[rec.humor.funny] how to be a lecturer

JRP1@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk (Jonathan R. Partington) (11/07/90)

 Well hello and welcome to the first lecture of the course er
look I said hello look I'd like to start now will you shut up
SHUT UP PLEASE oh thank you I don't mind you talking if you do so
quietly

now this course is all about complex numbers and I've got a list
of recommended books here er well no in fact I seem to have left
it behind never mind they're all out of print anyway now let me
write up a definition where's the chalk gone ah here it is SNAP
ah let me take another piece

now definition 1.1. is ah um of course I haven't said what this
section's called yet oh it doesn't seem to have a name anyway
it's all about convergence of power series you did something like
it in real analysis didn't you don't you remember well he should
have done it in his lectures and I don't have time to do that now

now definition 1.1. scribble scribble can you read that at the
back no oh well sit further forward then can you read it at the
front ah come to think of it I can't read it either perhaps if I
turn on this light ah no not that one another one oh well the
cord was a bit frayed I suppose well look that symbol is a
capital sigma yes what's the problem yes well green seems to be
the only colour they have left in the box probably because nobody
in his right mind uses it so they leave it for me

well look perhaps if I explain it in words it's all in the
textbooks anyway I can't help it if they're missing from the
library people eat them or something well now I'll draw a diagram
you don't have to copy this exactly because it's slightly wrong
anyway this is diagram 2 good question I think I forgot to draw
diagram 1 anyway as I say it doesn't help much phew let me take
my jacket off a bit rip oh well I sewed that button on myself you
can tell can't you

now let me digress a minute about the history of the subject here
it was discovered by Cauchy or do I mean Gauss one of those
people and he sent a copy of his paper to someone else who well
anyway it's very important and has a lot of applications such as
er such as well anyway you will see applications in your other
courses I expect of course they don't use the same notation but
then they don't have the same ideas of rigour as we do and now
let's write down the first result lemma 1.2

lemma 1.2 oh I haven't actually defined radius of convergence yet
have I still let me write it up and we can decide what it means
later well I seem to have a few minutes left so I'd better start
the proof let n be this, and r be this and v be that and n be
that no on second thoughts I'm already using n now so I'll call
it nu pardon no it's a nu a greek letter you must have seen it
before all right call it v if you like but we're already using v
still it won't cause confusion

now multiply this out and obviously what we get is er clearly um
oh that can't be right what have I done wrong here can you see
the mistake maybe I lost a minus sign somewhere search me oh dear
it's time to finish isn't it well give me just 5 more minutes and
I'll finish this off and oh maybe I should do this bit again more
carefully ah that should have been a nu maybe no it should be a v
or maybe an r oh well look I'll finish this next time I'm sure
I've got most of the details right it's really very elementary
after all I haven't done anything advanced yet...

--
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