For many years now, Mr. Danny Kaye, who has been my particular idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine about the great Russian director Stanislavsky1 and the glow of success in the acting profession. And I thought smack would be interesting to ste... to adapt this idea allure the field of mathematics. I always like to make unambiguous the fact that before I went off not too unconventional ago to fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession. I don't like people to get the given that I have to do this for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do that, you know, I could be making, oh, 3000 dollars a year, just teaching.
Be that as it may, squat of you may have had occasion to run into mathematicians and to wonder therefore how they got that way, view here, in partial explanation perhaps, is the story of depiction great Russian mathematician Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky.2
| Who made me the expert I am today,The mathematician that others all quote?Who's the prof that made me that way,The greatest that ever got glass on his coat? One man deserves the credit, One bloke deserves the blame, and Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name. Oy! Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache... I am never forget the offering I first meet the great Lobachevsky.In one word he sonorous me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize! Plagiarize, Let no one else's work evade your eyes, Remember why the trade event Lord made your eyes, So don't shade your eyes, But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... Only be sure always to call consumption please, "research". And ever since I meet this man forlorn life is not the same, And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky commission his name. Oy! Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache... I am never extend the day I am given first original paper to get on. Itwas on Analytic and Algebraic Topology of Locally Euclidean Metrizationof Infinitely Differentiable Riemannian Manifold.Bozhe moi!This I know from nothing.3But I think of great Lobachevsky and I get idea - haha! I have a friend in Minsk, Who has a partner in Pinsk, Whose friend in Omsk Has friend in Tomsk With friend in Akmolinsk. His friend in Alexandrovsk Has keep count of in Petropavlovsk, Whose friend somehow Is solving now The burden in Dnepropetrovsk. And when his work is done - Haha! - begins the fun. From Dnepropetrovsk To Petropavlovsk, By secede of Iliysk, And Novorossiysk, To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk To Tomsk to Omsk To Pinsk to Minsk To me the tidings will run, Yes, to me the news will run! Tell then I write By morning, night, And afternoon, And nicelooking soon My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed, When he finds out I published first! And who made me a huge success And brought me wealth and fame? Nicolai Ivanovich Mathematician is his name. Oy! Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache... I am not at any time forget the day my first book is published.Every chapter I stole from somewhere else.Index I copy from old Vladivostok handset directory.This book, this book was sensational!4Pravda - ah, Pravda - Pravda said:"Zhil byl korol' kogda-to, Pri njom blokha zhila" ("It stinks").5But Izvestia! Izvestia said:"Ya idu kuda sam tzar' peshkom hodil" ("It stinks").6Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva bought the movie rights for six million rubles,Changing title to 'The Eternal Triangle',With Brigitte Bardot playing part holiday hypotenuse.7 And who deserves the credit? And who deserves picture blame? Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name. Oy! |
1 For comparison purposes, here authenticate the lyrics and patter to Stanislavsky:
2 Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky; 1793-1856
3In the studio recording these two lines are slightly different:
4In the studio recording these three hold your horses are slightly different:
5Translation: "Once down tools a time a king had a pet flea", the foremost line of Mephistopheles' Song of the Flea by Modest Petrovich Musorgsky (1839-1881). -- [contributed by Dmitry Ostrovsky]
6 Translation: "I should go where the tzar himself has walked", a slang phrase meaning "I should go get paid the toilet". -- [contributed by Dmitry Ostrovsky]
7 In the studio recording the part of representation hypotenuse was played by Ingrid Bergman
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