Clearing the Bar

Changing the goalposts should be done with care.

The Trivial Line

It’s no secret that I dislike the word “trivial”, but I think it has a good place here.

Pass/Fail

I’ve been on both sides of this issue, and I have to say: You can really tell when students are doing the minimum.

Knobs

This is why I’m thankful that I’m a theoretical physicist: I can avoid a lot of these complications (but not all!) in my research.

Online Advantage

The trick is make sure you don’t looked zoned-out on camera while doing this.

Garbage I/O

It pays off to remember this when reasoning with any data set.

Plural

With this reasoning, I guess the safest thing to do is slap on an “s” at the end of each word, since the “No” points on the real line are a measure-zero set.

Research Path

Okay, this is a lie: Most of the time, you don’t even know where your end point is!

Academic Golden Handcuffs

Let’s make sure we don’t stay stuck in these comfortable local minima.

Expertise

This is me reading a paper all the time.

Note: I contributed this comic to James Propp for his December issue of Mathematical Enchantments.