These random off-the-wall thoughts were collected by
(or dumped on) Alex Kaplan, the owner of this little web-site
Hard work may not kill you, but why take chances?
(Too bad you learn this too late...)
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it. (Fortune-cookie)
In God we trust. All the rest must pay by cash.
(in a seedy hotel)
Science has first word in anything, and last word in nothing
(Victor Hugo )
A good researcher should write only the first or the last
paper on any subject ( George T. Reynolds )
Any competent theoretician should be able to fit any given theory
to any given set of facts (Ivy league prof-requirment)
Any two nonidentical points can be connected
by any curve, and at that
only one (unwritten operational rule in FizTech lab-classes, circa 1955)
Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. (Fortune-cookie)
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
( Pablo Picasso )
... For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth
knowledge increaseth sorrow. (Ecclesiastes 1:18 )
This theory isn't right... It isn't even wrong! (Wolfgang Pauli )
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
( Albert Einstein )
Alejandro Nalpak
(also
here )
There are so many answers out there, and we ask so few questions...
Like a Schroedinger Cat,
science is a superposition of two eigen-states: "possible" and "impossible".
In fact, science is a religion; its unprovable
simbol of faith is the Universal Theory of Everything.
If on your way to God you skip the priests, they will all declare you His enemy.
The greatest experts on nobility are lackeys.
Behind every great model there is another model.
Only pay-checks are real...
Reality is non-linear... Take my course on non-linear optics.
Black-and-white rainbow...
Don't talk logics to me. Logics is a refuge of narrow-minded people!
Fish's logics: There is no life in the air
Galileo's opponent's logics: If the Earth indeed revolved
around the Sun, all the clouds would've been blown away by wind...
When it comes to the vote on intellectual
matters, half-wits usually win -- that is what voting is for...
Graduate program in American university: it is where Russian professors
teach math to Chinese students (from Congressional hearings)
Any fool can be a young fool; it takes a lifelong experience to be an old fool...
How long will the Nature put up with our arrogant belief
that it can be explained and managed?
--Oh, but in the end, the joke is always on us...
Aim high: pursue the AFOSR support.
A real conversation:
-- What are your research motivations? From deep inside?
== Oh, well... I am a bit of a rebel; an inventor, a
pathfinder; a pioneer, if you wish...
-- Hmmm... I hope you know how many pioneers
ended up with a lot of arrows in their back...
In the end, we all make dust.
Some of us make sawdust...
Home, in the ultimate account, is under your hat.
If you have no hat, nor account, you are a trully free man.
If you have nothing under your hat, you better stay at home.
Home these days is less where your heart is, than
where you understand the sons-of-biches...
(Dave Hickey)
It isn't where you came from, it's where you are
going to what counts... (Ella Fitzerald)
When you get too old to hunt bulls,
you start teaching how to read bullshit
(a cartoon caption)
Ezhi Lets
Hit the bottom; then heard somebody knocking from below.
So you've broken a wall with your head; how do you like it in another prison cell?
Ambrose Bierce
Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.
Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.
Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.
Cynic, n: the one whose faulty vision sees things as they are,
not as they ought to be.
Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road: They get run over.
All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't.
Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you. (Source unknown;
but sounds true...)
All I have is only what I am going after... ( from a movie... )
It is not to win that I came into the ring; I came to fight.
(Alexander Daniel)
Fear nothing, hope for nothing, beg for nothing...
(from Soviet Gulag labor/death camps).
...Chicago rules: You come after me with a knife, I come after
you with a gun.
You come after me with a gun, I come after you with a howitzer.
( Sidney Blumenthal )
A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for. (Rear Admiral Grace Hooper)
Some people are educated far beyond their intellegence. (Arthur Clark)
Advice to alien life forms:
Intelligence?... It constitutes
but one of many attributes;
So note (and this is NOT malicious)
it's better not to be DELICIOUS (Gregory Steward)
Why God Never Received Tenure at a University:
He had only one major publication.
It was in Hebrew.
It has no references.
It was not published in a refereed journal.
Some doubt He wrote it himself.
He may have created the world, but what has He done since then?
The scientific community cannot replicate His results.
He never got permission from the ethics board to use human subjects.
When one experiment went awry, He tried to cover it by drowning the subjects.
He rarely came to class and just told His students, "Read the BOOK!"
Some say He had His Son teach the class.
He expelled His first two students.
His office hours were irregular and sometimes held on a mountain top.
There were as many as 10 requirements, and most students failed them.
(the Sourse insisted on staying anonymous)
off-the-wall fotos
Last updated on November 12, 2007
Back to Alex Kaplan's home page