[Home]ProfessorRan

ProfessorRan is a former math professor who got swallowed by the CS department. He teaches TheoComp? and sometimes Cs60, Algorithms (as of Fall2003?, Algorithms is being taught by ProfessorThom), or BigAlgorithms?, and is known for his entertaining lecture notes, one-eyed aliens, and general bounciness. First to hold the Joseph B. Platt Chair in Effective Teaching (est. March 2005). His lectures tend to include a large number of recurring motifs; these include:

  ... like this piece of paper!

Paraphrasing KurtDresner, "ProfessorRan is the nicest slave-driver you'll ever meet, because if you don't do the work, he'll be sad. And then the only option for you is Hara-Kiri."

Ran is known for noticing and e-mailing his students if they miss his classes -> But his classes are entertaining enough that only a DumbAss would skip regularly. Skipping his classes regularly makes Ran concerned. Also sad.

Ran requires that exams being turned in be turned in under his office door. This still includes if Ran is in his office and said door is open.

Ran also bears a striking resemblance to [Jimmy Fallon]. Oh. My. God. You're right. That's horrible.

Has apparently drawn the ire of the rest of the CS department, due to the fact that he consistently gets lots of good grutors for CS 60.

Ran Quotes:

lecturing....pauses...turns to class,"And you may be thinking I'm crazy. Well, I am. But that's not the point." then goes back to lecture without missing a beat

"It took me three minutes. That's definitely polynomial time."

"I am a world expert at multiplying 1 by 1 matrices."

"And the answer to that is kind of yo."

"Without loss of ambiguity..."

"I know you're all probably thinking, 'No way!' Well, Theorem 3 says, 'Way!'"

"CS 5 should be taught with TuringMachines. The syntax is so much easier!!"

"So crank up your funkyometers..."

"840 is not a real number here."

"This is subtle with a capital B."

 Ran: "Any solution to the bonus problem?"
 MicahSmukler: <random wanking about a truly marvelous solution, which the page was too small to contain>
 Ran: "I see.  I'll look forward to, um, not reading it then."

TracyvanCort collected a whole mess of these during TheoComp? fall semester 2000 (great class; I recommend it to anyone, even those who understand it as little as I did). Here are just a few of her favorites:

From CS60, Fall 2004:

From CS60, Fall 2005:

From Algorithms, Spring 2007:

From Complexity Theory, Fall 2008:

While guest teaching CS60, Fall 2008:

From Algorithms, Spring 2008:


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Last edited March 5, 2009 15:25 (diff)
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