 | | |
| "Well, basically, I think I've reduced it to [something] involving geometry." |
| Robert Cordwell, on proving the Steiner-Lehmus Theorem |
| |
| "I will do the following: I will bring paper." |
| Gregory Galperin |
| |
| MOPper: |
I thought it was Vandermonde's Identity. |
| Po-Shen Loh: |
Yeah, but Convolution sounds cooler. |
| |
| "Is it just a coincidence? No, because 31 is slightly less than 32. That has something to do with it." |
| Luke Gustafson |
| |
| Matt Ince: |
"Next year they're going to call it MOOP." |
| Yoyo Zhou: |
"Math Object-Oriented Program." |
| Tim Abbott: |
"What would the objects be? The problems? The students? They could make a whole class." |
| |
| "So what pencil do you use?" |
| Tiankai Liu, to Po-Ru Loh |
| |
| Jeffrey Amos: |
"Ever notice how similar allied and all lied sound?" |
| Tim Abbott: |
"Oh no! I'm allied with Jeffrey!" |
| During a Diplomacy game — the turn before Tim was backstabbed by Jeffrey. |
| |
| "I don't want to bother Po-Ru Loh right now — he's an IMO contestant and has lots of IMO contestant things to do." |
| Nate Ince |
| |
| Andrei Jorza: |
"When I saw this problem, the first thing I said was, 'Oh shit, I don't know how to do this!'" |
| Tony Zhang: |
"Did you say it?" |
| Andrei Jorza: |
"Well, I said it in Romanian, so nobody understood me." |
| |
| "What? There are no Chinese people at MOP." |
| Chris Yetter |
| |
| "Frustration is only stupidity leaving your mind." |
| Jeffrey Amos |
| |
| "One plus one had better not be one, 'cause if it was, that would be bad." |
| Tiankai Liu |
| |
| "Vote or horrify doubly misbehaving Prof. Pell, pot, or pie guys, who are stoned. Titu's smallest Stolp-worthy MOPper, whose burning pot lights up ARML's pie-eyed coarse sons, murderplies Ricky Biggs." |
| some MOPpers scribbling on a white board — the original text was "I survived the USAMO" |
| |
| "Preset priestly morons provoke exploited babies." |
| more random scribbling — the original text was "eat pie: vote pie guy" |
| |
In A.D. 2002, test was beginning.
What happen ?
Somebody set up us the TSE.
We get signal !
Main screen turn on.
Titu: Good morning gentlemen !!
Titu: All your base case are belong to us.
Titu: You are on the way to induction.
What you say !!
Titu: You have no chance to derive make your time.
Titu: HA HA HA HA ....
Take off every trig !!
You know what you doing.
Move trig.
For great justice. |
| Mike Hamburg, with additions by others |
| |
| "I used the reverse of Mascheroni's Theorem: anything that can be deconstructed with a compass and straightedge can be deconstructed with only a compass." |
| Mike Hamburg, on how he opened the box for his TI-89 |
| |
| "Only a Mafia member would kill another Mafia." |
| Jeff Snow |
| |
| Jeffrey Amos: |
"The non-existent entity known as Riz was speaking to themselves as if ..." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Themselves is a pronoun, dumbass." |
| |
| "I admit it now, I am a dumbass. Please don't choke me." |
| Mitka Vaintrob |
| |
| "I accuse Jeff because I don't think he's Mafia and my guesses are usually wrong." |
| Brian Edwards |
| |
| Jeff Snow: |
"I'm actually 50% of the Mafia." |
| Max Rosmarin: |
"But that's by mass." |
| |
| "That means I'm either a Mafia ... or a townsperson ... or the police inspector." |
| Brian Edwards |
| |
| Tim Carrell: |
"He was using that as a ploy to throw you off." |
| Tim Abbott: |
"Nah, he's not that clever." |
| |
| "First logical argument in Mafia I've ever heard." |
| Eric Stansifer |
| |
| Tim Carrell: |
"There are 2 Mafia, 7 people. It's those two; I'm inspector. Kill me to verify, then kill those two. Kill me first." [Tim Carrell is killed.] |
| Tim Abbott: |
"Why bother? We lose." |
| |
| Jon Pinyan: |
[banging on the floor] |
| Brian Edwards: |
"Watch out; there are people downstairs." |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"We're in the basement, dumbass." |
| |
| Allan Chu: |
"The pawns look so munchy." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"That's going on the quote page. What's your name?" |
| Allan Chu: |
"Dima. Um, Dima, uh..." [to Dima] "What's my last name?" |
| Liz Marcil: |
"I know HE's Dima. Stop lying about your name to avoid getting on the quote page." |
| |
| Max Rosmarin: |
"By the end of MOP I will have made out with every male member of this table [Stansifer, Carrell, Hallenstein, Pinyan, Peairs, Abbott, Heim, Meeks, E. Price]." |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"I think I'm going to go to my room and cry now." |
| |
| "Come back, Toto! I'm not going to hurt you; I'm just going to convert you to a highly radical political persuasion." |
| Liz Marcil |
| |
| Brad Froehle: |
"Haven't you met me? I'm Jeff Snow." |
| Randy Li: |
"What, did you go to Subway a lot lately?" |
| |
| "I know you'd be closer to all the girls, but ..." [Chuck walks in.] |
| Ben Conlee |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Typical men. Fighting over little plastic things." |
| Jeffrey Amos: |
"We're not fighting. Fighting makes it sound petty. We're killing each other." |
| |
| "Mongoliastan!" |
| Liz Marcil |
| |
| "It's not hard, okay?" |
| Jeff Snow, about the impossible Rush Hour problem |
| |
| Allan Chu: |
"Are we ever going to see that monument?" |
| Dima Kamalov: |
"What monument?" |
| Allan Chu: |
"The carving in the side of the mountain with the four presidents..." |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"That's in South Dakota." |
| Allan Chu: |
"Oops. Wrong state." |
| |
| "Mississippi is the only state that we [Alabama] are better than in every single thing except cheese-making... When I go through there all I see is a lack of restrooms." |
| Sharat Bhat |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"What happens if i is equal to i?" |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"That happens a lot." |
| |
| "I may not be stronger than a 30-mile-an-hour car, but I'm smarter than a 30-mile-an-hour car. The problem is, it's the dumb 30-mile-an-hour cars that hit people." |
| Brian Edwards |
| |
| "Try to find Max without finding a new part of yourself." |
| Jon Pinyan, to Matt |
| |
| "I've got a good racist joke involving a sprinkler." |
| Jason Priestley |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"See, none of us have ever done drugs or sex or anything like that. So we jaywalk." |
| Sharat Bhat: |
"Yeah. It's like our high." |
| Matt Peairs: |
"My name is Matt Peairs, and my anti-drug is jaywalking." |
| |
| "They all want to murder me for some reason." |
| Mitka Vaintrob |
| |
| Yoyo Zhou: |
"And now we bust out the trig... Actually, I guess we could forgo the trig." |
| Greg Minton: |
"But then you can't whip it out, uh, bust it out." |
| |
| "You should ask it to say the ABC's. No Canadian could ever resist the urge to say 'Zed'." |
| Sharat Bhat, on the computer problem |
| |
| "Eleventh Commandment (First Commandment Mod 10): Thou shalt not have two arrows pointing to the same number." |
| Matt Peairs, on graphing multiplication tables in modular arithmetic |
| |
| "Well, it's only one mile an hour mod 29." |
| Matt Peairs |
| |
| "I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything here." |
| Liz Marcil, banging her fist on a deck of cards |
| |
| "When a problem says p is a prime, / In an hour frustration is mine, / Euler and squares, / Who really cares? / Forget it; it's not worth the time." |
| Jeffrey Amos |
| |
| "My knowledge of cubes, it is rough. / Of theorems I don't know enough, / I'm not very bright / And I'm out of insight, / So if you want a real proof, that's just tough." |
| Jeffrey Amos |
| |
| Walter Stromquist: |
"So now I have two examples, so by the principle of massive generalization it must be true for all cases." |
| Yoyo Zhou: |
"So sin x = 0." |
| Walter Stromquist: |
"No, actually I had two examples, not just one. One was true and the other just confused the issue but certainly didn't disprove it." |
| |
| "You will need to bring your own swimsuit." |
| an announcement about Starcity Waterpark |
| |
| "The point is you can do this problem if and only if you came to class on time." |
| Walter Stromquist |
| |
| Max Rosmarin: |
"I'm stupid like that." |
| Alex Saltman: |
"No, no, no, just more subtle." |
| |
| "It must have no factors other than 1 and 2 ... and other powers of 2 ... and other powers of 1 ..." |
| Liz Marcil |
| |
| Alex Saltman: |
"There's another, less mathematical reason why Sisyphus can't make any money." |
| Alex Schwendner: |
"He's SISYPHUS!" |
| |
| "[Sisyphus] did something bad, I don't quite remember what it was ... Yeah, I knew it had something to do with either death or sex." |
| Alex Saltman |
| |
| "It works every time. Well, except for the one time it didn't work." |
| Alex Saltman |
| |
| "Matt's disappeared, and all that's left is his pencil sharpener." |
| Jon Pinyan |
| |
| "When I teach the black group I spend three days teaching them how to be a dumbass." |
| Zuming Feng |
| |
| "I have killed the quadrilateral that is trying to be a parallelogram but isn't cool enough." |
| Jon Lowd |
| |
| "The Merchant of Venice! Two Merchants of Venice! Two Merchants from Verona! Two Gentlemen from Venice! TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA!!!!" |
| Andrew Glazer |
| |
| "I'll stop being weird now ..." |
| Eve Drucker, in a letter |
| |
| "What's that nice new letter you invented between 'e' and 'a'?" |
| Philip Olson, after Ellen attempted to write "Lemma" on the board with the "mm" condensed into a single letter |
| |
| "Well, look at it this way. If the bunny lives happily ever after, then he gets to multiply Fibonaccially, which is a pretty nice prospect." |
| Stephen Wang |
| |
| "And an Indian guy with a name that is — indian!" |
| Chuck Straley |
| |
| "Thou shalt someday be fucked." |
| Max Rosmarin |
| |
| "It is not a multiple personality disorder; it is a singular personality disorder." |
| Liz Marcil |
| |
| "You haven't put any p's in its bowl yet..." |
| Brian Rice |
| |
| "What happens if a tennis ball — uh, I mean a comet — hits Europe?" |
| Mike Hamburg, during Diplomacy |
| |
| Max Rosmarin: |
"There's a difference between pathetic and horribly insanely painful." |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"Yes. One is more fun for us." |
| Max Rosmarin: |
"Why don't you just put a big pile of horse shit there and I will stick my face in it?" |
| |
| Matt Peairs: |
"Wait. Doesn't the bullet hit the rope?" [on Darwin awards] |
| Max Rosmarin: |
"No, that's someone else. We're talking about Fergie." |
| |
| "I think you should dance a jig in the middle of the cafeteria with that plate of Rice Krispie Treats on your head." |
| Liz Marcil, to Fergie |
| |
| "Was that a Fergie?" |
| Jason Ferguson, during Mao |
| |
| "YES!!! ... Oh, sorry." |
| Liz Marcil, during a test |
| |
| "The Discovery of the Calculus, starring Albert Einstein." |
| Matt Peairs |
| |
| "It's Fergie stairs!" |
| Max Rosmarin |
| |
| Alex Schwender: |
"I can prove that Brian is in the Mafia! Let P be the statement that Brian is in the Mafia. I'll make four assumptions here: Fermat's Last Theorem, Cauchy-Schwarz, P, and Fermat's Little Theorem. From these four assumptions it is obvious that P is true. Therefore Brian is in the Mafia." |
| Brian Edwards: |
"Wait! I've got an even better bogus proof. Suppose that there are 2 MOPpers in a room, and there are 12 rooms in a dozen. So there are 24 MOPpers in a dozen. We had 12 people playing, which is half a dozen. So dividing everything by 4 we get that there are 3/2 of a Mafia. I am a whole person. Therefore I am not in the Mafia." |
| |
| "I'll never look at a silver dollar the same way again." |
| Matt Peairs |
| |
| "I am also glad that women have not enslaved men and used them only for sperm. That is another thing I am thankful for." |
| James Albrecht |
| |
| Jason Ferguson: |
[trying to shoot the moon] "Ha! You can't stop me now!" |
| Charles Meeks: |
[having just gotten 4 points] "Except I just stopped you." |
| |
| Charles Meeks: |
"Why do you want to accuse me?" |
| Brian Edwards: |
"I would give you a reason, but I already have enough quotes on the quote page." |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"What are you going to do with your ability to reproduce?" |
| Jason Ferguson: |
"Commit suicide!" |
| |
| Jason Ferguson: |
"You're treading on thin water there, buddy." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Yeah, you're treading on thin water ... Wait. Thin water?" |
| |
| "There's a difference between prostitution and 'your mom' jokes. Prostitution is silly. 'Your mom' jokes aren't." |
| Ricky Biggs |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"But how can a circle be mapped to itself if its center changes?" |
| Alex Saltman: |
"Magic." |
| |
| "I'm a foot taller than I am!!!" |
| Liz Marcil |
| |
| "Where are my nuts?" |
| Jason Ferguson |
| |
| John Cackler: |
"Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O ..." |
| Yoyo Zhou: |
"Fresh young sheep!" |
| John Cackler: |
"With an oink-oink here and a bow-wow there ..." |
| Ricky Biggs: |
"What the hell kind of animal is THAT?" |
| |
| "I always read the first two problems so that I know what I could be doing if they realized I was stupid." |
| Philip Olson |
| |
| "I was so excited when I found it that I had to write it down twice." |
| David Vincent, having written "... = 90 - ÐACB = 90 - ÐACB = ..." |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"I'm playing Newton's mother and Leibniz's girlfriend." |
| Andrew Spann: |
"See, if you were in Arkansas they would be the same ... never mind." |
| |
| "What if there's a fire and a tornado at the same time?" |
| James Albrecht |
| |
| "An Arkansas Mafia? That would be just like an Amish forkfight, except the Amish are low-tech by choice." |
| Andrew Spann |
| |
| "If you have 6 points and a circle you have to use Pascal's Theorem. It's, like, a rule." |
| David Vincent |
| |
| Philip Olson: |
"But how do you measure an angle at infinity?" |
| Alexander Marcus: |
"You'd have to get a really big protractor." |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Hey Adam, I dare you to step in that [wet cement]." |
| Adam Rosenfield: |
"No way. I'm not that stupid." |
| Andrew Spann: |
"I am. I'm from Arkansas!" [sauntering towards cement] |
| |
| "Will anyone give me their question sheet for a point? ... How about half a point? ... A quarter? ... A third? ..." |
| Stephen Wang |
| |
| "All the triangles are cyclic." |
| Stephen Anthony |
| |
| "I decided that going to the football camp might not be so bad after all. Football players are much better looking than male mathletes." |
| Liz Marcil |
| |
| "This would be a great time to play Mafia." |
| Andrew Spann, right before Blair Kelly's lecture |
| |
| "Blair Kelly regrets that he is unable to reveal his recipe for blackberry scones, as that would reveal his currant capabilities." |
| Matt Peairs |
| |
| "'QED' is not a four-letter word." |
| Brian Edwards |
| |
| Ricky Biggs: |
"Is Mr. Dumbass's comment important?" |
| Jeff Snow: |
"It is." |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"That's a lie." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"That's a pronoun." |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Imagine Fergie driving the wrong way down a one-way street at infinite speed." |
| Evan Danaher: |
"Imagine Fergie driving." |
| |
| "But even if you can fit the other 2000 points in a disk of diameter 1, you can't necessarily fit them in a disk of radius 1." |
| Liz Marcil |
| |
| "If you made the colors beige, cream, and off-white this problem would be trivial." |
| Liz Marcil |
| |
| "MITKA IS HIGH ON PEPPER" |
| Max Rosmarin [written on a blackboard] |
| |
| "It doesn't matter. 3 is equal to 4." |
| Simon Rubinstein-Salzedo |
| |
| "I think Anders would be the hardest to clone. The two of them wouldn't be able to stand each other." |
| Alison Miller |
| |
| "Well, one of the people you [Riz] compete with could be Michael Jackson." |
| Jeffrey Amos, on Best Bisexual Coexistent Entity |
| |
| "Tap water isn't naturally bottled." |
| Adam Rosenfield |
| |
| "Binary digits ... Geographic locations more desirable than Arkansas ... Pulitzer Prize winning novels ..." |
| Andrew Spann's suggestions for Categories |
| |
| "There are eight states that start with M. Massachusetts, ... Milwaukee, ..." |
| Adam Rosenfield |
| |
| "What's fuzzy and green and will kill you if it falls from a tree and has four legs? ... A pool table." |
| Ellen Veomett |
| |
| Jon Lowd: |
"Is that 'SUCK IT' in a good way or 'SUCK IT' in a bad way?" [about the "SUCK IT" written in capital letters on David Vincent's scrap paper] |
| David Vincent: |
"Oh. You all weren't supposed to see that." [crosses it out] |
| |
| "Only Riz could make being yourself weird." |
| Jeffrey Amos |
| |
| Reid Barton: |
"Does anyone know why the big terms kill the little terms?" |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Because they're mean?" |
| Reid Barton: |
Yes. They have such big exponents and they're mean. Now does anyone have, like, a better reason?" |
| |
| "I think; therefore I am not Fergie." |
| Evan Danaher |
| |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"But you don't get a calculator on the IMO." |
| Stephen Wang: |
"You don't need a calculator." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"You have willpower!" |
| Max Rosmarin: |
"You have sheer unbridled stupidity!" |
| Simon Rubinstein-Salzedo: |
"And four and a half hours." |
| |
| "Dear Chuckster, All MOPpers find your use of the term 'MOPster' highly offensive. — A concerned vet" |
| Jeffrey Amos, in an unsigned note on Chuck's door |
| |
| "Dear Chuckster, Due to your excessive use of the term 'MOPster', Titu would like to see you in room 4122." |
| Jeffrey Amos, after the preceding note was erased |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"How was the water balloon shaped?" |
| Jason Ferguson: |
"Big." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Big isn't a shape." |
| |
| "It's easy to make numbers disappear. You just hide them." |
| Zoran Sunik, putting his hand over a 3 on the board. |
| |
| Nate Ince: |
"What's that?" [about a rope tied to a certain doorknob] |
| Mike Hamburg: |
"Ask Tiankai." |
| Jeffrey Amos: |
"This is boy scout skills at work." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Yeah. By day he helps old ladies cross the street. By night he ties Tiankai's door shut." |
| |
| "I want to be Prince when I grow up." |
| Ellen Veomett |
| |
| "Tunis, baby!" |
| Jon Lowd |
| |
| "My number system stops at 10." |
| Greg Minton, on a diagram with 17 areas labelled |
| |
| "Can anyone construct a Turing machine out of just marshmallows and toothpicks?" |
| Eric Stansifer |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"David, could you help me with geometry?" |
| David Vincent: |
[playing Bughouse] "Sorry, I'm busy." |
| Tiankai Liu: |
"I'll help you." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Good enough." |
| |
| "Who is this 'you' that I speak of?" |
| Riz/e, to 2Riz/p |
| |
| Eric Price: |
[staring at Jon Lowd] "Are you Mafia?" |
| Jon Lowd: |
"I just love it when you look into my eyes like that. It's so romantic." |
| |
| Daniel Walker: |
"It's not bad." [after drinking Code Red with lots of pepper and salt in it] |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Is it good?" |
| Daniel Walker: |
"No ... Later. I gotta go throw up now." |
| |
| "I don't actually know any math. I got into MOP solely on the basis of my dramatic abilities." |
| Max Rosmarin |
| |
| "I only get high on the good stuff." |
| Jeffrey Amos, getting high on Mountain Dew on the last night of MOP |
| |
| "During MOP, you have to sit a lot. It'll make your butt big. That's what happened to me." |
| Zuming Feng |
| |
| "Don't argue with pie guy. If the answer's close to 3, he's probably right." |
| Zuming Feng |
| |
| "We have to count on the Mafia to be honest. Wait, did I just say that?" |
| Matt Peairs |
| |
| "I didn't want to reveal I was Mafia before ..." |
| Matt Peairs, when accused of being Mafia |
| |
| "There are only two halves?" |
| Jack Cackler |
| |
| "Because he was seen sleeping with a prostitute. A Mafia prostitute." |
| Jon Pinyan |
| |
| Matt Peairs: |
"Live people on the bottom row. Dead people on the top row." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Mitka in the trash barrel." |
| |
| "Why stop there? Throw him down the chute." |
| Adam Rosenfield |
| |
| "I'm always so ready to kill someone." |
| Brad Froehle, the Inspector in a game of Mafia |
| |
| "You killed me. You also saved me." |
| Matt Peairs |
| |
| Jon Pinyan: |
[insults Jeff Snow] |
| Ricky Biggs: |
[as God in a Mafia game] "You get a bonus point. You also get another bonus point if you accuse yourself." |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"I accuse myself." |
| Ricky Biggs: |
"Hey everybody! Pinyan just accused himself!" |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"Ricky, what are these bonus points for?" |
| Ricky Biggs: |
"Absolutely nothing." |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"You bastard." [Pinyan dies by majority vote.] |
| |
| "There's no I in 'townsperson', but there is an I in 'Mafia'." |
| Brian Edwards |
| |
| "There's no I in 'civilian'..." |
| Jeff Snow |
| |
| "Fortunately, that wasn't stupid enough to go in the quote book." |
| Matt Peairs |
| |
| "We coined 'Riz', because 'Licky' doesn't work." |
| Ricky Biggs |
| |
| "She doesn't have a Pinyan. Only Jon is a Pinyan." |
| Ricky Biggs, when Liz Marcil was asked her opinion about who was in the Mafia |
| |
| "On day 1, I wore 1 shirt. On day 2, I wore 2 shirts. So, on day 3, I wanted to continue the arithmetic progression. Why? Because continuing the geometric progression would be substantially more difficult." |
| Jon Lowd |
| |
| "You look guilty." |
| Alex Schwender, during Mafia |
| |
| "Sorry, we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto!!" |
| Ricky Biggs, as God in Mafia |
| |
| "Now, do we have a condom nation?" |
| Jon Pinyan, trying to ask if there was a comdemnation |
| |
| Eric Stansifer: |
"Are you in the Mafia?" |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"Hmm, let me check ... [accidentally flips his black card over] Shit. Yes." |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Andrew, defend yourself." |
| Andrew Spann: |
"I'm from Arkansas! I don't know anything!" |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Why is my other half taking so long in the bathroom?" |
| Jeff Snow: |
"Maybe he's trying to uncover the mystery of why the toilet flushes on its own." |
| |
| Jeff Snow: |
"So why doesn't the inspector say anything?" |
| Ricky Biggs: |
"Because he's your mom!" |
| |
| "The way the psychology is working in this room, technically, my mom is a cow." |
| Jeff Snow |
| |
| "Facts are true." |
| Jeff Snow |
| |
| "It's like x is less than x + 1. It just doesn't freakin' happen." |
| Jeff Snow |
| |
| "You don't ever want to go back to this property. Because this property sucks." |
| Alex Saltman, explaining why wx = 1 is better than w = ei·2p/x |
| |
| "Step 1: Homothety. Q.E.D." |
| Ben Conlee, writing the solution to problem #3 |
| |
| "... and 662 is not 0." |
| Alex Saltman |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Max told me he thought Charles was cute." |
| Alex Saltman: |
"What?" |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Stop listening in on our conversation." |
| Jeffrey Amos: |
"The scary thing is this is exactly what it sounds like." |
| |
| "Can anyone think of an effective way to redefine 'male'?" |
| Rider Hallenstein |
| |
| "We need to divide into pairs of three." |
| Charles Meeks |
| |
| Adam Rosenfield: |
"We need to redefine the concept of 'self'." |
| Ricky Biggs: |
"No! You're not Freud! You can't do that!" |
| |
| "Okay, so we killed number 3." |
| Razvan Gelca |
| |
| Tim Abbott: |
"Ricky, you just solved this problem by accident." |
| Ricky Biggs: |
"Oops." |
| |
| "He solved my mother by accident." |
| Jeff Snow, discussing the previous quote |
| |
| Alex Saltman: |
"You get a choice of what to do today." |
| David Stolp: |
"Mafia!" |
| |
| "Because Zeus is not stupid." |
| Tony Zhang |
| |
| Tony Zhang: |
"Why does Zeus hate Sisyphus?" |
| Alex Saltman: |
"Because [Sisyphus] slept with people Zeus slept with." |
| Tony Zhang: |
"Sisyphus is a woman?!" |
| |
| Alex Saltman: |
"But that's nothing new, because Zeus has slept with everybody." |
| Tony Zhang: |
"So Sisyphus gets the leftovers?" |
| |
| "Alex Saltman?" |
| Tony Zhang, after the six IMO team members were announced, including Alex Xue |
| |
| MOPper (?): |
"Is that the only way to do it?" |
| Alex Saltman: |
"No, there's another way. It's much uglier (?)." |
| |
| "Just throw a Playboy magazine down the trash chute. Tiankai will go diving after it." |
| Ricky Biggs, on how to kill Tiankai |
| |
| "That looks like something the Chinese team would do." |
| Zvezda Stankova, on a brute force inequality solution |
| |
| "Oops. This is a hint for another ugly inequality." |
| Zvezda Stankova |
| |
| "Push-ups: A currency used in Blue lectures to purchase hints and fine bad proofs." |
| Ricky Biggs |
| |
| "Yes! I have no idea actually." |
| Mike Hamburg, on whether it (?) would work |
| |
| "The title of this lecture is, 'No, you cannot get here from there.' That's because I was late to class. I couldn't get here from there." |
| Zoran Sunik |
| |
| "I wasn't cheating. I was just looking at number 1." |
| Tony Zhang, before Black & Blue Test 4 started |
| |
| "If we draw a sufficiently weird hexagon, we find that ..." |
| Mike Hamburg, applying Brianchon's theorem to a hexagon with two vertices at infinity |
| |
| "That's a weird hexagon, man." |
| Tony Zhang |
| |
| "This is a quadratic in f [a function], so we'll solve for f." |
| Stephen Wang |
| |
| "If we use the plus, we get 2/0. That's bad. If we use the minus, we get 0/0. Much better." |
| Stephen Wang |
| |
| "Everything I say can be rigorized, but I don't want to do it." |
| Stephen Wang |
| |
| "P(munch) = | ¥
å
n = 0
| æ
è | 2
5 | ö
ø | n + 1
| æ
è | 3
5 | ö
ø | n
| · Cn." |
|
| Mike Hamburg, writing about a bunny and a ravenous wolf. |
| |
| "So you're changing all the crosses to swastikas?" |
| Mike Hamburg, on Andrei's solution to a tiling problem |
| |
| Andrei Jorza: |
"Chinese Remainder Theorem for ... this kind of thing." |
| Mike Hamburg: |
"Chinese Remainder Theorem for parallelepipeds." |
| |
| "Mathematicians becoming increasingly lazy." |
| Mike Hamburg, on Andrei's drawing |
| |
| Andrei Jorza: |
"Draw the smallest rectangle around it. Its perimeter is smaller and its area is larger." |
| Ben Conlee: |
"That's good to know." |
| during an area proof Ben is presenting |
| |
| Andrei Jorza: |
"I think it doesn't work like this." |
| Tony Zhang: |
[imitating Zuming] "Sit down, Ben." |
| after five minutes of this proof |
| |
| Neil Herriot (?): |
"You're working too hard, Ben. You just do this ..." |
| Ben Conlee: |
"Oh, that's right ..." |
| |
| "I have a solution, and this time it works. I promise." |
| Mike Hamburg |
| |
| "This is not a 'divide', it's a 'such that'." [in "p | gp = k"] |
| "This is a 'divide', not a 'such that'." [in "p | d"] |
| Mike Hamburg |
| |
| Tony Zhang: |
"Where's the 10 push-ups?" |
| Mike Hamburg: |
"I only had to do those if I was wrong." |
| Ricky Biggs: |
"No, it was 10 if you're right, 20 if you're wrong." |
| Mike Hamburg: |
"Oh." [Does 10 push-ups] |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Why is it that conservatives are so much more well-educated than liberals?" |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"That's not the kind of thing you say in a debate with a conservative, you dumbass." |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Does the Bible have bunnies in it?" |
| Jeffrey Amos: |
"No." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Then I reject it." |
| talking about Easter |
| |
| "Could we please just stop talking about my collective crotch now?" |
| Liz Marcil |
| |
| "You have a finite number of planets, each with the same radius, and none of the planets intersect." |
| Inna Zakharevich |
| |
| Matt Ince: |
"I don't know what to do." |
| Everyone: |
"Push-ups!" |
| |
| "Could it be an irrational function?" |
| Tony Zhang |
| |
| Ian Le: |
"The next topic I'm going to talk about is minimal spanning trees." |
| Tony Zhang: |
"Spanish trees?" |
| (Altogether, Tony fell asleep 8 times during that lecture.) |
| |
| "Line 1 good. Line 2 bad." |
| Walter Stromquist |
| |
| "So you're not like the Black class, who also didn't memorize the solutions but pretended they did." |
| Walter Stromquist |
| |
| Mike Hamburg: |
"So e is 2." |
| Walter Stromqusit: |
"Because in my world, p is 3 and e is 2." |
| during a Difference Calculus lecture |
| |
| Tim Abbott: |
"Why does Luxembourg only have two students on its IMO team?" |
| Yoyo Zhou: |
"Because they only have two people that took the USAMO." |
| |
| "We have two planes in space. Maybe if I used red and blue, you could wear 3-D glasses, and it would jump out at you." |
| Alex Saltman |
| |
| "I don't know if you feel that way, but I think [the cross-ratio's] fuckin' cool." |
| Alex Saltman |
| |
| "Wow! A projection that takes theorems to theorems!" |
| Ricky Biggs |
| |
| "y0 must be in the set {1, 2, 3, 5}. ... And 4." |
| Dorin Andrica |
| |
| "We multiplicate ..." |
| Dorin Andrica |
| |
| "You'll have to prove that 2003 is prime. ... That's the hardest part of the problem." |
| Ben Conlee |
| |
| "ELMO: The Extremely Last-Minute Olympiad." |
| Ricky Liu |
| |
| "It's very easy to solve this problem with Fourier analysis." |
| Mike Hamburg |
| |
| "It's perfectly okay to use non-convex hexagons [in Pascal's Theorem], because Pascal doesn't care. Because he's dead." |
| Ian Le |
| |
| "Mostly True Facts about Quadrilaterals" |
| Ian Le's lecture title |
| |
| "Yes, 10 circles pass through the 9-circle point." |
| Mike Hamburg |
| |
| "On problem 2, we're adding a word. Between 'all' and 'functions', add 'continuous'." |
| Alex Saltman, during Black & Blue Test 9 |
| |
| "This is not a 7 yet. In fact, it's a 0." |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "Not many people notice that if you invert question 20, you get question 19." |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "What was that? Did you take a picture of the ceiling?" |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "... and I saw that the solution was wrong, and I thought, 'Aw rats! That means I actually have to do math!'" |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "I don't go behind closed doors with just anyone!" |
| Alison Miller |
| |
| "I don't believe that I got votes for Most Quotable!" |
| Tony Zhang |
| |
| Zuming Feng: |
"This is so great, I'm going to cry. Do you have any tissues?" |
| Daniel Kane and Mike Hamburg: |
"Sorry, we packed them." |
| |
| "Are you a vegetarian or something?" |
| Tony Zhang to Nace Ince, who had a big piece of meat on his plate |
| |
| Chuck Straley: |
"For the next three and a half weeks, I have the privilege of being your mother and father." |
| James Albrecht (?): |
"I wanna go home now." |
| |
| "Titu will not fit down the chute. It's been tried." |
| Chuck Straley |
| |
| "Some things will not be tolerated ... [one of these] is mixing of genders behind closed doors. The wording there is from Gabriel." |
| Chuck Straley |
| |
| "If [your sticker]'s black, sucks to be you. Follow me." |
| Gabriel Carroll |
| |
| "Write a one page paper on why your room number is beautiful." |
| Chuck Straley |
| |
| James Albrecht: |
"Where would room 3411 be? I can't find it." |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"Go down the hall to 4311 and see if your name is on the door." |
| James Albrecht: |
[from down the hall] "I'm stupid. I never was good with numbers." |
| |
| "I'm the most incompetent honorable mention here." |
| Tim Abbott |
| |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"Some time before the end of MOP, you will see the 'Steve Byrnes Fan Club' page designed by Stalker Girl." |
| MOPper (?): |
[jaw drops] "Wow..." |
| |
| Po-Shen Loh: |
"Red people, follow me." |
| MOPper (?): |
"Can we lead?" |
| Po-Shen Loh: |
"No. You must follow." |
| |
| "Corollary to the Round Table Theorem: If there are n people at the table and Liz starts reciting the 'Sarah Dessert', there will soon be n minus many." |
| Max Rosmarin |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"I'm leaving. I don't trust Reid." |
| Reid Barton: |
"Shouldn't." |
| |
| "Yeah, as in 1 + 1 = 2, therefore ... I am God." |
| Ian Le |
| |
| "Any questions? So you know absolutely everything about MOP? OK, that's clearly a lie." |
| Ian Le |
| |
| Joel Lewis: |
"That wasn't very rigorous." |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"I think it's better for all of us if I get this done in two minutes and move on." |
| |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"Peter wins if he makes an infinite process, but that's much less fun." |
| Joel Lewis: |
"Thank you for that wonderful analysis, Jon." |
| |
| "If Rene Descartes was controlling where the shots land..." |
| Yoyo Zhou |
| |
| Random girls in car: |
[waving] "Hi!" |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"Why did she wave to us?" |
| Liz Marcil: |
"I don't know." |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"Maybe she thought you were hot." |
| Joel Lewis: |
[simultaneously] "Maybe she thought Liz was cute." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Wait, who did you mean when you said 'you'?' |
| Jon Pinyan: |
[points to Joel] |
| Joel Lewis: |
"I was talking about Liz." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"So what we've found out is that Jon thinks Joel is hot, and Joel thinks I'm cute." |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"No, I was saying the girls could conceivably believe Joel was hot." |
| |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"Where have you been?" |
| Joel Lewis: |
"Flirting." |
| |
| "Shout out, 'Hey Gabriel!' or whatever you want to call me as long as it's not too insulting." |
| Gabriel Carroll |
| |
| Jon Lowd: |
"We have 13 transversals." |
| Gabriel Carroll: |
"Transpositions is the word you want." |
| Jon Lowd: |
"A transversal crosses two parallel lines. That changes things." |
| |
| "If I have seven dudes ..." |
| Gabriel Carroll |
| |
| "I've been here for everything you're writing about. There can't be anything interesting enough to hide, unless you're talking about your wild sexual exploits with 3 girls in a car." |
| Joel Lewis, while Jon Pinyan writes a letter to Stalker Girl |
| |
| "He has a good logical argument, but you're wrong." |
| Max Rosmarin |
| |
| "I'm not Mafia, but I have trouble accepting an accusation from a dog. It's kind of degrading." |
| Sean Ting, after being accused by Toto |
| |
| "We're in Korea, let's eat him!" |
| Ricky Biggs, talking about Toto |
| |
| "He got stabbed in a drive-by shooting." |
| Matt Peairs |
| |
| "I already got accusized." |
| Jeff Snow |
| |
| "And THANK YOU! FINALLY! You DIED, Pinyan! So DIE!" |
| Ricky Biggs |
| |
| "Jack, stop being a dumbass! People who die at night are innocent." |
| Jon Pinyan |
| |
| "Hmm, let me look at my card again. No, it's red." |
| Jon Pinyan |
| |
| "I still think approximately half is closer." |
| Eric Stansifer |
| |
| "Square brackets, area. [ABC] is, you've got a triangle; take the area. It generalizes, [ABCD], hey! You've got a quadrilateral. Use induction, generalize for all n." |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "Draw the circle first ... too late!" |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "If you haven't seen Greek before, alpha is the fish; gamma is the dead fish." |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "Pathological doesn't mean obsessed with dead stuff; it's a mathematical term for bad." |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "1 = 2, 3 = 4, 5 = 6, 1 + 2 = 5 + 6 => 1 = 6." |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "I'm glad they're not inspecting my room, that's all I can say." |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "Primitive roots, are like, amazingly cool." |
| Luke Gustafson |
| |
| "Wilson's theorem is totally useless." |
| Luke Gustafson |
| |
| Adam Rosenfield: |
"What does that say on your shirt?" |
| Luke Gustafson: |
"I think a literal translation is, 'to pour mathematics over people's heads.'" |
| |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"What are the odds that I'm wrong?" |
| Matt Peairs: |
"About the odds that I'll finish this two-story house of cards..." [which promptly collapses] |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"YES!" |
| |
| Matt Peairs: |
"According to the Matt Theorem, it doesn't apply to me, so it's irrelevant." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"What's the Matt Theorem?" |
| Matt Peairs: |
"If it doesn't apply to me, it's irrelevant." |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Yay Pinyan! He survived the walk to the podium!" |
| Greg Minton: |
"He still has the walk back." |
| |
| Eric Stansifer: |
"You never asked what side I was on." [Eric has claimed he is inspector and Max is Mafia.] |
| Max Rosmarin: |
"Ha, you Mafia asshole." [Eric IS inspector.] "WHAT THE HELL?" |
| Max Rosmarin: |
"This is my defense. Obviously I'm dead. I just want to say..." [Max flips over his red, non-Mafia card.] "... I don't know what the hell is going on!" |
| |
| Jon Pinyan: |
"Could you go back to the very beginning and explain in complete detail?" |
| MOPper (?): |
"No." |
| Matt Peairs: |
"If you understood that proof you have my deepest sympathy." |
| |
| Jeff Snow: |
"The metaphors have gone way too far." |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Wait, they're not metaphors." |
| Jeff Snow: |
"What are they?" |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Blatant insults?" |
| |
| "Factorial notation is fun. People like drawing exclamation points!" |
| Walter Stromquist |
| |
| "It's so people will say, 'Ah, I like his notation!'" |
| Max Rosmarin |
| |
| "You know how you multiply two numbers, you learned that in 2nd grade. You know how to multiply 3, 4, 5, 7 numbers, learned that in 3rd, 4th grade. You know how to multiply countably many under special circumstances. But you don't know how to multiply zero numbers?" |
| Walter Stromquist |
| |
| "If you want to irritate your teacher and you're bored, first day, every time he says something, raise your hand and say, 'How would that work with the Cauchy distribution?'" |
| Walter Stromquist |
| |
| "You only have a limited thinking budget on a test, don't waste it on problems like this." |
| Walter Stromquist |
| |
| "If you cue me one more time, I will cue you right up your ass!" |
| Max Rosmarin |
| |
| "It's hard to draw straight lines at 8:30 in the morning." |
| Razvan Gelca |
| |
| "I don't like problems phrased in terms of chess." |
| Luke Gustafson |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Are you sure it fits 5200 people?" |
| Dima Kamalov: |
"FIFTY to a HUNDRED." |
| |
| "I'm feeling some dumbass rays. They're coming from you [Stansifer]." |
| Greg Minton |
| |
| "Stupidity is like love; the more you give, the more you have." |
| Jon Pinyan |
| |
| "There could be a one-way cloud we haven't talked about." |
| Greg Minton |
| |
| "The dumbass is strong in that one [Stansifer]." |
| Max Rosmarin |
| |
| "Eric, see that clock? The little red hand is the dumbass meter. It's reaching its highest point right now because you exist." |
| Jon Pinyan |
| |
| "This will hurt me more than it will hurt you. Because it will probably never hit you." |
| Max Rosmarin |
| |
| Liz Marcil: |
"Why don't you just sit down and do your math?" |
| Max Rosmarin: |
[attempting to devise weapons based on his nametag and room key] "This is more productive." |
| |
| "Mihai is a very laughy person." |
| Stephanie Zhang |
| |
| Alex Saltman: |
"Basically, the way to learn to solve Diophantine equations is to solve Diophantine equations." |
| Mike Hamburg: |
"What if you can't solve Diophantine equations?" |
| Alex Saltman: |
"Then you're screwed." |
| |
| Dima Kamalov: |
"We're not going to make it to MOP, but would you like to come to MOSP next year?" |
| Yoyo Zhou: |
"What?" |
| Dima Kamalov: |
"The Math Olympiad Stalker Program." |
| |
| Chuck Straley: |
"I need those costumes back ASAP." |
| Mike Greenberg: |
"Well, I don't have any spare pants with me ... can I give them back to you later tonight?" |
| Chuck Straley: |
"No. You'll just have to streak back." |
| |
| Mike Greenberg: |
"So are you coming to the Calculus play?" |
| Evan Sadler: |
"Well, I'm trying to decide whether I should come to the play, or should I just spend three hours whacking it?" |
| |
| Pavel Batrachenko: |
"You know, you could just do this problem using equal tangents." |
| Alex Saltman: |
"It was fairly late last night when I put this on the sheet. So I guess I was asking for it." |
| |
| Po-Shen Loh: |
"So I used Pascal's Theorem on a degenerate hexagon, Desargue's Theorem on that, and then this." |
| Chris Breaux: |
"Or you could just use equal tangents." |
| |
| "Now if you tried this algebraically ... you're dead. Or you use Mathematica. Get lots of equations." |
| Titu Andreescu |
| |
| "I'm sure this method is known in other countries too, but it's probably not called the dumbass method." |
| Reid Barton |
| |
| "You have to be careful when drawing additional lines. It's like financial aid. It's need-based." |
| Zuming Feng |
| |
| "So, are we going anywhere? We should do commercial for a Snicker bar. 'Not going anywhere for a while?'" |
| Zuming Feng, after two wrong answers |
| |
| "Even if I knock on your door at 4 in the morning you should know. Or maybe at 4 o'clock you are not sleeping so it is useless. Maybe I should try 12 in the noon." |
| Zuming Feng |
| |
| "Move the decimal point. Oh, sorry, it's not decimal. I don't know how to pronounce it. 'Sevenpoint.'" |
| Gregory Galperin |
| |
| "I'm going to be an undercover mathematician. That's my destiny." |
| Luke Gustafson |
| |
| "I have a little problem for you. It's really cool. Because I'm cool." |
| Ian Le |
| |
| "I graded that one [R/Y Test 5 #4] and I got a heck of a lot of coordinate proofs. Thanks guys." |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "First I tried the obvious stuff. Then I said 'I need to think more,' then 'I don't want to think more. I'll just use brutal force.' Brutal force works a lot." |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "So when you get up really fast with low blood pressure, you go down really fast." |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "Since geometry is nice, if these are approximately colinear, they're probably supposed to be colinear." |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "'Rigorize'? Yeah that's a great word. I use that all the time. Just like 'derivitate.'" |
| Po-Shen Loh |
| |
| "It's right about now when not getting enough sleep starts to catch up with you. You start to fall asleep in random places like in class, or crossing the street. I'm not sure which is more dangerous." |
| Alex Saltman |
| |
| "You're looking at the wrong intersection point between two lines." |
| Alex Saltman |
| |
| "If anyone can prove this without inversion, I'd love to see a proof, as long as it's no longer than 50 pages." |
| Alex Saltman |
| |
| MOPper (?): |
"Did you solve it [IMO 1996/2]?" |
| Alex Saltman: |
"Well ... sort of. I got 7 points. But my proof didn't work. ... so I got my paper back and I got 7 points, and I never got the full story of what happened. I believe what happened was that the judges never noticed." |
| |
| "It's also a hint that the problem's not hard. If it was hard they wouldn't need to disguise the information in silly ways." |
| Alex Saltman |
| |
| "It's kind of hard to induct from a smaller case that does work to a larger case that doesn't." |
| Alex Saltman |
| |
| "You know for sure you're on the right track because you've seen two coincidences in a row." |
| Walter Stromquist |
| |
| "Not everybody wastes their time on television. No, that's not true. Not everybody wastes their time on the same television." |
| Walter Stromquist |
| |
| "We're gonna assume the category is 'Things People Guess Right Half the Time by Independent Blind Luck.'" |
| Walter Stromquist |
| |
| "And the way this game works is ... the dollar's mine now. You lose. ... OK, are there any opinions on whether or not Chris got screwed?" |
| Walter Stromquist |
| |
| "Remember my theory that more white paper always makes math better." |
| Walter Stromquist |
| |
| "This isn't quite standard notation, so if [Ellen] can introduce nonstandard notation, I will too." |
| Walter Stromquist |
| |
| "Imagine all your points are at home, and you have to go to the store for the disks. But you don't remember anything about the points, only this." [pointing to problem] "... but the disks are too expensive and you don't want to buy too many." |
| Zoran Sunik |
| |
| "It says that each member of the congress has no more than three enemies, which means that this is a bogus question." |
| Zoran Sunik |
| |
| "Note every face is ... I gotta get pumped up. EVERY FACE IS BOUNDED BY 3 OR MORE EDGES! YES! YES IT IS!" |
| Ellen Veomett |
| |
| "I think I've figured out why I like Ramsey Theory so much, and I think it's because I get to use colored chalk." |
| Ellen Veomett |
| |
| "OK, read that. If you understood it, you can go to lunch." |
| Stephen Wang |
| |
| "The thing with solid geometry is ... it's really hard to draw a good diagram. If you are exceptionally talented in origami, you might be an exception." |
| Stephen Wang |
| |
| "There are lots of homework problem write-ups that I have to give back. Fortunately they're in no particular order so I'll let you sort it out." |
| Stephen Wang |
| |
| MOPper (?): |
"What do you call those again?" |
| Stephen Wang: |
"Delimiters. ... Thingies." |
| MOPper (?): |
"Can we use 'thingies' on an actual write-up?" |
| Stephen Wang: |
"Absolutely, as long as 'thingies' doesn't refer to two different thingies." |
| |
| "You can find that f(1, n) is the product of the first n odd numbers, which is equal to this by like, well-known-ness..." |
| Gabriel Carroll |
| |
| "This is a knotty problem. It's a cute one but it's very ugly." |
| Andrei Jorza |
| |
| Daniel Kane: |
"I can prove the Chinese Remainder Theorem given the Goldbach Conjecture." |
| Alison Miller: |
"Really?" |
| Daniel Kane: |
"Yes. Ignore the Goldbach Conjecture and prove the Chinese Remainder Theorem." |
| |
| "Two, four, eight, six." |
| Mihai Manea |
| |
| "What if everybody has no friends? Then everybody learns better than the majority of their friends and we're done." |
| Anders Kaseorg |
| |
| "Ask Reid. No, wait, you are Reid." |
| Tiankai Liu, talking to Reid Barton about a computing question |
| |
| "It's cruel! Why would you do that to a sphere? It's a poor little thing." |
| Anders Kaseorg, on Banach-Tarski |
| |
| "Now let's turn Ricky into the pencil sharpener." |
| Stephen Wang |
| |
| Daniel Kane: |
"Dani doesn't think up nice solutions." |
| Alison Miller: |
"Dani also talks about himself in the third person." |
| Daniel Kane: |
"Why not? Everyone else does." |
