Colourful language in math writings

[fourier jr]

This thread made me wonder what this forum could come up with.
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/2...lorful-language-in-serious-mathematics-papers
What has everyone seen that seemed a little out of place in a serious article or book? I can think of some, mostly from topology.

 

[Pythagorean]

Not math, not a paper, but one my professors in a Solid State lecture:

"there are no gay or bi electrons, opposites attract!"

Then he went on to teach us about cooper pairs which I would consider the Eiffel Tower of solid state, but I desist.

 

[fourier jr]

here are a couple from Willard's General Topology:

(re: the homeomorphism between the classical Cantor set and $\{0,2\}^{\mathbb{N}$) "You should do it even if you think you can't, since it will teach you a lot about product spaces."

"Actually there is an abundance in the literature of references to "uniform spaces" whose primary structure is a collection of covers satisfying (a) and (b) above, so it is best to keep an open mind about the sort of structure involved when someone starts yelling "uniform space."

 

[CRGreathouse]

Andras Stipsitz, as quoted by my friend:
"Convex sets are the sets where you don't play hide and seek because it's too boring."

 

[zgozvrm]

I once installed a counter in an industrial plant that came with a less-than-professionally-written manual. See the attachment for an excerpt.

 

[fourier jr]

the lakes of wada is funny too. I was surprised to find that "wada" doesn't just mean water, but it's also a guy's name

 

[Femme_physics]

I would argue that it's lacking. Scientists worry too much about seeing professional so people would respect them and what they say, but since whatever they say is true, they can colour it whichever way they want...just keep it tasteful, to the point, and it can even have a greater educational value than a bland explanation.