Quotes

• "Let's give some examples of all this junk" - 1995
• "You cannot vary h, h is a constant, otherwise the whole proof is gargled." - 1995
• "I was very impressed by what some of you put down as your course title, things like `History of Radishes' and `Sheep Farming'. You know, some of you have a very good sense of humour." - 1995
• "The joy we get from mathematics is like when someone listens to a piece of music and says `Gee, I really dig that!'" - 1995
• "When did you first meet pi? Apple pie, I suppose." - 1995
• "[When working in the set of real numbers] How do we know what the next value is? ... By now, I think you should be sniggering." - 1995
• "It's silly to talk about 5 degrees, there is no unit of angle! ... Don't go to your sixth form teachers now and say '360 degrees is rubbish!'..." - 1995
• "Something which is flat is clearly flatter than something which is not flat." - 1996
• "Maybe I did say that, but I clearly didn't mean it." - 1996
• "Hands up those of you who have never seen this before [no-one put up their hands up]... you're all lying!" - 2000
• "[After no-one answered his question, he threatened to pick someone at random from the audience to answer it on the board:] If you don't start to co-operate, then I will resort to terrorist tactics!" - 2001
• "We're mathematicians: we're allowed to do crazy things!" - 2001
• "Hey guys, don't get me depressed - it feels like I have been speaking to a blank wall for 10 weeks. [During the last lecture of Measure Theory]" - 2003
• "[After proving the Dominated Convergence Theorem] If they gave out Michelin stars for theorems, this one would definitely get 3!" - 2004
• "[Instructing students about to fill in SSLC feedback forms.] Two l's and one f. I am not Russian!" - 2006
• "The 11th Commandment in mathematics is 'Thou shalt not divide by zero'." - 2006
• "Now, let me write that in a more suggestive form." - 2006
• "Now we have to do the arithmetic. This is probably the hardest part." - 2006
• "[Explaining partial derivatives] It's like looking at a person you like, if you really want to get to know them you can't just look at ther face, you have to look at them from behind and from the side and from below." - 2006
• "This is not examinable by the way. This is just for fun." - 2006
• "I refuse to deal with non-measurable functions. They exist... but they are an abomination." - 2008
• "[on the Dirac delta distribution] It is a bit worrying how many good things in mathematics come from physicists." - 2008
• "At the end of the day, maths, even abstract algebra, is about doing calculations. Otherwise you're doing philosophy." (Shortly followed by: "I hope that's not going on the web.") - 2008
• "Those of you who have done measure theory should be getting nervous about swapping this integral and this limit. But you just bow down and say "Dominated Convergence Theorem", and this absolves you of all guilt." - 2008
• "When you get into bed and say your prayers, ask yourself "What maths have I learnt today?". So, you might say "What have I learnt in Analysis today... Cauchy sequences...can I write down the definition of a Cauchy sequence?". If the answer is no, get out of bed and go and learn that definition!" - 2008
• "The key property here is compactness. Once Anthony Manning had on his door, "Compactness isn't everything". And that got me really annoyed, because compactness is everything! Well... not quite... but nearly." - 2008
• "I refuse to be totally consistent with my notation" - 2008
• "[After defining a function in order to complete a proof] and why can I define the function in this way? [Long pause] 'cause its a free country that's why!" - 2008
• "Don't show this equation to anyone, they'll think you're doing a crazy course!" (in Theory of PDEs) - 2008
• "If you can't change notation in mathematics, you probably can't do mathematics." - 2008
• "The trick in mathematics is always to proceed by analogy." - 2008