UD thanks Andrew for alerting her to this story about a math professor at Cal State Northridge who’s been peeing repeatedly on the office door of a colleague he doesn’t like.
Women are kept from doing this sort of thing by the relative difficulty of the act.
January 27th, 2011 at 11:12AM
One of many acts which men perform so much better than women! Or else the only one.
January 27th, 2011 at 11:13AM
“Women are kept from doing this sort of thing by the relative difficulty of the act.”
Sigh. There you go again, refusing to see the culturally-constructed nature of such patriarchal limitations on women’s potential.
More seriously, there are rumors of a senior figure in my field who would fill jars and cans in his office in order to avoid the distraction from work required by a trip to the men’s room. Custodial staff, the story goes, eventually refused to enter his office under any circumstances.
January 27th, 2011 at 11:15AM
Whew. I was expecting mathematicians to write in and tell me how meaningless the phrase “Multiplicative Number Ones” is.
January 27th, 2011 at 2:52PM
Well, in abstract algebra one defines p-groups, in which, I suppose, one practices p-multiplication.
January 28th, 2011 at 3:26AM
Is that the ONLY reason they don’t?
January 28th, 2011 at 4:58AM
@Margaret Soltan: 1 usually designates the neutral element in a group noted with multiplication, or the neutral element for multiplication in a ring or field (“group”, “ring”, “field” have technical meanings). These elements depend on the group, ring, field, therefore one can talk of different “number ones”. So it’s not entirely meaningless.
January 28th, 2011 at 6:33PM
As I said elsewhere:
I know academia is a pissing contest, it’s just that this fellow took it way too literally.
thank you. I will be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your server!
January 29th, 2011 at 10:54AM
I can kind of understand doing it once, though it’s beyond the bounds of civilized adult behavior. Doing it often enough that surveillance catches you? Dumb beyond words.