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> I recall a math instructor who would occasionally refer to variables (usually represented by intimidating greek letters) as "this guy". I also had an instruc
by DrJokepu 5mo ago
> I recall a math instructor who would occasionally refer to variables (usually represented by intimidating greek letters) as "this guy".
I also had an instructor who was doing that! This was 20 years ago, and I totally forgot about it until I have read your comment. Can’t remember the subject, maybe propositional logic? I wonder if my instructor and your instructor have picked up this habit from the same source.
- kombookcha 5mo agoI recall my old chemistry/physics teacher doing it too - "now THIS guy, he's really greedy for electrons" and stuff like that.
- adammarples 5mo agoMaybe they're French? They tend to do that, translating celui
- Tyr42 5mo agoMy instructor for Epsilon Delta proofs and limits would always talk about "his cousin in Romania" picking the Epsilon and him picking the Delta. i.e. forall epsilon > 0. exists delta > 0. forall d with |d| < delta. |f(x) - f(x+d)| < epsilon. If we had a proof, no matter what epsilon his cousin from Romania picked, we could always find a new delta which would satify his cousin and let him pick the worst d in range. This worked better than just saying "pick any epsilon", as it convayed the adversarial approach better. Another book I read used the Devil as the one you are trying to convince, but it's nowhere near as fun as "his cousin from Romania".