Jeremy is a big LIAR

Well, there were at least two *very* amusing things that transpired this past day.

The first of those two shall go unmentioned on this site. For those of you within earshot (who wasn't?) then you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you witnessed one of the great embarassing moments. Let me just say that for that moment in time I completely forgot where I was. Hopefully it won't happen again and hopefully the damage wasn't too great. I certainly didn't think that she said "liberal".

Immediately after this event, Jeremy mentioned to me that John Conway would be speaking. I was immediately up for attending the talk. John Conway was, after all, the inventor of the Game of Life. The Game of Life is one of the first programming assignments that any CS major will complete. This program teaches loops and two dimensional arrays (I am sure there are plenty of other things involved that would be a learning experience for new programmers.) More importantly, the Game of Life is one of the most important examples of a two dimensional cellular automata. Basically, it exemplified that a simple set of rules for determining the topology of future generations can yield incredibly complex behavior. It may (or may not, depending on who you talk to) have led to the creation of a very important field of computer science and math (physics too!) called complexity theory.

I digress. Nevertheless, the opportunity to see a mathematician like this (despite the cynical protesting of one professor) was something that I could not pass up. At 4:20, Jeremy, Nate and I departed for the math department. Interestingly, Jeremy knew exactly where it was -- apparently there are chats in the math department on a regular basis and "they have great food." I think that we all know who to attribute that quote to! ;-)

The classroom was small. We had to pile all the way into the back. At this point, there's no turning back. We are in for the entire talk, for better or worse. Jeremy was making some comments and a professor in front of us leaned back and simply said, "This is a different John Conway." I was shocked. As it turns out, this John Conway is an expert on complex analysis and topology. While interesting, this is definitely not what we signed up for! As I mentioned, we were locked in. Fourty-five minutes and approximately 20 slides later, I was dumber but FREE. After Jeremy grabbed some free food, we made our getaway.

On a side note, I discovered the joys of having a left handed desk. When the little desktop is on the left side, it is so much easier for me to cross my legs comfortably. I'll have to make a mental note.

Well, it was disappointing that we didn't get to see*the* John Conway, but it was hysterical nonetheless. Jeremy lied, but it was FUN!

Hope to see you at Java Java.