August 5

[Zeke]

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.

Originally Posted by Scooter

An Army of Ghosts/Doomsday reference!

Yep. My Better Judgment didn't get it, not having seen the episode. He thinks we watch too much Doctor Who as it is.