11–20 of 27 posts
It seems like the real character here is Graham, who I've never met, but I do have a story about his collaborator Bruce Rothschild, who was my professor for junior-level linear algebra. In those days, you either gave your professors little self-addressed stamped postcards to tell you your grade, or went to their offices to ask them. I took the latter approach with Rothschild. "What grade were you expecting?", he repl…
It seems like the real character here is Graham, who I've never met, but I do have a story about his collaborator Bruce Rothschild, who was my professor for junior-level linear algebra. In those days, you either gave your professors little self-addressed stamped postcards to tell you your grade, or went to their offices to ask them. I took the latter approach with Rothschild. "What grade were you expecting?", he repl…
Was he joking?
Before clicking on the link, I thought for some reason this would be article explaining how Paul Graham had got his own number, much like the Erdos number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s#Erd.C5.91s_numb... .
How many steps removed are you from starting a company with Paul Graham...
It seems like the real character here is Graham, who I've never met, but I do have a story about his collaborator Bruce Rothschild, who was my professor for junior-level linear algebra. In those days, you either gave your professors little self-addressed stamped postcards to tell you your grade, or went to their offices to ask them. I took the latter approach with Rothschild. "What grade were you expecting?", he repl…
I TA'd for Graham's Discrete math class at UCSD. He's still quite the character! His last lecture he juggled a handful of chalks in class and brought his deck of cards to do magic tricks. He once made me pull out a 1$ bill from my pocket in his office and then asked me what the serial number was, he shot out a question like: "what's the probability that you have n consecutive numbers on the bill". You could tell Math…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I TA'd for Graham's Discrete math class at UCSD. He's still quite the character! His last lecture he juggled a handful of chalks in class and brought his deck of cards to do magic tricks. He once made me pull out a 1$ bill from my pocket in his office and then asked me what the serial number was, he shot out a question like: "what's the probability that you have n consecutive numbers on the bill". You could tell Math…
You were playing Liar's Poker.
http://quant.stackexchange.com/questions/4201/strategies-for...
Here's an excellent and brain melting expose of Graham's Number: http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/11/1000000-grahams-number.html
Some of my favorite parts (minor spoilers):
> Look closely at that drawing until you realize how not okay it is. Then let’s continue.
> Then Graham decides that for g2, he’ll just do the same thing as he did in g1, except instead of four arrows, there would be NO I CAN’T EVEN arrows.
It seems like the real character here is Graham, who I've never met, but I do have a story about his collaborator Bruce Rothschild, who was my professor for junior-level linear algebra. In those days, you either gave your professors little self-addressed stamped postcards to tell you your grade, or went to their offices to ask them. I took the latter approach with Rothschild. "What grade were you expecting?", he repl…
Was he joking?
Mentioned in xkcd: http://xkcd.com/207/