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MIT student blogger Bryan O. '07

Love Potion No. 9 by Bryan

roses are #FF0000violets are #0000FF

In celebration of today’s “holiday,” I decided it would make sense to provide you with a few thoughts on dating at MIT.

I make no allegations of the sort that I’m an expert on the issue by any stretch of the imagination, but for those of you interested, here’s my take on the lay of the land. (But I am good with pick-up lines)

I’ll flashback to the conversation I had with my grandpa before I left for MIT:
Gramps: “Now don’t be a hermit.”
Me: “I won’t.”
Gramps: “I don’t want any great-grandchildren…yet.”

When I came to MIT, I was somewhat afraid of what relationships would be like seeing that I expected to be studying a lot of the time. Would we have study dates in the library? Would we send each other love notes on the reverse side of returned problem sets? Cue unnecessary worrying.

MIT is full of relationships, people who’ve been dating for days, weeks, years. Some homegrown MIT relationships, some long distance, some within the Boston city limits. In a town where there are so many college students, it’s not hard to meet new people.

With dating and the like, I don’t think there’s really much science behind it at all. I just think this isn’t one of the things there’s a formula for.

Although, here are a few amusing ones, try to identify what they are.

r = 2a(1 + cos(theta))

C7 H8 N4 O2 (sorry, I can’t get subscripts to work)

Well, I’m off to class where one or two of them will surely be paused for a serenade by the Logs of the Muses, but I’m sure to think of something I missed in this entry throughout the day, so I’ll probably be adding to this entry later on.

Happy Valentine’s Day or for those of you celebrating the other holiday, Happy Single-ness Appreciation Day!

12 responses to “Love Potion No. 9”

  1. thekeri says:

    r= 2a (1 + cos(theta)) is the polar equation for a cardioid.

    Or a heart. ^_^

    (I’ve spent the last week of Calc class playing with those, actually…)

    It looks like the C7H8N4O2 formula goes with the picture (hope hope hope), but that looks like theobromide to me.

    That’s a part of chocolate, right?

    I’m probably wrong here, but we can’t say I didn’t try.

  2. Shan says:

    Hey Keri! It sure looks a lot like theobromine.. Like on the Valentine’s Day cards MIT sent! :D

    Dude. If I haven’t told you already, those are AWESOME pick-up lines. Someday, when I’m feeling particularly nerdy, I’ll have to try them out on some poor unsuspecting soul. wink

  3. zoogies says:

    Have you tried for subscripts?

  4. Wenhao Sun says:

    Here’s a true story, when I showed my girlfriend the awesome e/c^2 (-1)^(.5) pv/nr MIT identity, she commenced to ask me to Tolo (“Sadie Hawkins” dance on the east side apparently) using an entire page of physics identities. Haha… good times. That’s why I (-infinity,3) her. Happy Valentines Day!

  5. Anonymous says:

    How’s this for a nerdy pick up line:

    I wish you were a vector function, so I could see how much you flux when I curl you!

  6. Vivek says:

    Bryan can you please say anything about lanthanides and actinides. lanthanides start from z=57 or z=58 and any reason for the la-57 to have one electron in one of the 5d orbital in place of 4f, except something called energy consideration, if thats only i hope you will shed light upon why is it so

    edit:Sorry for deviation from admission process

  7. andres says:

    Hey! nice nerdy pick up lines what about this one:

    Darling, if we were polinomial functions we could derivate our selves and make lower term polinoms. :p

  8. A says:

    Hey, random question : do you guys actually have girlfriends ?

  9. Will says:

    I have the best pickup line ever… and I have a gf…

    Hey baby, you must be a computer programmer, because you turn my three-and-a-half-inch floppy into a hard drive…

  10. A says:

    And…. did you ever tell her that ???

  11. Dave says:

    wow…i have no idea what those equations mean, but i do have a witty pick-up line

    Find a generic sugar packet…yes, the ones that have “Sugar” written on them, then go up to a chick and say “you dropped you name tag”…i have some other ones, but i’d probably be banned from MIT if i said them

  12. Honest G. says:

    Salut!

    I really love MIT and people in here are great! I also really like your blog! So i think ya really good in maths! If you can try this:

    Demonstrate:

    (1-cosx)(4cos