Sentiments of a Math Disciple

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Tom Lehrer
K I know I haven't been posting for quite some time.
But anyways, as mentioned in the previous post, I'll be working on Tom Lehrer, an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and of course, mathematician.

Some Quick Facts about him:
DOB: 9 April 1928
Place of Birth: New York
Active Years: 1945-1965

Birth Name: Thomas Andrew Lehrer

I will be focussing on his mathematics career. His strong inspiration for both Science and Math led him to composing many original songs, showing his love for the subjects. Here's one of his famous songs, New Math: (Please turn off the playlist before watching)



Tom Lehrer's math career started when he earned a BA (Bachelor's Degree) from Harvard University in 1947, when he was 18. He moved from New York to Harvard in 1944. His math career lasted mainly in his early years, for in his latter years (as of today), he works more on his songs, to which he retired at the age of 65.

He received his MA (Magister Atrium, Masters' Degree) in 1948 and remained as a graduate for three years. He taught in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Harvard, and Wellesley as a mathematics professor.

He worked as a researcher at Los Alamos, New Mexico. He joined the Army from 1955 to 1957, working at the National Security Agency, when he got inspiration for many of his song compositions.

He was also a co-author of two papers (according to American Mathematical Society databases):

- RE Fagen & TA Lehrer, "Random walks with restraining barrier as applied to the biased binary counter," Journal of the Society for Industrial Applied Mathematics, vol. 6, pp. 1-14 (March 1958)

- T Austin, R Fagen, T Lehrer, W Penney, "The distribution of the number of locally maximal elements in a random sample," Annals of Mathematical Statistics vol. 28, pp. 786-790 (1957)



Before I close the post, here's another video you ought to enjoy (:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_degree
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIpr0s52yVk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9vKdaFNu5M
http://www.answers.com/topic/tom-lehrer

Hi again. I guess that as a start, I ought to state some quotes from Mathematicians. Quite Unique.

---

"It is easier to square a circle than to get round a mathematician." -- de Morgan

“A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.” -- Paul Erdos

“There are three kinds of mathematicians; those who can count and those who can't.”

"Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"To think logically the logically thinkable -- that is the mathematician's aim."--C. J. Keyser

"The mathematician does not study pure mathematics because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it and he delights in it because it is beautiful." --Henri Poincare

"The mathematician's best work is art, a high perfect art, as daring as the most secret dreams of imagination, clear and limpid. Mathematical genius and artistic genius touch one another."-- Gosta Mittag-Leffler

"A mathematician's reputation rests on the number of bad proofs he has given." -- A. S. Besicovitch

“The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple.”S. Gudder

“Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.”

"Obvious is the most dangerous word in mathematics." -- E.T. Bell

"Small minds discuss persons. Average minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas. Really great minds discuss mathematics."

"But in the new (math) approach, the important thing is to understand what you're doing, rather than to get the right answer." -- Tom Lehrer
(I would be talking about Tom Lehrer in another post)

And finally...
“Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.”

Now ain't that perfect.
Watch this space.
There'll be more posts coming up real soon.


Yihan

Right From The Heart

Hwa Chong Institution

Hi people of the world, I am Yihan.
Welcome to my blog. I'm currently pursuing my interests in today's fast-paced integrated mathematics.
I won't admit that I only like math and nothing else. I take much interest in playing table tennis, watching documentaries from the History Channel, listening to music and surfing the net.
I also enjoy spending time working on some mensa puzzles, solving problems of many kinds, the list goes on...


K. Enjoy your time here.

signed off,

Yihan

What is Arithmetic?
MathWorld Article: Arithmetic
Arithmetic Progression
Arithmetic Mean
Laws of Arithmetic


What is Algebra?
Introduction to Algebra
Gresham College Lecture: 4000 Years of Algebra
Algebraic Factorisation


Mathematics Teachers' Teaching Aid
EduSeek
SOS Mathematics


Maximus Planudes



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May 2009

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