X sound: Lobachevsky(Tom Lehrer).mp3

For many years now, Mr. Danny Kay, who has been my particular idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine, a routine about the great Russian director Stanislavski and the secret of success in the acting profession and I thought it would be interesting to stea(1) , to adapt this idea to the field of mathematics. I always like to make explicit the fact that before I went off, not too long ago, to fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession.- I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living.- I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know. I could be making, oh, 3000 dollars a year, just teaching! Be that as it may, some of you may have had occasion to run into mathematicians and to wonder therefore how they got that way: here, in partial explanation perhaps, is the story of the great Russian mathematician Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky:

Who made me the genius I am today? The mathematician that others all quote? Who’s the professor that made me that way? The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat? One man deserves the credit, one man deserves the blame and Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name ...

I am (sic) never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky. In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: plagiarize! Plagiarize, let no one else’s work evade your eyes. Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, so don't shade your eyes, but plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize! Only be sure always to call it, please, "research". And ever since I meet this man, my life is not the same. And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name ...

I am (sic) never forget the day I am given the first original paper to write. It was on analytic and algebraic topology of local Euclidian metrization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold. Bozhe moi! . This I know from nothing! But I think of great Lobachevsky and I get idea - aha!

I have a friend in Minsk who has a friend in Pinsk, whose friend in Omsk has friend in Tomsk with friend In Akmolinsk. His friend in Alexandrovsk has friend in Petropavlovsk, whose friend somehow is solving now the problem in Dnepropetrovsk. And when his work is done, haha, begins the fun: from Dnepropetrovsk to Petropavlovsk, by way of Iliysk, and Novorossiysk, to Alexandrovsk, to Tomsk to Omsk, to Pinsk, to Minsk to me the news will run, yes to me the news will run, And then 1 write by morning, night and afternoon and pretty soon my name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed when he finds out I publish first. And who made me a big success and brought me wealth and fame? Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name ...

I am (sic) never forget the day my first book is published, Every chapter I stole from somewhere else. Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory. This book was sensational! Pravda, ah Pravda! Pravda said: …"It stinks!" But Izvestia! Izvestia said.: ... "It stinks!" Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva bought the movie rights for 6 million rubles, changing title to "The Eternal Triangle" with Brigitte Bardot playing part of hypotenuse. And who deserves the credit and who deserves the blame? Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name!

                                                                                           TOM LEHRER (1952/53), from his record "Tom Lehrer Revisited"

          ANNOTATIONS:                                                     see: www.wiw.org./~drz/tom.lehrer/jmazner/lehrhtml.html        www.casualhacker.net/tom.lehrer/index.html    

to make explicit .....................................................   klarstellen
trench ....................................................................  Schützengraben (bezieht sich den Koreakrieg!) but: ditch: Straßengraben
$3000.- .................................................................  1952 etwa € 6000.- [$1.- damals etwas über 4.- DM!]
to do sth. for a living ...............................................  seinen Lebensunteralt bestreiten mit
be that as it may ...................................................... wie dem auch (immer) sei
to run into ...............................................................  (zufällig) stoßen auf, treffen
to deserve the credit ...............................................  Anerkennung für etwas verdienen
to plagiarize ............................................................  plagiieren, abschreiben, „abkupfern"
[Riemann ................................................................ 1826 – 1866, German mathematician]
[manifold: http://www.dict.cc/?s=manifold    ............. [here] "a topological space that is connected and locally Euclidian" ???]                                             
to curse ..................................................................  verfluchen, fluchen but: to swear: fluchen; schwören
telephone directory ................................................  Telefonbuch [or: phone book/telephone book]
The Eternal Triangle ................................................ „Das Ewige Dreieck", bzw. „Dreiecksverhältnis"

X sound: Lobachevsky(Tom Lehrer).mp3

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