Hairy Ball Theorem
If there were a contest for the dirtiest-sounding name for a legitimate scientific concept, I think this would win.
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The hairy ball theorem was discoverd by Prof EC Zeeman - Warwick University UK. I studied maths there. A friend of mine, who also studied there, told me that at his interview, the interviewer said to him in all innocence: “I suppose that you have heard about Prof Zeeman’s hairy balls”
My friend could not think of an appropiate reply.
Comment by Yakov — August 13, 2006 @ 8:19 am
Based on the mathematicians I’ve known, I’d say it’s even odds whether the comment was innocent or the interviewer was yanking your friend’s chain with that dry and inscrutable manner some math geeks have with their humor.
I say this with affection; I had a favorite calculus professor who could be hilarious if you understood that he was joking. I also had an Iranian statistics prof with a strong accent, who tended to drop the ‘s’ off the end of plurals. When, during a discussion of coin flipping, he said “Sometimes you get head, and sometimes you get tail,” nobody in class knew whether or not to laugh.
Comment by Adam Messinger — August 13, 2006 @ 12:46 pm