counter-example

[counter-example]

[counter-example]

Things Math Professors Say

"The proof is trivial." (Oh, cool. Guess I’m just an idiot then.)

"Left as an exercise." (Translation: You’ll never solve this in a million years.)

"It’s obvious, really." (Sure, if you’re a demigod.)

"By inspection." (Stares harder at problem… still nothing.)

"For small values of epsilon." (How small? Subatomic? Microscopic? Vibes?)

"WLOG (Without Loss of Generality)." (Oh, we’re just assuming it doesn’t matter now? Alright.)

"Details omitted." (Because apparently, you don’t need to understand it.)

"By the usual argument." (Which you somehow don’t know because you weren’t born in 1702.)

"Assume the rest holds." (That’s some impressive optimism right there.)

"The usual abuse of notation." (Why does this feel like an emotional wound?)

"Almost surely correct." (But also possibly wrong? Cool, thanks for the clarity.)

"A non-rigorous approach." (I thought math was supposed to be precise?!)

"Assume it’s obvious." (Buddy, NOTHING about this is obvious.)

"The reader may verify." (No, the reader may CRY.)

"To the interested reader." (Guess I’m not interested enough, huh?)

"Well-behaved functions only." (We’re function-shaming now?)

"Obvious to the trained eye." (Guess I’ll never make it out of amateur league.)

"A trivial case analysis." (Trivial to WHO??)

"Integrate by parts, twice." (Bold of you to assume I got it the first time.)

"As you can clearly see." (Oh, I clearly see my FAILURE, alright.)

"It works in practice too." (Unlike me, who barely works at all.)

"Assume a spherical cow." (Are we doing math or abstract sculpture?)

"A standard result." (Not in my standards, pal.)

"We skip the tedious algebra." (No, no, please—I wanted to suffer MORE.)

"Assume non-zero solutions exist." (Okay, now we’re just assuming life works out.)

"The usual topology." (Bro, I don’t even know the unusual topology.)

"Finitely many cases left." (Just kidding, there’s 72.)

"By virtue of symmetry." (Virtue? I have none left.)

"Don’t worry about the constant." (The constant is probably my GPA dropping.)

"Assume continuity." (I’m assuming my brain is breaking.)

"Smooth functions only." (Guess I’ll leave, I’m clearly not smooth enough.)

"The simplest non-trivial case." (Simplest? NON-TRIVIAL? Pick a side!)

"Epsilon goes to zero." (Epsilon isn’t the only one losing it.)

"And the rest follows." (Where? Straight to my breakdown?)

[counter-example]

so. how does anyone ever have the time or energy

[counter-example]

I think one fun side effect of studying uni level math is that simultaneously the complex numbers start seeming simpler than you thought but at the same time the real numbers are *way* more fucked up than you thought

[counter-example]

goldenrod, swallowtail, thistle, finch monarch, buckeye, sunflower (idk which 😔)

[counter-example]

Whoever invented "open in app" links that redirect you to the app store instead of actually opening the app even when you already have the app installed on your phone should be involuntarily turned into a beanbag chair

[counter-example]

spiders have got to figure out contracting I need to be able to call my local spiders union and be like "hey can you send a guy out for a few days the fruit flies are back" and then pay it in spider currency. I'll learn the conversion rates. I'll be generous with my rounding. please.

[counter-example]

Paul Harvey, Kingfisher

[counter-example]

Out with the "stand up" meeting, in with the "deep squat" meeting, even more pressure to finish quickly before your knees give out!

[counter-example]

I'm a big fan of wizards-as-programmers, but I think it's so much better when you lean into programming tropes.

A spell the wizard uses to light the group's campfire has an error somewhere in its depths, and sometimes it doesn't work at all. The wizard spends a lot of his time trying to track down the exact conditions that cause the failure.

The wizard is attempting to create a new spell that marries two older spells together, but while they were both written within the context of Zephyrus the Starweaver's foundational work, they each used a slightly different version, and untangling the collisions make a short project take months of work.

The wizard has grown too comfortable reusing old spells, and in particular, his teleportation spell keeps finding its components rearranged and remixed, its parts copied into a dozen different places in the spellbook. This is overall not actually a problem per se, but the party's rogue grows a bit concerned when the wizard's "drying spell" seems to just be a special case of teleportation where you teleport five feet to the left and leave the wetness behind.

A wizard is constantly fiddling with his spells, making minor tweaks and changes, getting them easier to cast, with better effects, adding bells and whistles. The "shelter for the night" spell includes a tea kettle that brings itself to a boil at dawn, which the wizard is inordinately pleased with. He reports on efficiency improvements to the indifference of anyone listening.

A different wizard immediately forgets all details of his spells after he's written them. He could not begin to tell you how any of it works, at least not without sitting down for a few hours or days to figure out how he set things up. The point is that it works, and once it does, the wizard can safely stop thinking about it.

Wizards enjoy each other's company, but you must be circumspect about spellwork. Having another wizard look through your spellbook makes you aware of every minor flaw, and you might not be able to answer questions about why a spell was written in a certain way, if you remember at all.

Wizards all have their own preferences as far as which scripts they write in, the formatting of their spellbook, its dimensions and material quality, and of course which famous wizards they've taken the most foundational knowledge from. The enlightened view is that all approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, but this has never stopped anyone from getting into a protracted argument.

Sometimes a wizard will sit down with an ancient tome attempting to find answers to a complicated problem, and finally find someone from across time who was trying to do the same thing, only for the final note to be "nevermind, fixed it".

[counter-example]

Funny to me to think about the whole "oh you say you don't like <insert website> but you'll gladly reblog content FROM <insert website>" as like... trade exports between nations that all a little bit don't like each other.

"Come try these grapes. They're from Tiktok." "OH Tiktok? Wonderful. They grow the best grapes. We just don't have the right terrain for them here." "I agree. Lovely grapes. Wretched country though, I'd never live there." "Oh me neither. They cancel their peasants in the town square. Speaking of, have you seen the new textiles boypussydilf is selling in the town square? Imported from Instagram!" "Oh amazing textiles, Instagram has. Wretched country though." "Absolutely wretched."

[counter-example]

Northern coyotes (Canis latrans incolatus) Potter Hill, Alaska, USA

Photo by Eric Kilby

[counter-example]

Mb with a patch on it’s coat that say “this machine kills fascists”

[counter-example]

hate it when you experience something of better quality and then you’re doomed to no longer be satisfied

[counter-example]

Do y’all ever think about how absolutely bananas Lake Baikal is? It’s the world’s largest lake by volume. It’s the world’s deepest lake. It’s the world’s oldest lake. It contains nearly a quarter of the planet’s surface freshwater. It’s a rift lake, caused by the earth’s crust literally coming apart at the seams. It would be deeper than the Mariana Trench except the bottom is covered in a sediment layer that is miles deep. There are trains that have sunk to the bottom because Russia tried to build a railroad over the ice. The entire lake surface freezes for half the year. The lake is a focal point of multiple indigenous cultures. The lake has its own species of seal, which is the only exclusively freshwater pinniped in the world. There are unique ice formations formed by convection from the depths of the lake. There are 330 inflowing rivers.

I dunno, Lake Baikal sure is a thing.

[counter-example]

a little kid came up to the desk (it came up to his like, collarbone) and very seriously asked me about baby name books, because he wanted to help name his new sibling. i guided him to the shelf (there were only two book of names) and pointed out the differences between them, and after some serious contemplation he went, “I think I should take both, just in case.” So I gave him both and he thanked me and went on his way.

And I went back to my desk and screamed into my arm for like 45 years because HE WAS SO FUCKING ADORABLE AAAAA

[counter-example]

Shop , Patreon , Books and Cards , Mailing List