MOP 2001 Quotes

"How many MOPpers does it take to open an unlocked door?"
	yan z., after five other MOPpers tried to open a door
mike h.:		"You could do that with an integral."
yan z.:		"I want something definite."
mike h.:		"A definite integral?"
"Dumbass is a state of mind."
	alex s.
melanie w.:		"Otherwise, you could make a2 - m2 something small — like 2."
class:		[laughter]
melanie w.:		"Okay, you could make it 4."
class:		[more laughter]
	Discussing a MOP test problem, where a and m are positive integers
melanie w.:		"What are the holes, Reid?"
reid b.:		"What?"
melanie w.:		"What are the holes?"
reid b.:		"What?"
melanie w.:		"And the pigeons!"
richard b.:		"Is color a factor?"
daniel j.:		"Yes."
richard b.:		"Is number a factor?"
daniel j.:		"Yes."
anders k.:		"Is 3 a factor?"
	In an Eleusis game
"We know that 1 does not equal 0. So either 1 > 0 or 1 < 0. Without loss of generality, assume 1 < 0."
	anders k.
"Ha ha — your queen beta-decays into a rook!"
	mike h., discussing quantum chess
[problem]		If n is a nonnegative integer, prove that n + 2 and n2 + n + 1 cannot both be perfect cubes.
chris m.:		"If n + 2 and n2 + n + 1 are cubes, then (n + 2)(n2 + n + 1) = n3 + 3n2 + 3n + 2 = (n + 1)3 + 13, and that sort of violates Fermat's Last Theorem."
"That's just sexual harassment, that's not sick."
	yan z.
"This thing is either potato or fish — I can't tell which."
	daniel j.
"Dysfunctional Equations: Find all f : R ® R s.t. for all x, y Î R, f(x) + f(y) ³ 2f((x + y) / 2) + |x - y|."
	mike h., writing on the board
"We will call the vertices of the rectangle W, X, Y, and, uh, M."
	alex s. [no YZ for Yan Zhang]
"We have a cyclic hexagon whose convex hull has four vertices..."
	melanie w.
"Pretend Chris is the origin since he thinks the world revolves around him."
	yan z.
"No, no; you wouldn't destroy the world, you'd just destroy most of the surface of the world."
	dani k., discussing antimatter
zuming f.:		"How do we use that condition — the special k?"
daniel j.:		"We eat it."
george l.:		"Can anyone think of a substitution for k that will make this equation simpler?"
anders k.:		"k = 3?"
"Do you want a slice of me?"
	pie guy
"You know, for someone whacking two candy bar wrappers, that's not too bad."
	chris m.
"You should've been singing, too, because then you would've been a candy wrapper rapper."
	chris m., to Luke G.
"The answer to that is that it's not the problem, Mr. Fat is a nice guy and doesn't want his robots to die, and Mr. Taf has a magic teleporter."
	george l., on MOP test 2 problem 4
"Yan's quotes suck."
	yan z.
"This is my region and mine alone."
	yan z., standing in front of the women's bathroom
"So y times blah plus y bar times blah equals blah."
	melanie w.
"Most graph theory problems don't actually come out and say they are graph theory problems — they just say 'Alice is friends with Bob'... And then there are planar graph theory problems which say 'Alice and Bob live in a plane, and Alice is friends with Bob..."
	alex s.
"Now this function is a mess. Let's differentiate it."
	zvezda s.
"Erase your finger from that point down."
	yan z.
titu a.:		"Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo..."
zuming f.:		"No, I don't understand."
titu a.:		"No, see... buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo..."
zuming f.:		"Oh, now I get it."
	Titu and Zuming discussing a word puzzle
"I really like Steve Byrnes."
	ben c.
"There was a hole, so I had to put something in it..."
	yan z.
"That does not go on the quotes list!!!"
	yan z.
"No, it wasn't stupid... I just went like this..."
	yan z., getting his finger stuck in a bottle for the second time...
"Your mom is a covalent bond."
	yan z.
"WOP!"
	steve byrnes
michael r.:		"What if you're half Romanian, half Bulgarian, and half Hungarian?"
yan z.:		"You can't add."
pie guy:		"You have three parents."
michael r.:		"I pay money for entertainment all the time."
pie guy:		"Whoa!"
"Is Jensen's inequality the same as Yensen's inequality?"
	michael r.
pie guy:		"You could always make fun of some girl you think is hot."
steve byrnes:		"Pie guy, you're ugly."
"Oww! How'd you like it if an elephant climbed on your back, Ricky?"
	pie guy
"I'm half the man you are."
	michael r., to Ricky B.
"No matter what you did, you probably would have crashed and burned, so it's OK."
	george l.
inna z.:		"What gender are conjugate pairs?"
alison m.:		"One of each."
"I was perpendicular to your mom."
	yan z.
"Do you think I smell good, Greg?"
	ben c.
"You get this thing that's strikingly a multiple of a power of 2..."
	dan s.
"We'll have to use weighted quaggas."
	gabriel c.
"What's the equation for the line at infinity? ... ¶ = 0, where ¶ is not zero."
	zvezda s.
"Thanks for screwing this up, Tiankai."
	tiankal l.
"Proof by being Yan."
	chris m.
"Notice by the fact that N is big that it's actually not very small."
	alex s.
melanie w.		"This is Dan. He's the third grader."
gabriel c.		"He's a third-grader?"
"Use the Schwartz!"
	mike h.
"Okay, remember the previous correction we did? Just do it again."
	dani k. to Anders K., working on a Sieve of Eratosthenes turing machine. The correction later had to be repeated at least three more times...
alison m.:		"Yeah, this thing works with complex numbers because, yup, yeah. ... I say 'yeah' to much."
mike h.:		"Yeah."
alison m.:		"We mock everything. This is MOK."
anders k.:		"Except when Titu gets through with that it will be MOSK."
"Melanie, have I ever told you how much I love you?"
	steve byrnes
"I guess I don't have to be responsible — they don't pay me enough to be responsible."
	melanie w.
melanie w.:		"So we haven't had a MOP marriage yet."
pie guy:		"Steve?"
steve byrnes:		"Pie guy, would you like to break tradition and marry me? I love you, I'll love you forever."
"Oaz goes to the gym every day, and tries to pretend he's not a nerd."
	melanie w.
"Then all the microwaves will get out."
	ricky l.
"How about Riemann chess? Where you have to prove the Riemann hypothesis before you can move."
	gabriel c.
alison m.:		"All I remember from playing chess last year is getting beaten pretty badly."
chris m.:		"Yeah, me too... I seem to remember you beating me once. No, wait, that was ping..."
"How much math could a Tiankai do if a Tiankai could do math?"
	yan z.
"That's because you are a mutated human being who can wear different socks on different feet."
	yan z.
"You'll do much better at math, Yan, without Tiankai beating you up."
	alison m.
"Anders, quit beating a dead horse. Oh wait, you're the dead horse."
	mike h., in a Diplomacy game
"Your mom's trying to impersonate Yan."
	anders k.
"Ooh, the suicide gambit!"
	dani k., in a chess game
melanie w.:		"Ask yourself, 'How would Titu solve this?'"
luke g.:		"Trig substitution!"
	discussing an+12 = an2 + 2an + 1
"Basically..."
	ben c.
"Basically..."
	alex x.
"Ask yourself, 'How would Yan solve this?' ... He wouldn't."
	yan z.
"I am a perfect gentleman."
	yan z.
lacrosse girl:		"What math are you in?"
luke g.:		"Differential equations."
lacrosse girl:		"Is that above Algebra I?"
somebody:		"A little."
tiankai l.:		"How do you prove this?"
gabriel c.:		"First you take a big hat and fill it with rabbits. Then you pour mustard in the spaces between the rabbits, and it dries up in the shape of a proof."
george l.:		"Okay, now you're just trying to get on the quotes list."
"Yay has got to be greater than or equal to Anders."
	alison m.
reid b.:		"What does the bracket mean?"
gabriel c.:		"It means that I drew a bracket there."
"We want to prove right now that triangle IMO is similar to triangle NBQ."
	mark l.
"You basically proved A1, A2 are on the same circle. That's fine."
	zvezda s.
"Write it in binary expansion, say, 3 — well, actually that's not a good example."
	neil h.
"So if we make it more explicit, we definitely have math is cooler than Yan."
	steve byrnes
"a on s equals s on a equals 1, so by the law of quadratic reciprocity, a and s are both squares. Sorry — a, s are both primes."
	ben c.
"It's like this dude wearing a hat."
	tiankai l., on a self-intersecting circumscribed hexagon
"You could probably patch it up with some 'without loss of generality's."
	mike h.
"You have all these things like d times d bar, which is, magnificently enough, a real number, and (a - d) times (a bar - d bar), which is, magnificently enough, a real number...."
	melanie w.
"Nineteen-year-old, billion-o'clock shadow."
	ben c.
"I am transcendental. I transcendend all y'all."
	yan z.
"That's a little closer to being a little nicer."
	george l.
daniel j.:		"Couldn't Ricky's proof use, in some hidden place, that 2/3 > 1/2?"
gabriel c.:		"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he uses something equivalent to that."
	(discussing whether "Short and Fat" could be used to prove that 2/3 > 1/2)
"Zuming doesn't know shit about circles."
	tiankai l.
"You can learn in a fast time if you have good learning speed."
	yan z.
"There are Ii guys with Ii."
	george l.
"1/[knight] - 1/³ > 0     ³ > [knight]"
	melanie w., on the board, discussing MOP Test 8 problem 3
"You don't know that you're okay, but at least you don't know that you're not okay."
	melanie w.
"When you have a competition like this, that's how you put the book together. You put the book around the competition."
	steve o.
"We're not gonna poke you or prod you or make you drink any green-colored liquid or something."
	steve benson
"If you don't put the answer at the top, the grader will also be prejudiced against you from the beginning, because they said to put the answer at the top."
	melanie w.
dani k.:		"It seems like these are all Fibonacci numbers."
alex s.:		"Well, I would like to point out that 4/5 of the numbers between 1 and 5 are Fibonacci numbers."
"Only those who work will make mistakes."
	mihai b.
"So you're saying 1 + 2 + 3 = 4 + 5 + 6 + 7?"
	bogdan e.
"Neither the proposer nor the selection committee could find a miraculous solution."
	mihai b.
tony z.:		"By the way, I didn't know Yan's clay award was a sarcasm becasue [sic] I didn't know Micheal Humberger [sic] got the clay award."
ben c.:		"Michael Humberger! I love you, Tony! (In the...metaphorical...sense)"
tony z.:		"What does that mean? What happened to Michael Humberger [sic]? I am confused..."
	on the MOP 2001 email list

IMO Quotes

"www.gfmc.org. 'gfmc' stands for 'Global Movement For Children.'"
	that lady from UNICEF
news interviewer:		"What's 212?"
gabriel c.:		"4096... what about it?"
interviewer:		"Nothing about it. It's just a question."
reid b.:		"I could really use some tea."
gabriel c.:		"Yeah, I want tea, too."
"It's like Clue. Arthur Jaffe, on Capitol Hill, with the breakfast."
	reid b.
"All those roller coasters disordered the part of my head that contains the ordering of the positive integers."
	gabriel c., failing to put {1, ..., 6} in order
ian l.:		"How do you use the mouse?"
tiankai l.:		"You just move the mouse around."
ian l.:		"Oh, I got it."
"Their solution has a proof, too."
	tiankai l. (meaning "a hole")
"Why would somebody writing something ugly turn you into an ostrich?"
	gabriel c.
"Orgasm?"
	ian l., guessing in Charades, when the actual answer was "math"
"You're at the IMO. You're doing math. That shows you're a loser."
	tiankai l.