If the roots are imaginary, then the dots will be blue

If the roots are imaginary, then the dots will be blue… As its been nearly a month since I posted (yeah. Ive been hosed. I still am I just got out of my 8.02 final, and I have 5.12 tomorrow.), I decided that upon my return, Id treat you to my collection of 18.03 quotes, all said by longtime professor Arthur Mattuck. (Hes been teaching here for over 40 years!) These quotes have peppered my notebook all term, so Ive compiled the best of them here. Enjoy! If the roots are imaginary, then the dots in the applet will be blue. (Draws dots in orange on board, waves chalk in the air.) See? Blue. And now Im reminded of an old joke, which I will not tell you. If I give you a colossal drug dosage then youll be dead, and the differential equation we just spent the entire class on wont apply anymore. You can tell this is an integral because Im acting like its going to be an integral. I think Id better have some colored chalk in my hand; otherwise, everything will be in white and nothing will be intelligible. Lets see if we can factor this. This being 18.03 and not real life, we can always factor it. And my favorites, these two extended examples: Say theres an arms race between New Hampshire and Vermont, them being right next to each other and all. New Hampshire suspects Vermont of sneaking across the border and attempting to destroy the Old Man on the Mountain, effectively ruining the states tourist trade. Meanwhile, Vermont suspects New Hampshire of smuggling Canadian maple syrup. The differential equations representing the change in the number of arms each country has are dependent on how often the two states attack each other, as shown here: NH = x, VT = y x = -2x + y y = x 2y x(0) = 2, y(0) = 1 New Hampshire starts out with twice as many arms, which is to be expected because they have Live Free or Die on their license plates So on the A axis well plot tr(A). Stability occurs when both A and B are greater than zero. Say its like a relationship, where fear of commitment occurs when A0, and ones competitive instinct comes into play when B0. So up here in the first quadrant we have a normal, stable relationship, and down here in the third oh, I dont know, its like when Jennifer gets fed up with Charlie and dumps him for Janine. Or Richard. Anyway, someone more exciting than Charlie. So, yes, you can find that down here. Mattucks lectures are legendary, and there are plenty of webpages with more quotes of his. Check them out! More quotes And look, another!