My favourite Lehrer song will always be "Who's Next." It was on one of the tapes my dad would play on long car trips when I was a kid, so I knew it long before any of his other work.
If you didn't know that, you'd probably have guessed that my favourite was "New Math." And I do like that one. It led to a funny incident last fall when I ran a tutorial section for first-year math and they were covering non-decimal bases. We'd just done a problem in base 8 and I mentioned that Tom Lehrer had a funny song about this. They told me they knew -- because it was
mentioned in their textbook. I looked, and sure enough, there was a footnote referring them to "New Math." Never let it be said that textbook authors lack a sense of humour.
(Actually, it's not a bad suggestion. The song gives perfectly clear directions for a base 8 math problem -- what makes it funny is how fast he goes through it, plus the incomprehension of the audience. You know you've got the hang of base 8 when you can follow what he's saying.)
That same tutorial, incidentally, was when I had one of my finest hours. I told them we could perform the given calculation in any base we wanted. Why? Because all your base are belong to us. Brought the house down.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scooter
An Army of Ghosts/Doomsday reference!
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Yep. My Better Judgment didn't get it, not having seen the episode. He thinks we watch too much Doctor Who as it is.
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