教授語錄

某個第一學期上課教授的部份語錄

Time: fall 07
Department: math
Nationality: Russia
Age: somewhere between my dad and my grandpa
Characters: stumbled English, heavy accent, very sincere, very polite, walks back and forth along blackboard and faces downwards while figuring out appropriate answers to the raised questions, unrecommended teaching template in terms of fluency, or from a "standard" point of view, but I really like him.

Quotations:

1.
Alex: "So in the equation set we have 'f(x) = b' and '-f(x) = -b', which are equivalent so we have to eliminate one of them. Since we are positive people, let's keep the first one......"

Us: "......"

2. (Introducing knapsack problem)
Alex: "Suppose there's a thief with a backpack and he can bear up to X pounds with it; for example, X = 110......"

Tim(student): "What? that's too much......"

Alex: "Some people bear really heavy things, especially mountain-climbing guys, but not girls. Girls don't bear that much."

Some girl: "Oh they do......"

Tim: (to Alex) "You're not supposed to say that."

Alex: "......I apologize!"

3.
Alex: "This is the drawback of this algorithm. However, it's really not that bad. Every cloud has a silver lining......"

Us: "......"

4. (In some not-so-easy topic)
Alex: "Do we go too fast?"

No response.

Alex: "Do we go too slow? Does anyone want me to be faster?"

No response.

No response.

Alex: "Anyway I can't be any faster!"

(p.s. he meant his English)