you.”— Physics professor discussing Fourier series.','“Remember folks, the exam is open book. So bring your text, your notes, your calculators… feel free to bring anything but a friend.”— Robert C. Jones, PhD (1928-2007) Statistics professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, 1958 - 2004. ','“I can guess that more means more than less. That’s about it.”— Statistics professor, in reference to a problem that simply listed a quantity as “more” or “less”','“So if you’re dying and having an existential crisis about something in your life, just think about this and have an existential crisis about it instead.”— Complex analysis professor','“You have to memorise how to derive this formula in case you lost your textbook and you’re stranded on a desert island and you want to do a trig problem.”— Trigonometry professor','“Interestingly enough, Curry’s paradox is not making this chicken any more flavorful.”— Set theory professor','“If you read the equations it won’t work. But if you play Angry Birds for a few minutes you will understand everything.”— Physics professor','“The opposite of a predicate is BULLSHIT! THE LIAR’S PARADOX IS BULLSHIT!”— Logic professor','“Remember how I said 1/f(x) wasn’t going to be involved in this conversation? Yeah… I lied.”— Calculus professor','“The scores on your last exam were fantastic! I never had a midterm average as high as 43% before!”— Calc professor','“I don’t want to run over because that’s how you lose points on rate my professor.”— Linear algebra professor','“Your homework for tonight? Go have three children by tomorrow and we’ll figure out the answer to this problem.”— Statistics professor','“I think the guy who wrote this text book is super cool. He’s my favorite author.”— Matrix theory professor about using the book he wrote for class','“We’ve already limited epsilon, so we can take the square root with reckless abandon.”— Calculus professor','“Now we’re gonna look at the curvature of various curves. If we look at the straight line, it’s like a road where you can listen to music while you drive. If we look at this curve, it’s more like the roads in California where you have to pay attention or you’ll drive off of a cliff.”— Calculus professor, Iowa State University','“Introduction to Modern Algebra: happy hour starts here!”— Regarding a class that runs from 4:00-5:15pm','“Saying ‘connected component’ is like saying 'round circle.’”— Graph theory professor on pet peeves','“You can always get what you want in math, but you have to pay the price.”— Calculus professor','“Boom, that shit is HOT.”— Calculus professor explaining the concept of vertical asymptotes by comparing high values to the temperatures of vacationing on an active volcano','“I drink pre-calc for breakfast. If you drank pre-calc every day then you’d be good at it, too.”— Pre-calculus teacher','“Chop Chop!”— Calculus teacher, every time something is cancelled out','“This looks like a scary function, but it’s not essentially horrifying.”— Calculus 3 professor','“You better study just the night before the exam. You wont remember anything after but you’ll pass.”— Math professor','“Were in a forest right now. And were looking from tree to tree, praying we can find a way out.”— Discrete mathematics professor, on the proof of radical two being irrational','“Okay, yeah, you could use Mathematica, but if Mathematica caught on fire, how would you solve it?”— Differential equations professor','“This is the incomprehensible mathematical definition. Then I’m going to draw a picture.”— Mathematical logic professor','“Does anyone know how to spell this guy’s name? L…skjfaef…? Well, I’m just going to write down some letters there. You can look it up later.”— Real analysis professor on Lipschitz continuity','“I hate doing arithmetic in public.”— Number theory professor','“Don’t forget the e. It always comes along for the ride, but gets factored out.”— Complex analysis professor','“In my mind, I’m standing in nature and all of you are thirsty for knowledge and are fighting each other over how to prove the irrationality of the square root of 3.”— Math professor telling us to ‘project’ our surroundings to be more interesting.','“This big L is from the English word linear.”— Linear algebra professor in a Brazilian class, forgetting that the word is spelled exactly the same in Portuguese.','“What piece of you is a soccer mom? I don’t know what’s perpendicular to a soccer mom.”— Multivariable calculus professor trying to explain projections','“I forgot what function this is, but it gives us a pretty graph!”— Multivariable calculus professor','“We won’t use this for absolutely nothing.”— Linear algebra professor','“I left out an ‘o’ in ‘hyperbolic,’ so for these purposes ‘hyperblic’ mean ‘hyperbolic.’ It’s the way the cool kids are saying it.”— Modern geometry professor','“If you try to picture it, you’ll find that at some point your brain breaks.”— Modern geometry professor on the real projective plane','“You really just have to stare at this long enough to convince yourself that it’s indeed correct.”— Abstract algebra lecturer','“If we change the function to—something I will regret—I regret all choices I made here. Forget that.”— Multivariable calculus professor','“What’s the silliest example we can think of? N equals Z mod 4 and H equals Z mod 2.”— Abstract algebra professor','“You can always have a can, a very ridiculous can, that contains that volume.”— Calculus professor, after showing that, for any given volume, the radius of a cylinder can be infinitely large.','“Indentation does not a block of code make.”— Computer science professor','“Try to remember how to shift functions at lunch. Maybe shifting chicken nuggets across your tray will help. Actually, don’t do that, you’ll probably get in trouble.”— Precalculus teacher, after being interrupted by the lunch bell.','“If you like matrices, there are lots of ways to do this. If you don’t like matrices, you’re screwed.”— Calculus professor','“This seems like a bunch of abstract bullshit.”— Multivariable calculus professor defining the chain rule','“You know you’re in trouble when your math problems start looking like your life. You try to fix them and they only get more complicated.”— Calculus teacher after a u-substitution got ugly','“You nodded earlier - there’s no going back now.”— Calculus teacher explaining integration by parts','“We’re taking an arbitrary complex number. Well, since we’re investigating, let’s call it “f+bi”…”— Complex analysis professor','“Life is a fraction. Deal with it.”— Poster in precalculus teacher’s room','“You don’t have to know these names, I’m just telling you for cultural reasons.”— Electricity and Magnetism professor on the Legendre Polynomials','“I’m always impressed by people who can get through an entire exam without making any mistakes.”— Calculus professor','“But enough foreplay, now onto the definition!”— Topology professor at Columbia','“Mathematics isn’t all that bad…. After all, some of my best friends are mathematicians! Actually, that’s a lie.”— Physics professor at the University at Buffalo','“The complex numbers, bless their hearts, are commutative.”— Algebra professor','“You get an equivalency, you get an equivalency. It’s like Oprah, you all get equivalencies!”— Cryptography Professor on the Chinese Remainder Theorem','“If you liked it, you shoulda put a norm on it.”— Operator algebras professor','“It’s too late to topologize.”— Graduate student','“If you were to ask me if I’d rather compute the determinant of a 100x100 matrix or accept the sweet release of death, I’d probably choose death, unless it was a diagonal matrix of course.”— Linear algebra professor ','“Okay so, nobody understands what this class is except the people who have taken it. When you try to tell people that you’re taking linear algebra, they’re going to be like, ‘Ohh I had that in high school!’ and you’re going to say, ‘No. No you did not.’”— Linear algebra professor','“Don’t try to explain this to your friends. Just sayin’.”— Optimization professor on the mean value theorem with partial derivatives','“Brouwer didn’t like this stuff, so he moved on to logic. Well, too bad for him, we’re going to prove it anyway.”— Geometric topology professor on Brouwer’s Fixed Point Theorem','“The art of doing mathematics is being persistent and knowing when to stop.”— Phil Dyke, Advanced Calculus and Transforms','“It’s the slack variables that finger the shadow prices.”— Optimization professor ','“Size isn’t all that big of a deal here.”— Optimization professor on matrices in chain rule proof','“In most of the sciences, exact knowledge is suspect. Only approximate knowledge is acceptable. We’re not laughing at them, we’re laughing with them.”— Optimization Professor','“Mathematicians always say that logicians don’t really know a thing about logic, but well, they can chew on a light bulb.”— Logic professor on a rant','“Words mean things.”— Pre-calculus teacher','“This is called a Cayley table. It was named after a nineteenth century mathematician named…Table.”— Abstract algebra professor','“This is very hard to draw since it cannot exist.”— Computational geometry professor','“My memory is like a bunny tail; short and really fuzzy.”— Integrated physics teacher when asked about emotional recall theory','“An infinite loop is one you didn’t mean to make. A forever loop is one you did.”— Computer science professor','“So, angle A is 51 degrees, B is dark and mysterious, side c is 51 inches…”— Trigonometry','“Differential Geometry is the study of invariance under change of notation.”— Differential geometry professor','“Would you rather be hit with a giant sledgehammer or a thousand tiny hammers? I think we all know the answer to that question.”— Physics professor on the First Law of Thermodynamics','“The punishment is not that severe, but for every bracket you leave out in a problem like this, I’ll cut off one of your fingers.”— Calculus professor','Math Professor Quotes Facebook Page Math Professor Quotes now has a Facebook page! The Facebook updates will be identical to the Tumblr updates. Feel free to like us there in order to see Math Professor Quotes in your Facebook newsfeed.','“Guests can climb a finite number of steps, but if they climb an infinite number of steps they will die.”— Real analysis professor on the infinite hotel problem','“The whole model will be destroyed by the fact you are mortal.”— Statistics Lecturer, University of Warwick','“Math is powerful. You have godlike powers over things nobody else in the world cares about.”— Linear algebra professor','“You can certainly use the Laplace transform on this problem, but that would be akin to slicing your bread with a chainsaw: it’s overkill, it’s difficult to set up, and if you let your 5-year-old try it someone is going to end up calling 911. Well, maybe not that last one.”— Electrical engineering professor','“Humanity is hoping that no one finds an easy way to do this.”— Abstract algebra professor','“The quaternions are like the complex numbers on steroids. And just like steroids in people, you’re gonna have some side effects.”— Number theory professor','“There, easy as pi. The constant that is, not the pastry. The pastry can be very difficult.”— Calculus professor','“Think if we had to do this for subrings. I mean, think of the subrings of the complex numbers. Just horrid.”— Abstract algebra professor','“I will stop being so technical and will be more synthetic.”— Number theory professor','“It’s a dangerous profession.”— Number theory professor after getting a paper cut','Fourier analysis professor, before Halloween: Tomorrow is Halloween, so I made the test appropriately scary. Professor, after Halloween: The only thing scarier than my test was your answers. ','“It’ll try and phrase it ambiguously again.”— Real analysis professor','“I ran a bar when I was a graduate student. I had a blackboard there.”— Number theory professor, after a student suggests holding class in a bar','“Here’s something silly we could do! I could explain why it’s true, but by pictures.”— Real analysis professor','“Isn’t there a show right after the Kardashians? “Keeping up with Bernoulli!””— Number theory professor','“I’m not saying it’s particularly useful, but it is the point of all this.”— Real analysis professor',' Not a quote, but a story. A math professor at my university was giving a lecture and said, "this next step is obvious." to which a student said, "excuse me, how is that next step obvious?". The professor left the room and came back 30 minutes later with a proof of why the next step was indeed obvious. the---king','Student: So when do you use the average value theorem in real life? Calculus teacher: Well, you have midterms in real life. ',' Not a professor quote, more of a confession...but sometimes when I'm in class and relaying information from slides to myself to write down, I call lowercase omega "butt"... Anonymous ','“If you end up getting something like this just abort the mission! Abort the mission! It is known students have died trying to solve this line integral.”— Calculus professor','“It appears that the best time to have this test would be never.”— Dynamical systems professor','“I’m a real analyst, so this is all magic to me.”— Complex analysis professor','“I’m trying to be consistent in my abuse of notation.”— Number theory professor','“In this equation we can remove an l or w. My l’s look like ones so I’ll remove them. Get the ‘l’ outta here, haha thats pretty funny.”— Calculus teacher','“Oh thank God!”— Abstract algebra professor when asked if he assigned a particular problem','“I can’t digest this sandwich you’re trying to feed me.”— Mathematical analytics professor rejecting a Squeeze/Sandwich Theorem','“Math is about love. And sometimes, love doesn’t make sense.”— My barefoot, tie-dye-shirt-wearing linear algebra TA','“How do you kill one million zombies? Kill one zombie, then kill the rest of the zombies.”— Explaining Induction','“From now on, the fourth dimension is color. Or fish.”— Real analysis professor at Berkeley','“I foolishly did not plug in my tablet and its battery is dead, so I have to resort to this primitive dead-tree technology.”— Modern geometry professor','“Can you tell me where the pointy thing is going to go? You know, the pointy thing! The point thing! The vertex!”— Pre-calculus teacher','“There’s probably not a theorem that says infinity/infinity is 5/7.”— Real analysis professor','“Die, die, you’re dead…”— Calculus professor cancelling terms from numerator and denominator in an integral.','“Did I make my life any easier? No! I made it worse.”— Integration by parts goes wrong','“If automotion engineers designed like software engineers do, we’d have to carry a mechanic in our car during the first two years to make patches fixing things.”— Logic professor to computer science students','“I’ll answer your question after class, but for now let’s squeeze.”— Calculus Professor before teaching the squeeze theorem. ','“Simplify until your problems go away.”— Calculus professor','“Déjà-fucking-vu; augment and see what happens.”— Linear algebra professor','“With some loss of generality, but not much”— Real analysis professor','“Philosophically speaking, all data is discretely distributed.”— Applied math professor in response to a question about deciding to model data discretely or continuously ','“Don’t listen to those motivational speakers. If at first it doesn’t work, don’t try again. Quit. Just quit.”— Calculus professor on integration','“Lewis Caroll, the guy that wrote Alice in Wonderland, had everyone get up and switch seats at the Mad Hatter’s tea party. He was a mathematician too. He was a weird guy.”— Linear algebra professor, after unsuccessfully trying to wake students up by having them switch seats','“What’s the big ideal?”— Algebra professor ','“You all can figure it out it’s not… well… maybe it is rocket science.”— Calculus professor at GA Tech','“Mathematics is an exercise in delayed gratification. Like walking though west Texas.”— Logic professor','“Cross your fingers and try to be clever.”— Grad student on techniques of integration','“Let algebra be your guacamole.”— Algebra professor','“Don’t start commenting until I prove that the square root of 2 is irrational, otherwise it’ll be rational and then where would we be?”— History of math professor','“Two unicorns have two horns. That’s the first theorem of Unicorn Theory.”— History of math professor','“It’s called the principal of maximum confusion. Mathematicians like to name things such that they provide the most confusion to non-mathematicians. If anyone asks you to explain something you don’t want to explain, just cite the principal of maximum confusion and it’s lemma “Now, shut up.””— David C. Kelly, complex analysis professor','“This is some region… like a cake.”— Real analysis professor','“Archimedes calculated pi! It’s, uh… 3… 4… 5… 1? I don’t remember.”— Numerical Analysis Professor','“Has anyone ever made beer… or meth? This is practical!”— ODE professor on a mixing problem example','“AP Statistics is really just Advanced Calculator 101.”— AP Statistics teacher','“Now comes something I think you won’t like. But you’re grad students, so I think that’s alright. This is a fun class.”— Real analysis professor','“Never compare yourself to the greats; it will lead you on a path towards futility and despair.”— Foundations of Mathematics professor','“We’re doing algebra here, so we all have to hold each other’s hands when doing the arithmetic.”— Linear algebra professor','“The guy who wrote our textbook is actually a professor here, so if you have any complaints about it I’ve put his phone number and email address in your syllabus, as well as where his office is. It’s right down the hallway from mine!”— Logic professor','“I like to draw potatoes!”— Topology Professor, referring to Venn Diagrams','“But how can you define terms in terms of terms!”— Logic professor ','“This allows you to tolerate arbitrary complexity without becoming too nervous.”— Logic professor','“Think of the augmented matrix as a murder weapon.”— Linear algebra professor','“You should not trust functions whose derivative is unbounded!”— Real analysis professor','“2, 3, 5, 8, who do we appreciate?”— Theory of Computation Professor','“Don’t date boys. You will get pregnant and die. Do calculus instead.”— High school calculus teacher','“It occurred to me that we could completely solve the Oxford Comma controversy just by always using set notation.”— Modern Geometry professor','“The Pythagorean Theorem? That is like using the Millennium Falcon to kill a sparrow! *laser shooting noises*”— International Math Olympiad Coach','“You can integrate that, but only if you’re bad at math. Now get off the drugs, will you?”— Calculus teacher','“You are a set of measure greater than zero in my life.”— NCGSE math instructor on romance','“The department heads, they are saying to me, ‘You shall not make advertisements in lecture.’ But they are not yet saying, 'You shall not bring weapons to lecture’ So, we have this blowgun.”— Calculus professor, who then proceeded to hit our makeshift bull’s-eye with the blowgun five times in a row and shout “Fuck your probability distribution!” ','“We know it’s bad to assume things in maths, because that can make an ass out of u and me.”— Math teacher','“We’re going to make an ansatz, which is German for ‘I have no idea what I’m doing.’”— Numerical analysis professor','“If someone says you have an epsilon brain, they’re probably insulting you.”— Calculus professor','“So when you’re talking to your non-computer science friends, you can scare them by saying ‘I know about Turing machines.’”— Computer science professor','“If you’re lucky, by the end of this course, you’ll understand the chain rule better than you did at the beginning.”— Calculus professor.','“If we just draw a reflection of this function over the y-axis, well… the graph kinda looks like a monkey.”— Calculus teacher','“Love is NOT a symmetric relation.”— Combinatorics professor','“We wish to solve the differential equation, but there is this unsavory term here intruding. Essentially, we wish to kill this intruder to obtain a general solution.”— Linear algebra professor','“So, to show you the power of Green’s theorem, we will take this line integral, which is impossible by direct calculation, and it will be easy with Green’s theorem…oh, no, it’s still impossible. Let’s try a different one.”— Calculus professor.','“Suppose you have a region best described with spherical coordinates. For example, a sphere.”— Calculus professor','“A way to define natural numbers is by rocks–if you have that number of rocks, you have a natural number.”— Discrete math professor','“Thinking is good. We encourage that sort of behavior around here.”— Calculus professor.','“Do you, boo boo.”— Trig professor, when a student asked if he could verify an equation using a different method that also worked.','“It’s the warmth of mathematics, warming your heart.”— Calculus teacher in response to a student commenting that the room was warm','“I’m an impostor. The real teacher has been dead in the closet for a year. I just decided to teach this class because I like math.”— Pre-calculus teacher','“Classmate: If x does something special… Pre-calculus teacher: Like what, a little jig?”','“We only care about this because of the Fundamental Theorem of Line Integrals. In the real world, they care about beauty, truth, and all those other things, but not in this class.”— Calculus professor','“Always remember to be 3 standard deviations above the mean and it’s okay to be highly unusual.”— Statistics Teacher','“Mathematicians are lazy”— Algebra teacher','“Don’t sleep. Drink coffee.”— Differential Equations Professor','“There are two kinds of people in this world. People who love math, and people who haven’t realized they love math.”— Math Teacher','“I don’t like secs, if you know what I mean.”— Math teacher','“Life is good for only two things, discovering mathematics and teaching mathematics”— Siméon Poisson (via allofthemath)','“If you don’t know what you’re doing, then you can always put it in reduced echelon form. Even though it has nothing to do with that. You’ll always get some points.”— Linear algebra professor','“We have A, B, and this other point will be called… I know, Mario!”— Biophysics professor labeling a triangle','“Do not worry about continuity—it will always be satisfied by anything you can construct (wise-guys who like using the axiom of choice will have to worry about it, along with wolves under the bed, etc).”— Strichartz, in A Guide to Distribution Theory and Fourier Transforms','“I’ve got a fever, and the only remedy is more cow-culus!”— Calculus TA','“Don’t remember the Extreme Value Theorem? Forget about it! You can ask your brother Google. My brother Google is very good.”— Differential Equations Professor','“This kind of…I don’t know how you’d describe it, like a Starfleet logo turned on its side, is an OR gate.”— Computer science professor','“Then there’s seven, but no one likes seven. But I like eight, so moving on.”— Math teacher on rules of divisibility ','“Differentiating is like squeezing toothpaste out of the tube. Integrating is like putting the toothpaste back into the tube.”— Calculus professor','“It’s going to look like - and this is a technical term, here - a bunch of random gobbledygook.”— Professor G. Kapfhammer','“I’m not good with numbers.”— Math professor','“Heine-Borel is the kind of theorem that is essential for your life. I mean, you can handle doing grocery shopping without Bolzano-Weierstrass, but you would never succeed without Heine-Borel.”— Real Analysis professor trying to put things in perspective','“If I could spell ‘think’ I’d be a wizard.”— Calculus teacher','“And in this corner, I’m going to quickly prove the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus so we can get on to more interesting things.”— Calculus professor','“Don’t leave ln|y| in your solution. Leaving ln|y| in your solution is like being slightly naked.”— Calculus professor','“Math is the language of the universe. So the more equations you know, the more you can converse with the cosmos.”— Neil deGrasse Tyson (via alexblah) (via thrillseekkerr-deactivated20160)','“Mathematics is like oxygen. If it is there, you do not notice it. If it would not be there, you realize that you cannot do without.”— Lex Schrijver (via curiosamathematica) (via topolojack)','“Oh, funny, that reminds me of one of my favorite species of South American mosquitoes.”— Calculus professor on the Washer Method. No further explanation was made.','“There’s a lot of room in infinity for shit to get fucked up.”— Abstract algebra professor','“This is a 7-week course, and I don’t really think any of you will remember most of what’s covered in this class. But my hope is that one day a few years from now you’re at a party and something from this class comes up and you’ll be able to sound really smart and impress everyone there.”— Algorithms professor','“Using the chain rule is like peeling an******: you have to deal with each layer at a time, and if it is too big you will start crying.”— Calculus professor','“Alright, now draw a 4-dimension system on the board. Wait, are you actually trying to do it?”— Geometry teacher','“2=0 in the same way as ½ and ¼ are the same number.”— Abstract algebra professor','“I thought the midterm should have been easy, but I had no fantasy that I’d be able to convince anyone else of that.”— Linear algebra professor','“There’s no “logical” in mathematics!”— Calculus professor','“Here’s my two favorite quotes about random variables. Actually, neither of them were meant to be quotes about random variables, but I interpret them as quotes about random variables.”— Statistics professor','“Now we will look at a situation that may be relevant to many of you later in life. As you scale the prison wall, a spotlight follows a pattern described by the equation…”— Calculus professor','“Mathematics is a basis for everything, but it’s a basis for knowing that what you’re doing is crap.”— Applied math professor','“We interrupt this proposition to bring you a lemma.”— Linear algebra professor','“I find that doing Algebra is like playing Super Mario: every few minutes, you get a little reward, so you know you’re on the right track.”— Analysis professor','“Does anyone see anything unusual about this equation? Besides the fact that it’s wrong?”— Calculus teacher','“A lot of what I’m saying today is obvious, but it’s also false.”— Topology professor','“Using the chain rule is like peeling an******. You have to deal with every layer at a time and if it’s too big you’ll start crying.”— Calculus professor','“If something is a fish, is it not also either a fish or an elephant?”— Linear algebra professor','“Of course, you can’t visualize things in more than three dimensions. You need a PhD in botany for that.”— Calculus professor','“How could calculus have been your favorite math class? It’s not even real math!”— Abstract algebra professor','“Pictures and intuition are an excellent way to convince people that false things are true.”— Calculus Professor','“Doing analysis is like this: you sit and you think and you stare and nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, you write a paragraph. And that’s a month of research right there.”— Analysis professor','“We could write a proof for this, but let’s just understand it instead.”— Analysis professor','“The more we know, the more we do not know.”— Cryptography professor','“This formula really has its uses! Imagine for instance… your calculator broke and you want to calculate a zero of this function.”— Numerical analysis assistant about Newton-Rhapson iteration','“So you have a herd of sheep, consisting of lambs, young sheep, middle-aged sheep, and old sheep, with the following birth and death rates for each age category. The question is, how many of the lambs can you regularly sell off for leather and still have a stable population?”— Linear algebra professor','“We just changed our improper integral into a perfectly proper, gentlemanly integral.”— Calculus professor, Harvard extension','“When dealing with time series data, the first step is to admit that you have a problem.”— Econometrics professor','“If we tried to solve limits this way each time, it would be the end of civilization as we know it!”— Calculus professor','“What is the probability of getting head on the first toss?”— Statistics professor, UGA','“Somehow I’ve spliced Hello Kitty with Arthur.”— Geometry professor','“Look at the picture until you convince yourself that it’s trivial.”— Lecturer on braid groups','“Since you guys can calculus, but you can’t fraction, we need to retake our quiz.”— Calculus teacher','“If you have time to sleep you have time to do algebra”— Abstract algebra professor (Izzet Coskun)','“There are precisely as many numbers between zero and one as there are between zero and two. ‪#‎thefaultinourℝ‬”— Yichuan (Lulu) Wang (via thepoemthatdoesntrhyme) (via topolojack)','“Now, you know me. I see a matrix when I look out into a beautiful sunset. Or into my wife’s eyes. So of course I see one here.”— Mathematical modeling professor','“Algebra is the only thing in math that is hard.”— Probability and Statistics Professor','“Now we’re going to find the - say it all together now - Latus-rectum. This is how I get my jollies.”— Precalculus professor, while giggling','“I can’t imagine life without cosets.”— Abstract algebra professor','“So basically if you take the sin of some shit, and divide it by precisely the same shit, the limit is 1.”— Calculus professor','“Well, I did understand that yesterday.”— University of Vienna analysis professor, during a proof','“Can we convince ourselves that the radial projection map is continuous? Well, if you sort of wiggle each of the points around a little, you should be able to convince yourself that the continuity is obvious.”— Algebraic topology lecturer','“log(A^c) is equivalent to c*log(A). That may seem weird at first, but whatever.”— Math professor','“Are we getting any smarter by doing three examples? No, were just making our pencils shorter.”— Math professor','“As a future scientist or mathematician, the FTC shall be your daily bread.”— Calculus professor','“Oh, I love this problem. This is a problem I would make out with. Like the slobbering, closet-time sort of make out.”— Math teacher','“I kept saying don’t forget the Jacobian, but I forgot the Jacobian!”— Calculus professor','“The Hospital Rule! It’s named after a guy called l’Hôpital, as it’s actually pronounced, but we’ll call it the Hospital Rule because it makes you feel like you need a hospital, because your head might explode.”— Calculus teacher','“Insanity is sometimes defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. What’s it called if you succeed?”— Physics professor on quantum mechanics','Professor: What else starts with R? Students: Right! Professor: Well, so does left, but-WAIT A MINUTE! ','Student: Am I forgetting something? Professor: You are forgetting all logic! ','“Here they hand you an epsilon— don’t drop it now!”— Real analysis professor','“A circle is…a circle.”— Algebra TA','“Individuals are easier to control than expressions.”— Math professor','“I’m having trouble reading my notes. They’re typed, I don’t understand.”— Calculus professor','“The proof is easy, it’s just playing with balls.”— Analysis professor','“It’s the Walmart of Group Theory.”— Abstract algebra professor on the permutation group','“Oh no, let’s not do that to you yet… Well, I guess since we’re already having so much fun…”— Calculus teacher, upon looking through his notes for the next example','“When you add two real numbers you get another real number… Keepin’ it reeeeaaaal.”— Linear algebra professor','“And if we start in this section of the vector field, we’re in Transylvania and the vampire sheep eat the wolves.”— Linear algebra professor','“Wait, this actually does have practical applications! I feel dirty, this is getting too close to engineering.”— Physics professor','“If you’ve taken Differential Equations before, this equation might scare you. If you haven’t taken Differential Equations, you aren’t smart enough to be scared.”— Differential Geometry professor (Ted Shifrin, UGA)','““There’s a proof of this in Spivak’s GOOD calculus book. Unlike Stewart’s, or Adam’s, or anything with "applied” or “engineer” in the title.“”— Calculus Professor','“There are no earthquakes in geometry.”— Geometry professor','“It’s like trying to fit two toddlers into one shirt, it doesn’t work or you’re gonna tear the shirt.”— Complex analysis lecture (via mathprofessorquotes) (via mathprofessorquotes)','“This is one of those lucky events. You just do stuff and things happen.”— Ordinary differential equations professor','“Knowledge of the quadratic formula should be a requirement to get into heaven.”— Calculus professor','“When you are born, is it your birthday?”— Algebra TA','“What’s the geometrical interpretation of a curl you ask? I’ll tell you in 20 minutes.”— Calculus professor ','“We need proofs because we need to convince ourselves that things are true; we can’t just hear things and accept that they’re true—that’s not how things are supposed to work.”— Calculus Professor','“Eventually” basically means “finitely much foolin’ around with arbitrary values.”— Analysis professor','“You could use the Gram-Schmidt process on this, which would be some pretty heroic mathematics, but…”— Differential equations professor ','“I can’t help you. I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore.”— Calculus professor','“We are all in the same kind of salad, we just want to minimize crunchiness.”— College algebra professor (via mathprofessorquotes) (via mathprofessorquotes)','“You can make a Roman Numeral times table. It takes a long time. I tried it once. It’s a waste of time… but you can try it.”— Dynamical systems professor','“If you don’t know anything about linear transformations, you don’t know much about life.”— Linear algebra professor','“Whacking something with a tennis racket doesn’t make it teleport.”— Differential equations professor','“The goal is not that you be able to do it. The goal is that you believe you are able to do it. You will not be able to do it.”— Calculus professor on transformations','“What shall we call this vector? We’ve already used v and double-v (w.) Yes, how about triple-v?”— Differential equations professor','“There is a price that you got to pay! You are about to find your invariant factors for your companion matrix.”— Linear algebra professor','“Once you have algebra, you can do whatever you want with it… and then deal with the consequences later.”— Mathematical impossibilities professor ','“You should work in terms of theoretically justifiable unless you have a gun to your head, in which case you should cross validate. Also, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to do model selection with a gun to your head, let me know.”— Statistics professor (via forklady42)','“I though of this last night. I was kinda drunk, but it was still kinda interesting after I sobered up.”— Abstract algebra professor','“There are an infinite number of infinities, and some infinities are bigger than others.”— Number theory professor','“Stop being so damn happy.”— Calculus professor','“I had coffee this morning, and after 55 coffee just started being DIFFERENT.”— Calculus professor, in the middle of solving a problem','“These questions are not, in any way, an indication of what may or may not appear on the exam.”— Linear algebra mock exam','“You aren’t allowed to use calculators on next test, because you won’t use Horner’s scheme and he’ll get sad.”— Numerical analysis professor','“Sometimes you go around in a circle, but you don’t end up where you started.”— Calculus professor','TA: Converting context-free grammars to Chomsky normal form: better than sex! Student: And sometimes it even takes longer, too. ','“They’re grad students, right? Have you tried feeding them?”— Calculus professor on interacting with TAs (via turtlecon)','“Some of you might have used this notation before, like Physics majors, practicing the dark arts.”— Differential Equations Professor (via turtlecon)','“When people say ‘I hate math’ what you’re really saying is, ‘I hate the way mathematics was taught to me.’ Imagine an art class, in which, they teach you only how to paint a fence or wall, but never show you the paintings of the great masters. Then, of course, years later you would say, ‘I hate art.’ What you would really be saying is ‘I hate painting the fence.’ And so it is with math. When people say ‘I hate math’ what they are really saying is ‘I hate painting the fence.’”— UC Berkeley math professor Edward Frenkel (via ryanandmath) (via ryanandmath-deactivated20180118)','“Please don’t just sit there like a vacant little catastrophe if you don’t understand this.”— Calculus professor','“Today we’re going to be talking about the Lakes of Wada, and I don’t know how to say that in a way that will make it clear it isn’t a pun.”— Dynamical systems professor','“I have no idea why I’m using this letter, I can’t even pronounce it.”— Mathematical Logic lecturer on the letter ‘xi’','“So we have f_11, f_12, f_13, all the way to infinity. But, don’t write them all the way to infinity, okay?”— Analysis professor','“Statistics is ultimately very unsatisfying.”— Statistics professor','“Or you can do what everyone else in the world does, which is look them up on wikipedia when you need to use one.”— Statistics professor on AIC and BIC','“They came up with this algorithm in the 90s, but it looks like they created this infographic in the 80s.”— Data mining professor','“I try to get away from algebra. I keep running but it always catches up to me.”— Complex analysis professor','“The cofactor expansion method is low technology.”— Linear Algebra professor','“Now we mathematicians like to live dangerously as I’m not sure I can actually prove this, but I’m going to have to right now.”— Graph theory professor','“We have to accept the Axiom of Choice. Otherwise, let’s pack and go home because we no longer have job.”— Real analysis professor','“You all are going to have to trust me. I got a PhD in stuff that was even weirder than this.”— Linear algebra professor','“It’s ill-defined in every way you could wish for.”— Number theory lecturer','“It seems hopeless.”— Modern Algebra Professor','“On this quiz, I asked you to find the determinant of a 2x3 matrix. Some of you, to my great amusement, actually tried to do this.”— Linear Algebra professor ','“It’s terrible, I know, to have a favorite matrix. I know they’re not people, but… I kind of think of them that way.”— Linear Algebra professor','“Individually I hope you each do well on the exam, but collectively I hope you do about average.”— Abstract algebra professor','“The author there is really against determinants. I mean, I am too, but not like… emotionally. He won’t even let them in to his book!”— Linear Algebra professor','“The proof the other way is similar, which is code for do it yourself.”— Number theory lecturer','“Don’t complain. What you need to do is reverse psychology, like me. I enjoy my headaches.”— Calculus professor','“It hardly ever fails! On the other hand, it hardly ever works, either.”— Linear algebra professor','“I’m not supposed to say ‘trivial’ because students may feel bad, so, proof: 'Follows from the definition.’”— Analysis professor','“If all else fails, you can always use the tried and true, ‘The answer is trivial and is left as an exercise to the reader.’”— Calculus professor','“I wrote it here that this is obvious, now I have to stare at it for a little while.”— Abstract algebra professor','“You don’t necessarily need to know what’s going on. You just do it. Like long division does anyone really know what going on with long division?”— Linear algebra professor','“I made a mistake somewhere… In some sense you’re also responsible for my mistakes, if I make them and you don’t tell me then you’re my accomplices.”— Mathematical physics professor','“This is the Koch Snowflake—unrelated to the oil tycoons.”— Calculus professor','“One cannot understand abstract things. They are impossible to understand. You just get used to it.”— Galois theory professor ','“If you go back to physics — or to real life — that sounds very dull.”— Complex analysis professor','“I appreciate that some of you might not be able to see this, but you should be able to work it out anyway.”— Partial differential equations professor','“There’s lies, damn lies, and statistics.”— Statistics professor','“I messed up when making the matrix and now its nasty. Too bad the math still works.”— Algebra professor','“The best thing you can do for your grade is get all the answers right.”— Calculus professor','“Let’s exploit this and get out of here.”— Linear algebra professor on LU decomposition','“For the test you might want to bring a ruler to graph some stuff. And by ruler I don’t mean the king of Spain.”— Algebra professor','“The whole complex plane is out there. The whole complex plane! That’s a huge jungle. Do you really want to go look in there for your eigenvalues?”— Numerical Analysis professor (lecturing on Gershgorin’s circle theorem)','“We can put restrictions on s because it is in another world. We can do this because eventually we will get back to our world.”— Differential equations professor','“We have a machine and inside this machine we have an infinite series, a very weird machine.”— Differential equations professor','“And then we can simply map t to an arbitrary real number. Somebody give me a real number! Ah, yes, lambda.”— Abstract algebra professor','“Mobius strip is to cylinder as Klein bottle is to torus. It’s the SATs all over again.”— Differential Geometry professor','“Your homework is to see an adversary in everything. Why? Because it will make you a better person.”— Cryptography professor','Student: Another day has come and gone and I still haven't used algebra. Calculus professor: O tempora! O mores! I weep for your impoverished existence. ','“I’m going to be really naughty here, and just evaluate the integral over its infinite domain without doing any limits. A pure mathematician would feel very strongly about this.”— Lecturer for a course on series and transforms.','“Your textbook does this in a different way but well, my way is better.”— Calculus professor ','“I know it looks like magic, but it’s simple magic. There’s far more complex magic.”— Analysis professor','“Well, when I took this test I missed two questions, so some of you actually did better than me.”— Precalculus Instructor','“I don’t want to ruin your spring break…but I’m going to ruin your spring break.”— Engineering professor while assigning homework','“We shall abbreviate “polygon with a complete set of side identifications” to PWACSSI. Catchy, isn’t it?”— Topology professor, University of Oxford','“A generalization of a point is a line, a generalization of a line is a square, a generalization of a square is a cube. People who try to generalize cubes are asked to leave.”— Graph theory professor','“I always imagine a little old lady sitting at a point on the function and figuring out what properties she can see without moving”— Real analysis professor on local vs global properties','“I never used the word “given” in my lifetime until I started teaching this course. And now it haunts me every day.”— Linear Algebra professor','“So this is the nullspace of A, or NS(A)… the NSA is everywhere.”— Differential equations professor','“Guess what- calculus is actually useful for something and not just for keeping mathematicians happy!”— Calculus lecturer, with an ironic smile','“You asked the right questions, and I answered none of them.”— Geometry professor','“The line from the focus to the some point on a parabola is equidistant to the line from that point to this thing called the directrix. That’s a great name for a cat.”— Calculus lecturer','“It’s called Alpha. Stop calling it fish.”— Pre- Calculus Teacher','“I give up on counting!”— Math teacher after miscounting homework assignments to pass back','“So there it is. The thing that gives the best solution. If you have defined “best” the way I have, that is.”— Math Modeling Professor','“It’s fun! – except for all of these horrendous-looking derivatives out there.”— Thermal Physics Professor','“Use the Triangle Inequality at least 17 times a day. Minimum 17. Keep track.”— Complex analysis professor','“I’m not going to apologize to you. This is not my fault!”— Physics professor on why capacitors discharge exponentially ','“A good way to remember this proof: it’s just the matrix Phi times the vector c. Phi c! Feces! Yeah, just remember feces!”— Differential equations professor','“You can learn how to eat chicken noodle soup, how to eat minestrone soup, how to eat gazpacho soup, or you can learn how to use a spoon, and you can eat all kinds of soups. The same goes for math formulas: you can memorize each and every math formula, or you can learn how to alter one formula to solve all kinds of math problems.”— Math professor','“The Maclaurin series is a Taylor series centered at zero. Mine’s at 1.42. That’s the Roger series. You can choose your own.”— Calculus lecturer','“You cannot subtract a chicken from an apple.”— Math professor','“Eigenvalues are in everything. There’s an eigenvalue in the burrito you’re going to eat for lunch today”— Linear algebra professor','“If I ever forget to assign homework, refer to the default assignment, which is all the problems.”— Calculus professor','“Real mathematicians don’t celebrate getting the right answer. This isn’t the lottery. You need to know you’re right before you start the problem. Do you think Isaac Newton had a memo?”— Engineering maths lecturer','“This shape is like if you take a jar of peanut butter and scoop some out of the top, then turn it upside down. And it stays there … because peanut butter.”— Multivariable calculus professor ','“Apparently some people didn’t think last lecture was cool as I did. Actually, that’s a theme in this course.”— Statistics professor','“Do you know what mathematicians drink during happy hour? A gin and monotonic!”— Calculus professor','“We’re nearing the finish line of the course and, like any other race, there is a sprint at the end.”— Linear algebra professor','“This graph has an infinite number of vertices. Here, let me draw all three of them for you.”— Topology professor','“Parallele-pipe down!”— Linear algebra professor, telling us to be quiet while lecturing on parallelepipeds.','“Now we’re going to get infinitely serious about infinite series.”— Calculus professor','“I’m not going to show a proof of this, because it’s boring.”— Linear Algebra Professor','“The cosine of 1/x is undefined at x=0. It is also visually disturbing near x=0.”— Engineering calculus professor','“Polygamy is kind of okay in onto functions as long as there are no single people in the end.”— Mathematical thought professor','“Like many things I’ve said, we’re not going to use this at all.”— Linear algebra professor','“Ok, I know this turn out to be a complete mess. But it’s clear, isn’t it?”— Theoretical computer science professor','“Who needs numbers when you can have doughnuts?”— Algebraic topology professor','“It’s a contradiction upon a contradiction until you can’t get out.”— Abstract algebra professor','“Once you understand this theorem, you can do a magnitude of things. Some of them even useful.”— Calculus Professor','“You will be thinking, disaster! The numbers, they are growing like mushrooms after the rain!”— Calculus teacher','“It’s kind of a silly method, but it has it’s pedigree in mathematics. … It’s called guessing. Informed guessing.”— Differential Equations professor','“The vertex of the parabola is my favourite point, because it’s the only point on the parabola with no other point parallel to it. Before I retire, I want everyone in the school to go out onto the lawn and form a giant parabola. And I want to be the vertex.”— Pre-calculus teacher','“It’s powerful…almost…magical. You cannot do better than this.”— Algebra professor on Galois theory','“Is there anyone who still knows whats going on here?”— Calculus Professor','“Well there’s no app for a PhD.”— Calculus professor on graphing and computing apps.','“That…is one sexy proof.”— Modern Algebra Professor, East Carolina University ','“So if your girlfriend or boyfriend is acting irrational, tell them that they don’t have a fractional expression!”— Practical Math professor','“Your proof is wrong. But maybe you are Batman and the statement actually is true.”— Linear Algebra professor','“So say you’re inviting four people to a party. A, B, C, and D. We’ll call them Archibald, Bellatrix, uh… um… C, and Darth Vader.”— Discrete mathematics professor','“Please have a look at the appendix of this section. It’s a result I would call interesting but that sometimes causes people to stare at me strangely.”— Math professor','“You could prove your grandmother equals a banana using this method!”— Math professor, talking about False implies True','“On a day like today, you just want to have some fun. Let’s look at this example.”— Math professor','“The words ‘asymptotic’ and ‘proper’ are in a race to see which can be the most overused word in mathematics.”— Differential equations professor','“I try not to memorize any scary looking formulas.”— Calculus professor','“It is widely believed that a dog is man’s best friend. This is not true. Dog is man’s second best friend. Man’s best friend is the identity sin^2 + cos^2 theta = 1. And I would actually put cats second and dogs third.”— – Real Analysis & Linear Algebra Professor','“And you can show your mom and she’ll think you’re cool! Well, my mom was impressed.”— Computer science professor','“Cruel and unusual punishment? Welcome to higher level mathematics. Hello!”— Calculus teacher','“I don’t celebrate Pi day. I celebrate math everyday.”— Calculus Professor when confronted with celebrating Pi Day. ','“Its a bit of a catch m, where m is 22…”— Kiran Kedlaya (When talking about Hasse-Minkowski Theorem, UCSD)','“I don’t want u, I want my x!”— Calculus Lecturer','“This example is horrific!”— Linear Algebra professor getting excited about doing an example','“Abstract Algebra is wonderful because you can prove things about groups that you don’t even understand.”— Abstract Algebra Professor','“And God said: ‘Thou shalt not divide by zero’”— t-shirt hanging on the wall of the department head’s classroom','“You just gotta massage it until something comes out.”— Describing how to simplify a complex radical','“Yeah, I ate at the dining hall today. Oh! Speaking of inedible things, test on Friday!”— Differential equations professor','“This exercise is so easy that it can be solved in a negative number of steps.”— Carlo Ravaglia, Professor of Calculus in the University of Bologna, Italy','“… And like everything trivial, we must prove it using a very obscure and indirect method that you will probably use only three or four times in your life at the very most.”— Real Analysis Lecturer','“All models are wrong but some models are useful.”— Professor P Foster, talking about models used in Statistics','“In this course, you have to suppress your urge to run away when facing an utter trainwreck.”— CSC Professor, on an accidentally horrific induction problem','“There are a number of steps to follow when you come across an integration problem that requires trig substitution. The first step is to cry. The second step is to re-evaluate your life and wonder what you did to deserve this.”— Professor Leslie Buck','“Real analysis is just triangle inequality with applications.”— Analysis professor','“So this ODE describes what the professionals call “damped oscillation,” and that’s what everyone else calls it too.”— Differential equations professor','“If you want to read more about this, google “graph protection” or something. Do NOT google “set domination”, you’ll… get a lot more than graphs.”— Graph theory professor','“If I were stranded on an island I would only need to bring the Expectation–maximization algorithm paper. It’s that beautiful.”— Neurostatistics professor','“What are you on about, “who would do that” everyone knows the world of maths isn’t real.”— Math teacher','“We have something here…. Let’s call it a real life situation”— Matrix Theory Professor','“Sorry about that, there was an error in my notes so I had to think.”— Physics professor','“A sequence is a way of probing the space, which sounds kind of gross.”— Real analysis professor','“It doesn’t matter whether I call it z or Zebedee, if you see it on the left side, it’s what I want you to replace on the right side.”— Complex analysis professor','“Before computing integrals, you should think.”— Physics professor','“You can read about analytic number theory. Well, you can read about it in a lot of places, but I wrote a book on it, so…”— Real analysis professor','“The Leibniz notation is useful in differential equations, as it allows us to commit terrible crimes without getting in trouble with the police.”— Differential equations professor','“You know what algebraists say–you can’t add apples and oranges, unless if you’re working in the abelianized group generated by apples and oranges.”— Terence Tao, analysis professor','“It’s not my job to be right but to be wrong in interesting ways.”— Calculus professor','“Now let me know if I’m talking nonsense.”— Calculus professor ','“What’s the simplest type of pro-p group? Cyclic groups! So…. not simple?”— Algebra Seminar, University of Virginia','“It’s a good thing I’m teaching this class and not taking it, huh? I’d fail.”— Calculus professor','“You’ll see this in your physics classes. Of course, the notation is quite nice, it’s very suggestive.”— Calculus professor','“Mathematically they’re the same. Psychologically they’re different.”— Calculus professor on points and vectors','“So if you take the derivative of cosine you get negative sine… and a negative sign! Guys I just came up with that!”— Physics professor','“Fun? What is that? There is no fun. Just BC Calc.”— BC Calculus teacher','“Topologies aren’t like Wisconsin, unions are still allowed!”— Topology professor','“I need a letter different from r… r’ for instance.”— Analysis professor','“We’re using a textbook so that way you guys don’t think I’m making all of this up.”— Topology professor','“I don’t doubt the truth-y-ness of that statement, only the proof-y-ness.”— Topology professor ','“I too have a lot of trouble visualizing 4-dimensional vectors… When I’m sober.”— Linear Algebra professor','“We’re a non-denominational school so let’s treat that as a mathematical entity.”— Calculus professor after drawing a cross on the board','“It’s ok! If you need to, go ahead and use letters to solidify your numbers. That’s called theory! Shhhh, it’s a secret.”— Calculus teacher','“Homework is worth 10%, because I know you’re all going to google the problems and I can’t give you more than 10% for googling something.”— Functional Analysis Professor','“In some sense, everything is trivial.”— Topology professor','“Big X is the random variable, as it always is in life.”— Probability professor','“What do I do? I confuse kids. I get paid to confuse.”— Calculus professor','“We can solve problems much easier with math than with words.”— Differential equations professor','“Whenever you use numerical methods are you in a state of sin.”— Quantum Mechanics Professor ','“It’s a hybrid! It’s a both. And a neither… But it’s a nice place for a picnic.”— Statistics professor, referring to some three dimensional surface ','“Many of you will have learned Stokes’ theorem and Green’s theorem. Many of you will have forgotten them. You are not alone.”— Data mining professor','“I just heard this joke: Why can’t you grow wheat in Z/6Z? Because Z/6Z isn’t a field!”— Linear algebra professor','“Oh damn, I forgot how this proof goes. I think I’ll just draw you all some pictures and convince you that it’s true instead.”— Algebraic topology professor','“The main goal of this class is that you will know everything.”— Algebra professor','“In an ideal world the primes would start at 3.”— Analytic number theory professor','“There is one thing I am not telling you and it is probably critical.”— Linear algebra professor, SPSU','“If you want to talk about linear dependence in an infinite dimensional vector space, just put in a bunch of zeros.”— Abstract algebra professor','“For writing linear equations, there’s basically a standard etiquette.. Uhmmm… How do you spell etiquette?”— Linear algebra professor','“An axiom is a mathematical truth, just basically something you have to accept… another reason math is like religion.”— Linear algebra professor','“Putting on your socks and then your shoes is not the same as putting on your shoes and then your socks.”— Abstract algebra professor while holding his foot up for everyone to see','“Sine is mine, and cos is plosh.”— Calculus professor regarding the derivatives and integrals of sine and cosine','“Yes that is acute angle. Wanna see a cuter one?”— Linear algebra professor, Vanguard University','“You take inside crap’s derivative and multiply it by outside crap’s derivative, leaving inside crap the same.”— Calculus professor on the chain rule','“Uninitialized variables are always in league with the devil.”— Computer science professor','“The syllabus for MATH 227 is almost identical to the syllabus for MATH 127. Just replace every instance of 1 by 2.”— Linear algebra professor','“It’s easy to check that…”— Abstract Algebra professor during every hard proof','“Gobblely goop log heart is log heart to the gobbley goop power.”— Algebra teacher','“Always remember the three M’s: men, math, and money.”— Calculus teacher','“A sum of a sum is a sum of sums!”— Calculus Professor','“What the technical term for the shape of a cubic function? Squiggly.”— Pre-calculus instructor','“If you understand this, you’re a genius because I don’t understand it and I wrote it.”— Ring theory professor','“Armadillos have identical quadruplets, which is convenient for experimental design and also super cute.”— Experimental design professor','“The problems in the exam will probably be the ones from this sheet. Or a linear combination of them.”— Differential equations professor','“We’re going to learn to integrate over any area, such as…” *draws jagged impossible shape on the board* “the Kraken.”— Calculus professor','“This graph ends up looking like a wine glass. Ah, you guys aren’t old enough to drink, so… it’s a chalice. A chalice full of water.”— High school calculus teacher','“I’m not saying it’s not a box, I’m just saying it’s not a box.”— Calculus Professor','“Graph that motherfunction!”— Pre-calculus teacher ','“Proving a theorem is like burying a body. You have to put all the nails in the coffin; but first, you have to make sure the body is in the coffin!”— Professor Alessio Corti, Imperial College London','“Pi is transcendental, but the proof is beyond the scope of this course. Here’s a meta-proof: if there were some polynomial somewhere with pi as a root, it’d be famous and you’d all know about it. You don’t, so there can’t be such a polynomial, and hence pi is transcendental.”— Galois Theory course, Professor Kevin Buzzard, Imperial College London','“To be honest, I get an out of body experience whenever I think of empty sets. Anything can happen with them.”— Multivariable calculus professor','“I, too, have trouble visualizing four dimensions when I’m completely sober.”— Linear algebra professor','“Stop trying to relate what we do in this class to real life!”— Physics professor','“The proof is essentially trivial, but since it takes exactly one line, let me show it to you”— Abstract algebra professor ','“The most interesting thing we should get from this is to learn how to spell ‘monic.’”— Abstract Algebra Professor','“So far, so trivial, right?”— Differential equations instructor','“Orientations are like belly buttons. They’re either innies or outies.”— Multivariable calculus professor on orientable surfaces','“Wow. Much analytic. So differentiable.”— Complex analysis instructor','“Which of you have seen Taylor Series before? Okay, now consider the infinite dimensional Banach Space…”— Differential equations professor','“This equation is very ugly, overlooking the beauty.”— Engineering mechanics professor.','“That’s right guys! My faaaavorite F word! FOIL”— Algebra Instructor','“The California rule: if you do something once and it feels good, do it again.”— Calculus professor on second derivatives, UCSD','“Calculus is easy. Factoring is hard.”— Calculus professor, NCSU','“Now it’s time for our favorite thing in the world – RREF! It’s much more fun than Sudoku.”— Linear algebra professor','“They have some higher-level statistical things that just let you get your answer with a flip of your fingers, which makes me sad.”— Statistics professor','“Correlation does not mean causation. That’s why I don’t say ‘Increase in x causes increase in y.’ I say 'Increase in x leads to increase in y.’”— Statistics professor','“Deeper in to the rejection region, like going through high school again, maybe…”— Statistics professor','“In math, if something is easy, we call it boring.”— Linear algebra professor','“Someone develops a website and suddenly think that they are computer experts.”— Dr. E. S. Santos, computer science professor','“If you find any question on this test to be rather easy, I recommend that you do it all over again.”— Dr. E.S. Santos, computer science professor','“The definition of the college lecture is a mechanism of moving information from the notes of the professor to the notes of the student without it moving through the minds of either.”— Differential equations professor','“*After seeing his answer on the board* WHAT?”— Temple University calculus professor','“Then you foil. Or you could use saran wrap to see things more clear.”— Dr. Gary Seldomridge','“Absolute value signs make me feel safe”— Vector calculus professor','“It’s not an abuse of notation. It just fell down the stairs.”— Combinatorics professor','“And this one is easy… easy for me. You? You’ll probably have to think about it for a while.”— Algebraic graph theory professor','“Math is poetry. You have to listen closely to see its inner beauty.”— Math professor','“I have a joke about parabolas. So the parabola goes to his parabola therapist. The therapist asks, ‘how’ve you been?’ The parabola says, 'I dunno, doc. Sometimes I’m up… sometimes I’m down…’ You ready for the punchline? 'SOMETIMES I CAN’T FUNCTION!’”— Dr. Tweedy, Rice University','“The clerk at the gym was telling his friend that he likes to organize the member’s cards in rectangles, but sometimes the only rectangle he can form is a long straight line. That man had discovered prime numbers.”— Abstract algebra professor','“This formula is so beautiful that you can even apply it to your cat.”— Riemannian geometry professor, EPFL','“Infinity is the biggest thing ever!”— Real analysis professor','“I’m not going to write a proof for this, or even pretend I’ve done a proof for this theorem… so there!”— Analysis rofessor','“At this point you should feel like you’re totally messed up, but you’re not.”— Analysis professor mid-proof','“First observe that homotopy is a stupid relation to put on paths.”— Algebraic topology professor','“Didn’t you guys learn topology before high school?”— Nadrian Seeman, Macromolecular Chemistry','“I should probably only say true things.”— Topology professor','“You should be verifying these at home”— Abstract algebra professor','“They’re on the beach and they don’t know this proof is wrong!”— Topology professor lamenting over the fact that there was a mistake in the proof presented to us before spring break','“I mean, they can offer you love, but I can offer you…math…”— Differential Equations professor after a group of a cappella Valentine’s Day serenaders interrupted the lecture','“This is a black magic course.”— Complex Variables Professor','“I’ve drawn a sad face in my notes, which we’ll get to in just a moment.”— Group theory professor','“Continuity is an amazing accident.”— Analysis Professor','“If you zoom in really close on two points, well, you get one point…”— Topology Professor','“Classmate: When are we ever going to need to know this? Teacher: Well, I mean–if you’re ever building a catapult…”— Algebra professor','“Let’s assume you’re in outer space. Wait, what am I talking about? You’re right here!”— Calculus professor','“Inside gamma can be a bunch of horrible things like a gif of Miley’s head on a twerking chicken.”— Calculus professor at the University of Virginia','“Any practical questions before I start on the math (lecture)?”— Linear Algebra Professor','“You can’t find all the critical numbers of a damned sine wave!”— High school calculus teacher','“Is this interesting?”— Linear Algebra Professor','“Hedgehogs exist in practice but the problem is if you want to comb a hedgehog because it’s impossible.”— Differential Geometry professor','“Someday you’ll all come to love and appreciate balls.”— Topology professor','“You won’t actually use anything you learn in this class in next year’s calculus class. So this class is double useless.”— Pre-calculus professor','“If you are not confused, you are not doing it right.”— Calculus professor','“And so the sequence converges by the addition of numbers.”— Analysis professor','“It’s just defined away from where it’s not defined.”— Analysis professor','“Complex Analysis is a dangerous subject. If you are not careful, you can lose an i.”— Prof. K. Koenig, Complex Analysis Course at OSU','“The last subsection was titled ‘Analogs with Real Analysis’. This subsection will be titled ‘No Analogs with Anything’.”— Dynamical systems professor','“Your take-home final is due a week from today. You may use any non-living source, including myself.”— T. Wieting, multivariable calculus professor','“Without much loss of generality…”— Smooth Manifolds professor','“If I meet you out in town on a Friday night, and you are very drunk, you should still be able to prove these theorems, and I will ask you to prove these theorems.”— Real Analysis professor on Rolles theorem and the intermediate value theorem','“Now let’s talk about the compliment of a set. If we have the set of 1, 2, and 3, and we say gee 1, 2, 3 you’re looking mighty fine today. Wouldn’t that be a compliment?”— Topology professor','“The zero vector is like Rudolf the Rednosed Reindeer, he can’t play in any of the linear algebra games.”— Linear algebra professor','“I hope to have your exams graded by Monday, but this is on the order of a dream.”— Math structures professor','“If math worked like that, planes would fall out of the sky!”— Calculus professor','“We want to average over balls, not elephants.”— Partial differential equations professor','“You’re missing an i here. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an i.”— Quantum Physics Professor','“Now I need to formalize the definition of tilting my head.”— Calculus professor','“Let’s be technical and call it a “blob”.”— Graph theory professor','“This is the kind of thing you think about for ten minutes and then say, “Yes, it’s obvious.””— Graph theory professor','“Visualizing four dimensions is easy. All you have to do is visualize n dimensions and let n be 4.”— Linear algebra professor','“Remember, there is no such thing as a free lunch, but there IS the Richardson extrapolation.”— Calculus professor','“Now I hope I am not playing fast and loose with the epsilons.”— Analysis Professor','“People talk about tricks for doing integrals. But they’re not. They’re useful, general techniques. Now this is a trick.”— Calculus professor on integrating the secant and cosecant functions','“What’s the log of the exponential? That’s like asking what color the yellow book is. So what’s the log of e^x? Yellow.”— Calculus professor','“It was a triumph of notation over logic.”— Probability professor','“I don’t know why I can’t prove this.. [stares at board] Tomorrow I’ll bring you the proof and cookies!”— Abstract algebra professor','“There’ll only be a couple of proofs in this class.”— Combinatorics professor','“Basically everything we did over the past three lectures was completely trivial.”— Analysis Professor','“When you drink a couple beers, you are really good at proving theorems. The problem is they never hold up the next day.”— Discrete Math Professor','“This is homework. That is homework. Everything is homework. (pause) This is true in a broader sense.”— Real analysis professor','“There’s no partial credit! If the bridge collapses into the river, well, there’s no PARTIAL bridge!”— Calculus professor','“All cows are animals but not all animals are cows”— Linear Algebra Professor ','“If you forget to add the undefined constant when you integrate, I’m going to take a picture of it and upload it to Failblog.”— Differential equations professor','“Transformations: Shift Happens”— Precalculus teacher','“Whenever I write ‘n’, I mean ’d’… or 'n’. It’s a non-deterministic kind of thing.”— Combinatorics professor','“Someday there will be windshield wipers that change length, and then it will be really easy to teach the fundamental theorem of calculus.”— History of Math professor','“You pay all this money to take this course and in the middle of it, you learn that there is no hope.”— Probability professor','“If you memorize it, it will make you a better person. Your morality will improve.”— Probability professor on the probability density function with gamma distribution','“Thumbs up if you understand orthogonal projection. Thumbs down if you’re not sure what a vector is.”— Linear Algebra instructor','“Zero, our good and faithful friend who rarely lets us down.”— Calculus Professor','“You can keep on talking, just talk silently.”— Real analysis professor','“I want to give you a, how you say, suggestion. No! Not this word. Command.”— Real analysis professor','“Using proof by contradiction on that is like going to the grocery store in a tank.”— Real analysis professor','“I think I am erasing the theorem I might be proving, but…maybe that’s not that bad.”— Real analysis professor','“It can also be written f of x, something something.”— Real analysis professor','“That is called the Chain Rule. Why is it called the Chain Rule? There is no chain.”— Real analysis professor','“Intuition. (long pause) Intuition is very straightforward here.”— Probability professor','“Next time your parties get boring, just show them this.”— Linear Algebra professor','“Somewhere in never-never land, this random variable corresponds to a measure space, but we don’t care.”— Fourier analysis professor','“Whenever I think about the adele ring, I start hearing all these songs… like Rolling in the Deep”— Arithmetic geometry professor','“So that’s a practical application of what we’re learning. I feel slimy now, like this is becoming an engineering school or something.”— Combinatorics professor','“Why isn’t alcohol served at get togethers for calculus students? Don’t drink and derive.”— Calculus Professor ','“Be honest; you’ve always wanted to do this.”— On Fourier Approximation','“It’s not drugs, it’s just complex numbers.”— Linear algebra professor','“I call it the Protestant Ethic, others simply call it a nuisance. You can’t get something deep by just putting a little chalk dust on the board.”— Real analysis professor','“It takes a certain ingenuity to come up with a proof like this. Or, you know, more time than you have on a test.”— Linear Algebra Instructor (on a bonus question from the midterm)','“Without the Poincare inequality the world would not exist!”— Functional analysis professor','“It’s not a pretty function, but functions aren’t models.”— Dmitri Finkelshtein, Calculus Professor at Swansea University ','“Sadly differentiation is not like art.”— Dmitri Finkelshtein, Calculus Professor at Swansea University ','“Let’s do something more interesting, you guys are half asleep. Problem 71”— (via whatmyprofsays) Physics professor','“On the final exam there will be a bunch of multiple choice questions, mainly about…calculus.”— Calculus Professor','“I’m so used to it being true, I’m having trouble trying to drudge up in my mind why it’s obvious.”— Real analysis professor','“Even though creating histograms is more fun than human beings should be allowed to have, the ultimate objective is not creating a histogram, but rather understanding something about the data.”— Elementary Statistics (Triola)','“Some people… you know… want to find the gravity in hell…”— Calculus professor','“The watermelon got linearized.”— Calculus professor after dropping a watermelon','“If there is a fire alarm during the exam, we will move to the physics building and finish our exam at the the cafe.”— Calculus professor','“To say that a function is continuous is just to say that it’s a function you can drag out into polite company.”— Calculus professor','“Mostly you just leave it in this form and don’t actually solve it, unless someone puts a gun to your head and says, “Solve it!””— Calculus professor','“Corollollorory… I don’t know how to say that word.”— Statistics lecturer','“This is kindergarten calculus!”— Vector calculus professor','“Actually, a Czech mathematician also came up with this algorithm in the 1920’s, but it isn’t named after him because he didn’t publish in English. Moral of the story, kids: whatever you do, don’t slack off in English class.”— Math professor in the Czech Republic','“I’m behaving like an analyst here, I’m making this up.”— Algebra professor','“This is a corollary to the following more general result, which I will also call a corollary.”— Ring theory professor','“Let’s show that 3 is not a prime.”— Ring theory professor','Student: In the matrix you have -1.04 instead of -.104, is there a reason for that? Professor: Yes there is a reason. I made a mistake ','“Modules, or the other name which I forget. Absolute value, it’s so simple I forgot it.”— (via whatmyprofsays)','“Lines are circles.”— Complex analysis professor','“We’ll see how this works more when we actually… do things.”— Complex analysis professor','“This is a computation everyone should do at least seven or eight times in their lives.”— Complex analysis professor','“The right hand doesn’t have to know what the left hand is doing, but to me, the right hand knows.”— Complex analysis professor','“This is already working out differently from how it did in my notes…”— Algebraic topology professor','“The formal definition is just abstract nonsense.”— Algebraic topology professor','“There haven’t been enough pictures today.”— Algebraic topology professor','“What am I trying to say? What am I trying to say? I haven’t said anything yet. This isn’t this complicated.”— Linear Optimization Professor','“This is a integral is so simple your grandmother could do it!”— Calculus professor','“Power series combine polynomials and infinite series in an interesting way. You guys know about the benefits of combining chocolate and peanut butter, into a delicious Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. I got paid a dollar to say that.”— Calculus professor','“I would prefer that you be able to think…”— Precalculus teacher','“We will name it p. Don’t ask me why, sometimes you just gotta p.”— Computer science professor','“Analysis is the art of taming infinity.”— Neil Falkner (via centerofmath) (via talesofscienceandlove)','“If you show this formula [e^i*(pi) + 1=0] to your friends in Arts, and they don’t find it beautiful, you must reconsider your friendship.”— Calculus professor','“A Jacobian a day keeps the doctor away. But you should do a few a day just to be safe.”— Calculus Professor','“This is a retraction. It’s a different retraction than, say, what you would do after submitting an incorrect paper.”— Algebraic topology professor','“Now we just use the ol’ add and subtract trick.”— Real Analysis Professor','“I can’t dunk but I can threaten people’s grades!”— Probability professor (via nurse-frodo)','“You do this until you go blue in the face.”— Algebraic topology professor','“So last thing before you go is based on the diagram I drew on the board, which is very barely readable.”— (via whatmyprofsays) Linear algebra professor','“Half of commutative algebra is checking well-defined.”— Algebra professor','“No one ever gets away in life with cheap definitions.”— Algebra professor','“In a fight between an exponential function and Godzilla, the exponential wins.”— Calculus professor','“If a man tells you he knows a thing exactly then you can be safe in inferring that you are speaking to an inexact man.”— Bertrand Russell, English mathematician and philosopher','“Fractions are my friends, but sometimes I like my friends to go away.”— Geometry teacher on clearing fractions','“This class is boot camp for your brain.”— Calculus professor','“We’ll get around to defining definability sometime next week.”— Antonio Montalbán teaching Mathematical Logic at UC Berkeley','“I use the term ‘reality’ loosely when I’m talking about math.”— Calculus professor','“You don’t have to use letters to denote functions. You can draw monkeys and let them denote functions, if you want.”— Calculus professor','“This is where distinguishing between x and y is useful.”— Calculus professor','“[Abusing notation to do totally unjustified things] shouldn’t make you stop. It should just make you feel guilty. A little.”— Calculus professor','“Maybe all these computations are justified, maybe not. But look! You have STUFF at the end! And you can just take this stuff and plug it in over here, and it works!”— Calculus professor','“To reiterate is to be redundant.”— Multivariable calculus professor','“*points at the solution* This..what happened here is MAGIC.”— Math professor at SMU','“Notice what I said makes sense, not simply because I said it.”— Linear Algebra Professor','“Are you familiar with lattices? Here, I’m going to draw one on the board. … That’s not a good definition.”— Discrete geometry professor','“Is r an elephant? Is r a real number? What the heck, a Notre Dame student, maybe?”— Calculus professor','“Remember that not all bases are created equal.”— Linear Algebra Professor','“Is it magic? Is it mysticism? No, it’s eigenvalues!”— Intro to Dynamic Systems professor','“It’s true because… well, you can convince yourselves.”— Complex analysis professor who didn’t feel like convincing us','“Does it make you feel uneasy to pick infinitely many indices infinitely often? Well, that’s set theory at work.”— Real Analysis Professor','“I didn’t want to scare you while we were learning limits, so I said “nice” which is psychologically less damaging.”— Calculus professor, about continuous functions','“You take two donuts, you put them together, and you put a glaze over it!”— Algebraic topology professor on the genus-2 surface','“…then you let pi go to infinity…”— Functional Analysis professor','“If you do this with paper, things are going to get very crumpled, but topologically it is possible.”— Algebraic topology professor',' Hello everyone, I added some new viewing options to the sidebar. Check it out to browse quotes organized by course topic. As always, new submissions are welcome and encouraged! -Math Professor Quotes','“How do you draw in 4 dimensions? By using another color!”— Topology professor','“So what is the derivative of poop? … I MEANT FIVE.”— AP calculus teacher','“All math is either trivial or very deep.”— Linear Algebra Professor','“Next we need to check for concavity. Don’t worry - we’re not going to the dentists.”— Calculus II professor','“Galois figured this out just before dying in a gun duel at 21. So, when you turn 22, you can have something to feel sorry about. Wait where I was going with this?”— Calculus I Professor (while going on a tangent about finding roots of functions when doing derivatives)','“If you can avoid bias, all will be right in the world.”— Statistics professor on Measurement Error','“From the point of view of algebra, too many invertible elements… it’s a mess.”— Number theory professor','“I have told you N number of times not to make noise in my class!”— My high school math teacher','“I leave it to you to check, or else we would never get to the end of the course.”— Number theory professor on the Chinese Remainder Theorem','“I hope I am doing this correctly…”— Math professor','“It makes a difference in life the choices you make. ‘Cause you might end up with something you can’t do. Or you might have to do it over and over again until you get an answer.”— Calculus II Professor, on integration by parts','“What we say about the real world… we have no idea about the truth of it. All we know is that it could be false.”— Real analysis professor ','“The entries of the matrix may be complex numbers, but for now let’s keep things real. Besides, complex numbers are more real than real numbers.”— Linear algebra professor','“You have to learn to respect the uselessness of intuition.”— Probability professor','“We say A, but we mean B, then we write C, yet the correct value is D.”— Linear Algebra Professor ','“You know there is such a thing as Fibonacci salad. Yes, it is a combination of yesterday’s and the prior day’s salads.”— Real analysis professor','“If your friend comes up to you and says, ‘I have a new girlfriend. She’s a matrix!’ He’s lying.”— High school geometry teacher','“If that was too fast you can, um, think about it until you get it.”— Linear Algebra professor','“After I’ve been here and I come out here then I never get back to here, and then I’m here and I’m never here.”— Complex analysis professor','“I am now effectively isomorphic to Mr McGinn (the other higher level maths teacher).”— Algebra professor','“The sum of a column of numbers is time-dependent.”— G. Richards, who is brilliant at graph theory but shaky at arithmetic','“Five minutes reading time? It will be more appropriate to have five minutes crying time before the HL maths exam.”— IB maths teacher','“Loving math isn’t like loving a human being. At least not for me.”— ODEs Professor ','“You plus your imagination is bigger than you.”— Complex Analysis professor','“The whole year will pass by, but you won’t pass.”— Math professor','“Now, let’s get back to our sunshine and anger!”— Multivariable Calculus professor, in a lecture on vectors.','“This is Math 108. The course number was chosen to have the most factors of any 3-digit course number at [the college].”— History of Mathematics professor','“Press the “MATH” button, noting the irony… Isn’t every button on a calculator a math button?”— Probability professor','“If you’re sick or dead or something like that, tell me.”— History of Mathematics professor','“The only way to win at casinos is getting free drinks.”— Stochastic Processes Professor','“Low-dimensional topologists think a lot about pants”— Topology professor explaining pants decomposition','“You should not fall into the trap of thinking these symbols mean anything. They mean nothing.”— Logic professor','“…when vectors go on strike to protest for vector rights, they’ll shout, “magnitude and direction! magnitude and direction!””— Calculus Professor','“If you get a probability higher than 1, you need to reevaluate your life.”— Statistics professor','“We’re defining it in a completely trivial way, but it’s ingenious, you’ll see.”— Logic professor','“It doesn’t even mean what we think it means. We don’t even know where we are.”— Logic professor','“Don’t be fooled. This means nothing. These are just symbols.”— Logic professor','“All Props in class are either available at the Topology Section of WalMart or at Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross Station.”— My topology professor (via isaywordssometimes)','“If you say “this is trivial because…” then it is not trivial.”— Linear Algebra professor on writing proofs','“If you shoot eleven holes in ten pigeons…”— Professor in a Putnam Competition prep class','“Does anyone know what SWAG means? Scientific Wild Ass Guess.”— Math professor (via lessthanajester)','“Mathematicians have a complete list of the finite simple groups. A complete list! Of course, it’s an infinite list…”— Algebra professor','“Math is a pain in the ass because it gets in the way of what you want to be.”— Dr. AP math professor at Orange Coast College (via accepetance)','“It was a good day. I only drew pictures.”— Algebraic topology professor','“So this is really quite cute”— Algebra professor, about homomorphisms or something','“If that isn’t fun, then this is no conditional!”— Hannes Leitgeb, from his online Course in Mathematical Philosophy','“I dream of x’s. When I close my eyes at night, all I see is math.”— Differential Equations professor, confusing himself while teaching Laplace transforms','“The center is everything.”— Speaking about Abelian groups','“Uh oh, I don’t know if this is going to work out right … Oh God, please help us!”— Erik Guentner (Math 103) Source: math.uh.edu ','“Take a pair of integers and rub them together until they pulverize each other!”— Number Theory professor, speaking on Brahmagupta’s Pulverizer','“In the future if you ever take a multivariable calculus class…Or the class takes you.”— Linear Algebra professor','“So just because someone comes in with curly hair one day because they permed it, they’re still the same person. Is that a helpful metaphor? Probably not.”— Linear Algebra professor','“You’d think it would be a k-flat…or maybe a j-sharp.”— Linear Algebra professor','“Subspaces are people too. And by people of course I mean vector spaces.”— Linear Algebra professor','“Going to Starbucks is NOT a shortcut, whatever you think.”— Linear Algebra professor explaining the triangle inequality','“You get a little mischievous if you’re a professional mathematician.”— Linear Algebra professor','“The duck looks pretty comfortable right now… but if you have a nervous disposition you might want to leave.”— Linear Algebra professor','“Something about higher mathematics: you realize after a while that it breeds… It’s a little disturbing to be honest.”— Linear Algebra professor','“The Pope just quit, a meteor strikes Russia… One of these days you might even learn statistics!”— Statistics professor','“These are things to ponder. I ponder them. I ponder them during assemblies, if I can hear myself think. I ponder them while people are talking to me at the lunch table…”— Linear Algebra teacher','“Real world applications, fake real world applications that pretend to be real world applications, and mathematical applications that don’t pretend to be anything.”— Linear Algebra professor','“…a bunch of kids that are young enough they might as well be monkeys…”— Number Theory professor','“You lull a baby to sleep by putting them on a vacuum cleaner…”— Number Theory professor','“It feels awfully heteronormative making a pair of coordinates, one of them blue and the other pink.”— Number Theory professor','“Apparently your name has to start with an EU to prove there are infinitely many primes.”— Number Theory professor','“If you remember from last time and you didn’t come, I’m a REALLY good teacher!”— Number Theory professor','“You always know your joke is extra-good when you have to spend more time explaining it.”— Complex Analysis professor','“But it’s an important vomit, so I’ll try to regurgitate every now and then.”— Number Theory professor','“I always ask people who have to leave in the middle of class to leave angry.”— Number theory professor','“It’s a proof by hand-waving, but a rigorous proof by hand-waving.”— Number Theory professor','“At first sight, we would prove this topological theorem using balls, but I can’t do that because I haven’t got any.”— Topology lecture','“You will never really understand anything; you will only get used to it.”— Analysis professor','“You won’t see anything more difficult than a rectangle.”— - Analysis prof on what to expect for the final exam','“This proof is only one line. Well, two lines. But I think of it as one line.”— Functional analysis professor','“c minus minus is minus minus minus c, which when c is minus, is really just c minus.”— Measure theory professor ','“not knowing what the graph of a function looks like leads to short-lived joy”— My Majestic Math Professor Said…: ','“Not only do power series take time to write, they take time to erase. It takes forever to erase an infinite number of terms”— (via whatmyprofsays) Calculus professor on infinite series.','“If we take the weight of a lot of us and remove one person, the weight goes down. But not in an integral.”— Measure theory professor on integration','“We all know it’s true, but nobody cares.”— Topology professor','“(a few days after valentine’s day) just a couple days too late, we see that r = 1 + cos(θ) is heart shaped”— My Majestic Math Professor Said…: ','“I think. I’m not sure. I’m not sure that’s true. I’m pretty sure that’s true. Yeah, that’s true. I think that’s true.”— Topology professor','“If I argue with symbols, you have no choice but to believe me!”— Measure theory professor on why proofs are awesome','“If this doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry. It doesn’t.”— (via whatmyprofsays) Math professor','“if you don’t get over that, everything will be very easy but you will be doing everything very wrong”— My Majestic Math Professor Said…: ','“This function freaked out mathematicians because they didn’t know why it worked.”— (via whatmyprofsays) Math professor on the delta function.','““can be shown” translation: i’m not going to show it”— My Majestic Math Professor Said…: ','“Elementary does not mean trivial. Elementary means you do elementary things. It’s elementary.”— Measure theory professor','“Each argument is elementary, once you’ve figured it out.”— Measure theory professor','“It’s equal, but we’ll put less than or equal.”— Measure theory professor','“Let delta be the delta, I don’t know.”— Measure theory professor','“My proof is a disaster, perhaps, but it is very, very elementary.”— Measure theory professor','“Do you see the beauty of this theory? He’s not discussing the quadratic formula– he’s DESTROYING Reimann, and with elegance!”— Measure theory lecture','“*handing back tests* Key? Oh, Key always does very well”— (via whatmyprofsays)','“The only reason that we like complex numbers is that we don’t like real numbers.”— Bernd Sturmfels (IAS/Park City Mathematics Institute, 7/14/04) Source: math.sfsu.edu ','“The real reason to finish this[math problem] is so you can go have a beer and watch tv.”— Rob Busch Source: quarkquark.com ','“This is our old friend the quadratic equation, names have been changed to protect the innocent.”— (via whatmyprofsays)','“Similar to the ending of Gone with the Wind, this function is well undefined.”— Calc III professor','“Leave infinity alone, it makes everybody nervous.”— Measure theory professor','“That [function] doesn’t bound shit!”— Mrs. Cisnero, High School AP Calculus BC teacher','“It is a pain to think about convergence but sometimes you really have to.”— Sinai Robins, colloquium SUNY Binghamton 3/14/02 Source: math.sfsu.edu ','“Keep the minus signs outside, it makes you feel better.”— (via whatmyprofsays)','“Okay, guys, do I really need to work it out? I mean…you’re just going to get du=2xdx and so on. Oh, you want me to work it out? You’ve aready done evaluations, right? Then..no, I don’t want to work it out. Work it out yourselves!”— Lance Nelson, Calculus Lecture, last day of class','“Math allergy, huh?”— After a student sneezed Source: quarkquark.com ','“Mathematical convention is to name things after the first person after Euler to discover them, otherwise everything would be called Euler”— (via whatmyprofsays)','“Aw, shit, that’s not an axiom!”— Raj Mehta, MTH 211: Linear Algebra (via professorquotes)','“I have trouble with numbers sometimes.”— Professor Mary Murphy, MTH 111 (via professorquotes)','“Linearly indep…. I’m tired of talking about this stuff.”— Raj Mehta, MTH 211: Linear Algebra (via professorquotes)','“Do you see? Shake your head because this part is very beautiful.”— Measure theory professor','“If I had to live off the square root of my income… I’d be eating a lot of beans.”— Dave Palmer, MTH 290 (via professorquotes)','“That’s why I don’t clean at night, because the dust has measure zero. But watch out, it’s uncountable! Uncountably much dust. But of measure zero. That’s what I tell my wife.”— Measure theory professor on the Cantor set','“Then multiply the polynomials, just like it says in the Bible.”— Dr. Mikhail Chebotar; Intro to Modern Algebra II','“Are you having a nightmare, or are you a little bit happy that you understand?”— Measure theory professor','“Let me emphasize that I’m not actually going to ask you to do this process ever.”— Raj Mehta, MTH 211: Linear Algebra (via professorquotes)','“Because in the real world, there are no axes.”— Rajan Mehta, MTH 211: Linear Algebra (via professorquotes)','“In math, we can turn a noun into a verb. We “disjoint” the sets.”— Measure theory professor','“There was somebody who wrote ‘I used math to get it.’ That’s great, but you didn’t need to write that.”— Rajan Mehta, MTH 211: Linear Algebra (via professorquotes)','“You have to watch the whole movie. But usually one gets distracted in the middle of the movie. That’s why I want to stress subadditivity.”— Measure theory professor','“You cannot be in the bathtub, you have to be in the jacuzzi to see that, with all the bubbles, because this is shocking.”— Measure theory professor, later in this lecture','“The guy was in the bathtub when he wrote that. It’s so easy, it’s like playing with duckies.”— Measure theory professor on a trivial proof','“If your brain doesn’t hurt you probably aren’t learning!”— Courtny Lannert, Physics 115 (via professorquotes)','“I can think of other examples, but… They would be weirder.”— Rajan Mehta, MTH 212: Calculus III (via professorquotes)','“The absolute value of a llama is NOT something we’re ready to talk about.”— Nico Aiello MTH 153, Discrete Math (via professorquotes)','“I found a mistake, so I have to apologize for Lebesgue. Did you find it? It should say, “ladies and gentlemen.””— Measure theory professor on Lebesgue’s paper, which opens with “Gentlemen:”','“Math is a game. How do we play the game? By writing down the properties of outer measures.”— Measure theory professor','“I’m only showing you this formula in vector form so that in the next chapter I can show you a different formula and ask if it looks familiar. It will, because I am referring to this one. English majors call this foreshadowing. I take your liberal arts education very seriously.”— Calculus professor about the Divergence and Stoke’s theorem','“You have to be on the “yes” team. The “yes” team answers “yes” when I ask a question during class.”— Measure Theory professor','“It is better to watch the movie than read the book. Movies are more exciting.”— Measure theory professor on why we should pay attention during class','“My favorite graphs in order are ellipsoids, hyperboloids of two sheets, and hyperbolic paraboloids.”— calculus professor','“This proof only works for small infinite numbers.”— Calculus professor','“Do you go out with your friends and ask, “Is whiskey a technical term?””— Algebra professor to a pedantic student','“R-submodules of R are ideals in disguise. Sort of like transformers.”— Ring theory lecture','“Any reasonable person would be delighted to own an object with so much symmetry about the origin.”— Glenn Stevens','“You take a point and put a thing around here, then take another point and put a thing around here and a thing around here, then a point and a thing around here and a thing around here and a thing around here.. you have too many things.”— Topology lecture','“Pardon my French, but bonjour!”— Ring theory lecture','“In mathematics, you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.”— John von Neumann (via cloois) (via mathematica)','“The sup is a sup if the sup is the sup.”— Topology lecture','“I’d have loved to say, when my kids were growing up and wanted the same toy, okay now you’re the same kid.”— Steven Rosenberg on creating quotient groups','“…an apriori truth, like 1+1=2. [swings around and points at the only math student in the class] And I mean real plus, not squiggledy-do-dah or something!”— Philosophy lecture, University of Saskatchewan 1998','“Well, you can’t actually do it. It’s only been proven that you can do it.”— Topology professor, regarding the Banach-Tarski Paradox','“Just make the balls smaller.”— Topology lecture','“Doubling is the same as halving.”— Topology lecture','“You do the thing to get the thing.”— Differential equations lecture','“By Zorn’s lemma, S contains the element we were looking for. These ARE the droids we were looking for!”— Ring theory lecture','“There’s wind blowing on the… situation.”— Partial differential equations lecture.','“If you have a space that is not complete, how do you complete it? By completion.”— Constantine Dafermos Source: math.brown.edu ','“One of the rules is, never do computations on the blackboard.”— Sergei Treil Source: math.brown.edu ','“This is the kind of book where you feel that the author is your friend. It’s not the kind where he says ‘it can be seen that’ and then he deletes the last page of his calculations.”— Brian Cole Source: math.brown.edu ','“Now watch as I cunningly draw an arrow here.” Source: math.uh.edu ','“Math class is about suffering.”— Ruth Haas, Math 114 (via professorquotes)','“Existence is a cute proof. I don’t know what word to use. Neat? Cool?… Anyway, existence is not obvious.”— Mathematical logic lecture Source: netfunny.com ','“You can write a small letter to Grandma in the filename.”— Computer science lecture. ','“What I’ve done, of course, is total garbage.” Source: netfunny.com ','“Somehow, the price of clarity is complexity. …Wait, are there any philosophy students in the room?”— Mathematical logic lecture','“Proof of Thm. 6.2 is trivial from Thm. 6.9”— Cambridge, 1987. Source: math.mit.edu ','“I think it is true for all n. I was just playing it safe with n>=3 because I couldn’t remember the proof.” Source: netfunny.com ','“You can’t drink negative beer. Well, I guess you could throw up.” Source: netfunny.com ','“You have to regard everything I say with suspicion - I may be trying to bullshit you, or I may just be bullshitting you inadvertently.” Source: netfunny.com ','“The subspace W inherits the other 8 properties of V. And there aren’t even any property taxes.” Source: netfunny.com ','“Is this what they have in the back of the book? No? …Well, forget the back. They don’t know what they’re doing.”— Calculus professor.','“I won’t prove that here for you. I mean I could, but who has the time.”— Linear algebra lecture','“It goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway… I like to say things that go without saying.”— Mathematical logic lecture Source: netfunny.com ','“Any theorem in Analysis can be fitted onto an arbitrarily small piece of paper if you are sufficiently obscure.”— Cambridge professor on analysis, 1987. Source: math.mit.edu ','“Everything we are learning is tools, Cauchy is like Super Screwdriver!”— Complex analysis professor','“This is one of the most fundamental theorems in mathematics, however, we will only call it by the name Theorem 4.12.” Source: math.uh.edu ','“I’m pretty sure this is true…I wouldn’t bet my life on it, but I’d bet yours.” Source: math.uh.edu ','“Of course,this isn’t really the best way to do it. But seeing as you’re not quite as clever as I am - in fact none of you are anywhere near as clever as I am - we’ll do it this way.”— Cambridge lecturer, 1986. Source: math.mit.edu ','“This book fills a well-needed gap in the literature.”— Algebra lecture, Cambridge 1986. Source: math.mit.edu ','“When you’re walking to lunch just say the proof out loud to yourselves. People may think you’re weird, but they probably already think that anyway.”— Analysis professor ','“Triangle inequality means if you are going from x to y and if you stop for a beer, it takes a little longer.” Source: math.uh.edu ','“It’s like trying to fit two toddlers into one shirt, it doesn’t work or you’re gonna tear the shirt.”— Complex analysis lecture.','“This is a one line proof…if we start sufficiently far to the left.”— Engineering professor, Cambridge 1988. Source: math.mit.edu ','“The less you memorize, the more room you have to think. Don’t memorize. Ask google.”— Real analysis professor explaining how the brain works.','“We are all in the same kind of salad, we just want to minimize crunchiness.”— College algebra professor']