Timeline for Mathematical "urban legends"
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 15, 2011 at 4:10 | comment | added | jvkersch | In the Caltech library there is a very big tome on combinatorics which I once idly opened at random. In it, I found a letter from an undergrad in the 1970s, who wrote this letter to posteriority saying that although he enjoyed working on his project, he was disheartened by the fact that nobody would probably ever care about it. | |
| Jan 26, 2011 at 3:55 | comment | added | Steve Huntsman | A friend of mine signed me up for a free subscription to a "men's magazine" of the PG-13 variety. I took the 12 issues and stuffed them in obscure parts of the journal stacks in the library at the think tank where I was working. Before long one was found by a friend of mine purely by accident. I'm sure many are still there, though. | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 20:47 | comment | added | arsmath | Someone once claimed to me that they had actually done this. | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 6:06 | comment | added | KConrad | Another story: suspecting students were not reading solutions I was writing to homework in an abstract algebra course, in the middle of one solution I inserted the sentence "I will give a free chocolate bar to the first person who reads this." Nobody claimed the chocolate bar. Or maybe I offered an orange? | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 6:04 | comment | added | KConrad | Visiting a friend's place in graduate school, I saw many brand new GTMs on his shelf. Or at least their condition was as good as new. Suspecting some of these books would remain unread for a while, I stuck a small note in one GTM which said "Today is [date here]. Let me know when you find this note. [Signature]" I heard from him a couple of years after he finishes grad school. | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 4:54 | comment | added | zeb | Coincidentally, I recently found forty dollars in the middle of a book on moduli spaces I had checked out from the library. | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 0:52 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | Very nice!${}{}$ | |
| Jan 25, 2011 at 0:21 | comment | added | Harry Altman | Something like this has certainly happened at least once, though the legend probably predates it: snopes.com/college/homework/foundcar.asp | |
| Jan 24, 2011 at 23:50 | history | answered | Gerry Myerson | CC BY-SA 2.5 |