Timeline for Mathematical "urban legends"
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
105 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S Oct 15, 2013 at 11:48 | history | notice added | François G. Dorais | Historical significance | |
| S Oct 15, 2013 at 11:48 | history | locked | François G. Dorais | ||
| S Oct 15, 2013 at 2:41 | history | notice removed | François G. Dorais | ||
| S Oct 15, 2013 at 2:41 | history | unlocked | François G. Dorais | ||
| Oct 15, 2013 at 2:41 | history | protected | François G. Dorais | ||
| S Oct 11, 2013 at 1:00 | history | notice added | Kim Morrison | Historical significance | |
| S Oct 11, 2013 at 1:00 | history | locked | Kim Morrison | ||
| Oct 11, 2013 at 1:00 | history | reopened | Kim Morrison | ||
| Sep 10, 2013 at 13:01 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Sep 10, 2013 at 13:06 | |||||
| Sep 9, 2013 at 12:58 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Sep 9, 2013 at 13:06 | |||||
| May 25, 2011 at 4:08 | comment | added | Andy Putman | In case anyone comes upon this question later, the decision to close it after 70 (!) answers was made here : tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1054/legends | |
| May 25, 2011 at 3:12 | history | closed |
Andy Putman Deane Yang Steve Huntsman François G. Dorais |
no longer relevant | |
| May 24, 2011 at 20:10 | answer | added | Andrew Dudzik | timeline score: 14 | |
| May 24, 2011 at 19:16 | answer | added | lewzer | timeline score: 3 | |
| May 23, 2011 at 21:24 | answer | added | Gerald Edgar | timeline score: 21 | |
| May 23, 2011 at 20:02 | answer | added | utdiscant | timeline score: 18 | |
| May 23, 2011 at 19:10 | answer | added | Michael Renardy | timeline score: 30 | |
| May 23, 2011 at 18:38 | answer | added | Igor Rivin | timeline score: 4 | |
| Apr 27, 2011 at 15:03 | answer | added | none | timeline score: 21 | |
| Apr 23, 2011 at 15:27 | answer | added | KotelKanim | timeline score: 64 | |
| Apr 23, 2011 at 13:24 | answer | added | Igor Rivin | timeline score: 14 | |
| Apr 16, 2011 at 23:55 | answer | added | algori | timeline score: 46 | |
| Apr 14, 2011 at 21:59 | answer | added | Balazs | timeline score: 40 | |
| Apr 14, 2011 at 20:51 | answer | added | Francesco Sica | timeline score: 18 | |
| Apr 13, 2011 at 16:37 | answer | added | John D. Cook | timeline score: 12 | |
| Apr 13, 2011 at 16:30 | answer | added | Chris Taylor | timeline score: 57 | |
| Apr 13, 2011 at 15:35 | answer | added | JWolper | timeline score: 44 | |
| Apr 13, 2011 at 13:00 | answer | added | Someone | timeline score: 12 | |
| Apr 7, 2011 at 9:36 | answer | added | Denis Serre | timeline score: 28 | |
| Mar 1, 2011 at 13:31 | comment | added | Steve Huntsman | See "heckled by your talk host" under rjlipton.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/… | |
| Feb 8, 2011 at 21:27 | answer | added | Anton Petrunin | timeline score: 20 | |
| Feb 7, 2011 at 5:57 | comment | added | mephisto | The details in the question appear garbled to me. However, I was present when Katz asked Milnor about the story that he had once asked a question at a thesis defense which had sunk the thesis. Milnor looked embarrassed, and said that it had happened. He added that he hadn't been trying to trip up the student --- he had asked the question simply out of curiosity. | |
| Feb 6, 2011 at 3:37 | answer | added | Peter May | timeline score: 37 | |
| Feb 4, 2011 at 21:04 | answer | added | Lennart Meier | timeline score: 19 | |
| Feb 4, 2011 at 16:35 | answer | added | Koundinya Vajjha | timeline score: 33 | |
| Feb 4, 2011 at 10:53 | answer | added | Thony C | timeline score: 32 | |
| Feb 3, 2011 at 15:27 | answer | added | maproom | timeline score: 10 | |
| Feb 1, 2011 at 12:03 | answer | added | Denis Serre | timeline score: 18 | |
| Feb 1, 2011 at 7:32 | history | reopened |
Joel David Hamkins Charles Rezk Nate Eldredge KConrad algori |
||
| Jan 31, 2011 at 21:07 | comment | added | Willie Wong | So I'm a hypocrite :) Blame Ryan and Martin for convincing me. | |
| Jan 31, 2011 at 21:06 | history | closed |
Kevin H. Lin Mark Meckes Ryan Budney Andrew Stacey Willie Wong |
off topic | |
| Jan 31, 2011 at 20:44 | answer | added | Igor Rivin | timeline score: 94 | |
| Jan 31, 2011 at 19:10 | comment | added | Deane Yang | Martin, you should definitely raise your point on meta. Objectively, you're completely right. But I'm enjoying this as long as it manages to remain open. | |
| Jan 31, 2011 at 18:53 | answer | added | Asaf Karagila♦ | timeline score: 69 | |
| Jan 31, 2011 at 17:06 | answer | added | Deane Yang | timeline score: 12 | |
| Jan 31, 2011 at 8:11 | answer | added | stochasticuser | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jan 29, 2011 at 20:18 | answer | added | Anna Varvak | timeline score: 193 | |
| Jan 29, 2011 at 7:04 | answer | added | Rick Kubelka | timeline score: 61 | |
| Jan 28, 2011 at 22:25 | answer | added | Qiaochu Yuan | timeline score: 43 | |
| Jan 28, 2011 at 22:07 | answer | added | algori | timeline score: 56 | |
| Jan 28, 2011 at 20:38 | answer | added | Greg Marks | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jan 28, 2011 at 14:22 | answer | added | Kevin O'Bryant | timeline score: 81 | |
| Jan 28, 2011 at 13:03 | answer | added | pradip Keskar | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jan 28, 2011 at 9:03 | answer | added | Nikita Sidorov | timeline score: -9 | |
| Jan 26, 2011 at 16:30 | comment | added | Ryan Budney | I have to agree with Martin. This is a very entertaining thread but it seems quite outside the mandate of MO. | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 22:06 | answer | added | Nate Eldredge | timeline score: 106 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 20:21 | answer | added | algori | timeline score: 28 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 20:19 | answer | added | Andrés E. Caicedo | timeline score: 19 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 19:32 | answer | added | Dan Piponi | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 18:49 | comment | added | Nate Eldredge | Another good source of such legends is Absolute Zero Gravity, by Betsy Devine and Joel E. Cohen. | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 18:25 | comment | added | Sean Tilson | @ Mariano: I gather that what is meant is that the space is just a finite set of points with the discrete or indiscrete topology. | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 18:08 | answer | added | user12494 | timeline score: 7 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 17:51 | answer | added | zhoraster | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 17:06 | answer | added | Joe Johnson | timeline score: 11 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 16:37 | answer | added | Alex R. | timeline score: 43 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 16:36 | answer | added | Jerry | timeline score: 71 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 16:26 | answer | added | Andreas Blass | timeline score: 102 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 15:26 | answer | added | Spiro Karigiannis | timeline score: 135 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 12:13 | answer | added | Daniel Moskovich | timeline score: 73 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 8:54 | comment | added | Martin Brandenburg | Though this question and its answers are very entertaining, I think it is a little unfair to close other questions as "offtopic" which are even closer to mathematical research as this one ... | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 6:49 | answer | added | David Feldman | timeline score: 147 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 5:52 | answer | added | Sean Tilson | timeline score: 28 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 5:23 | answer | added | Nate Eldredge | timeline score: 24 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 4:31 | answer | added | Ed Dean | timeline score: 6 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 4:06 | answer | added | Igor Rivin | timeline score: 73 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 3:40 | answer | added | Steven Landsburg | timeline score: 50 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 3:30 | comment | added | Michael Hardy | I should proofread before hitting the "add comment" button. | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 3:17 | answer | added | Deane Yang | timeline score: 30 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 2:57 | answer | added | Daniel Moskovich | timeline score: 82 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 2:25 | comment | added | Michael Hardy | For some decades after the alleged event, a story persistently circulated that a certain professor at a certain institution had fallen out of a window while lecturing. I would tell you some specific reasons why this might have somewhat plausible, but then too many people might guess who it was. | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 2:05 | answer | added | J Verma | timeline score: 21 | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 1:29 | answer | added | Thierry Zell | timeline score: 36 | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 23:55 | answer | added | Patrick I-Z | timeline score: 12 | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 23:50 | answer | added | Gerry Myerson | timeline score: 55 | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 23:40 | answer | added | Jeff Harvey | timeline score: 39 | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 23:39 | answer | added | David Feldman | timeline score: 32 | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 23:18 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | Mathematical urban legends have been collected by Steven Krantz in the book, Mathematical Apochrypha (and I think there's a second volume). A few refer to the thesis defense. | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 23:08 | answer | added | Gerry Myerson | timeline score: 61 | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 22:56 | history | edited | Igor Rivin | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
added another example
|
| Jan 24, 2011 at 22:44 | comment | added | Dick Palais | Willie Wong asked:"@Dick: is that the one Qiaochu recorded below?", and it no doubt is. Perhaps I will add more detail. I first heard it when I was grad student myself at Harvard (so if you know when I got my degree you will realize how old a legend this is !). Moreover the story as I heard it was that the thesis advisor was Garett Birkhoff. | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 22:37 | comment | added | Willie Wong | @Dick: is that the one Qiaochu recorded below? | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 22:31 | comment | added | Dick Palais | Well, and of course there is the old chestnut of the (supposedly Harvard) student who wrote a thesis about the class of functions satisfying a Lipschitz condition of order (1 + \epsilon ) :-) But getting back to the original question, why not just ask Milnor? | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 22:29 | comment | added | Valerio Talamanca | I also had heard an urban legend about Milnor sitting in on a dissertation defense (long ago when I was a graduate student a Brandeis). In the version I had heard the class of new topological space that were studied was observed by Milnor to consist only of the empty set. | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 22:25 | answer | added | Nick S | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 22:22 | answer | added | Peter Shor | timeline score: 28 | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 22:18 | comment | added | Willie Wong | Maybe I hung around the wrong crowd, but I've never heard Igor's story. True or not, it'd be a shame if that story somehow got lost before my generation. | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 22:16 | answer | added | Igor Rivin | timeline score: 65 | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 22:15 | answer | added | Willie Wong | timeline score: 16 | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 21:21 | comment | added | Todd Trimble | I had heard an urban legend about Milnor sitting in on a dissertation defense, but in this story the speaker airily discussed a certain natural transformation, that Milnor expressed doubted it was natural, and that Milnor was right. According to the story, the thesis was completely invalidated because the student hadn't checked naturality, and had to start all over (or something like that). | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 21:17 | answer | added | Qiaochu Yuan | timeline score: 60 | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 21:06 | answer | added | Douglas Zare | timeline score: 11 | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 21:04 | comment | added | Nick Salter | Perhaps not an urban legend per se, but when I was learning algebra, my professor, in an attempt to impress upon us the necessity of checking that certain maps are well-defined, told us the story of a classmate of his who got several years into his Ph.D. thesis before realizing that the maps he was investigating weren't well defined. Horrified, we asked him if this was true. "No" he said, "but that's one lie you'll never forget!" | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 21:01 | comment | added | Bill Thurston | I heard a version of this too, from sources I thought were reputable (but I forget who, probably more than one.) | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 20:54 | comment | added | Mariano Suárez-Álvarez | Since every finite CW complex is weakly homotopically equivalent to a finite topological space, that does not sound so bad... :) | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 20:48 | history | asked | Igor Rivin | CC BY-SA 2.5 |