“I know it’s technically 2, but I like 0.2 better because it feels more expressive.”
“I chose not to correct the multiplication sign to a division sign, because why would I want to do that? The division sign is negative, and I want my equation to give hope.”
“I centered the equation because it’s more creative. I feel that to flush the equation to the left is not truly expressing how I feel about these numbers.”
“I might have left out a decimal point somewhere, but my equation was definitely more inspired than anyone else’s in my group. At least, I bothered to make my square root sign look like a real square root sign. Some people scribbled stuff there that looked like a hat having convulsions.”
“My mathematical theorem is solid. Both my roommates read it and they both think it’s solid. I only took this course to learn how to publish my theorems. I know my theorems are good, but obviously, it’s not a matter of being a good mathematician. It’s all about luck.”
“Blaise Pascal didn’t go to college.”
“I centered the equation because I really want the people to center on these numbers, to focus, you know? That’s why I put the whole thing in italics, too.”
“I chose to leave the space inside the absolute value sign empty because that way anyone would be able to imagine the number they wanted to imagine and make the equation universal.”
“It’s not incomplete. I stopped short of writing the total because I wanted a cliffhanger.”
“I thought that I might write a full theorem one day, but after taking this course, I think I’m just going to stick to my numbers. I only do numbers for myself now.”
“Blaise Pascal never bothered to plot.”
“I did not forget. I deliberately withheld the value of X. X is a very personal point in my life. I wanted the graph to make people feel that darkness and confusion that X represents.”
“You know you do great proof. You’ve been doing proof all your life. Your classmates think you do great proof. Your friends know you do great proof. But then comes this professor, and it’s all about the Greeks. She just can’t stand anyone doing proofs in any other way but the Greeks’.”
“It’s better if we never find out the value of X. That way readers will keep wondering, was it 7?”
“In the end, we find out that X was Y all along.”
“Of course, it doesn’t add up. That’s the whole point!”