Josh Grochow told me that a comathematician is a device for turning cotheorems into ffee. - Cris
On Feb 21, 2018, at 10:42 PM, Tom Karzes <karzes@sonic.net> wrote:
According to Wikipedia, the original quote, while widely attributed to Erdős, is in fact due to Alfréd Rényi:
Rényi, who was addicted to coffee, is the source of the quote: "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems", which is generally ascribed to Erdős. It has been suggested that this sentence was originally formulated in German, where it can be interpreted as a wordplay on the double meaning of the word Satz (theorem or coffee residue), but it is more likely that the original formulation was in Hungarian.
The above quote was taken from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfr%C3%A9d_R%C3%A9nyi#Quotations
I suspect the expanded version given by Cris Moore is much like the expanded versions of Murphy's Law, and arose some time after the original quote became popular.
I've also heard "some mathematicians wish they could turn some of those theorems back into coffee", but I don't know the source of this.
Tom
Cris Moore writes:
wow :-) I would be honored.
Cris
On Feb 21, 2018, at 9:51 PM, James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
Cris,
Can I quote this in my blog this month?
Jim
On Monday, November 3, 2014, Cris Moore <moore@santafe.edu> wrote:
I believe the full quote is that mathematicians are devices for turning coffee, red wine, delicious food, world travel, the sight of beautiful gardens, the rhythm of poetry and literature, delightful partners, the joy of raising children, and excellent sex into theorems.
Ah, if only Erdos had had a fuller life.
- cris
On Nov 3, 2014, at 8:51 PM, "Gustavus Simmons" <gsimmons30@comcast.net> wrote:
I don't know whether he originated the saying, but on more than one occasion I heard Erdos say: A mathematician is just a device that turns strong coffee into strong theorems. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Henry Baker" <hbaker1@pipeline.com> To: "math-fun" <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Monday, November 03, 2014 8:37 PM Subject: Re: [math-fun] coffee & theorems
Fermat must have had only a single-shot espresso before he proved his Little Theorem.
At 02:04 PM 11/3/2014, Dan Asimov wrote:
I've heard that this quote is due to Paul ErdÅ's. --Dan
On Nov 3, 2014, at 1:40 PM, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote: > "Mathematicians turn coffee into theorems." -- unknown ??
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