Epsilon and its friend trusty delta
As the x value's tending to two
I was limi-ting a function that might be holey
Or might continue
If you always have a delta
Then team, the limit's found
And the y-val's the same
You're set to nail it down
But the lims I've seen lately
Keep on turnin' out
and burnin' out
and turnin' out The same
So put me on a sine wave and show me a line
And take it to the limit one more time
You can spend all your time proving lemmas
And you can spend all your ink chasing signs
If the proof fell to pieces tomorrow
Would you still be mine?
And when you're looking for your theorem
Nobody seems to care
And you can't think no more
ain't gettin' anywhere
When there's nothing to believe in
Still you're comin' back
You're runnin' back
You're comin' back for more
So put me on a realline and show me a sine
And take it to the limit one more time
Take it to the limit Take it to the limit
Take it to the limit One more time
She's a good group, loves her zero
Loves products, and inverses too
She's a good group, complete and ordered
She's a field, and uncountable too
It's a long day, livin' at Mathcamp
There's a power, I need to compute
And I'm a bad boy, 'cause I don't even miss R
I'm a bad boy, for adjoining a root.
And I'm C crawling yeah I'm C crawling
C crawling
Analytics converge on the compacts
Uniform to a limiting map
Take the zeros in a product expansion
But the poles are summed in their place
And I'm C Crawling yeah I'm C crawling
C crawling
I wanna Cauchy Riemann condition
I wanna use the lemma of Schwarz
I wannr Weierstrass product expansion
Gonna leave the reals for awhile...
And I'm C Crawling yeah I'm C Crawling
C Crawling
Mathematician, why don't you stop all your lectures
You've been chasing conjectures for so long now
Oh, they are hard ones, I know that you've got your reasons
These things that are teasin' you could be false and how
Don't you try the line of Riemann boy
You'll get no help from Maple
You know the sum Goldbach 'sanother lousy bet
Now it seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can't get
Mathematician, oh you ain't gettin' no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home
Your theorem, oh theorem, that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walkin' through this world all alone
Don't your feet get cold near to tenure time?
Your thoughts won't flow and your points won't line
It's harder to get published every day
You're losing all your highs and lows
Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away
Mathematician, why don't you stop all your lectures
Give up on conjectures, find a new claim
They may be nameless, but you can get some more near'em
Prove a reasonable theorem
Prove a reasonable theorem, you'll still get some fame
Verse 1
On the dark Colby campus
Cool rain in my hair
Warm smell of asphalt dust
Risin' up through the air
Up above in the tower
I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy & my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
And I walked in the doorway
I heard "Hail Colby Hail"
and I was thinking to myself
of being sent to Heaven & being sent to Hell
Then a sign lit before me
reading "Join Our Array"
I saw an infinite corridor
And heard a loud voice say:
Chorus
Welcome to the Hotel Aleph Null - yeah
What a lovely place (what a lovely place)
Got a lot of space
Packin' em in at the Hotel Aleph Null - yeah
Any time of year
You can find space here
Verse 2
But every room was taken
So I turned to go
But Jacques appeared before me
saying "we've always got room, you know
We'll shift people over
to the next room in line
You can then use the first one
I hope it suits you fine."
Sure enough, as he promised
The nearest room became free;
I didn't know when I got there
I'd be there for eternity
And still those voices are calling
From far far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say
Chorus
Verse 3
A new group came over
A group without end
Now I thought I would get to leave
So these new ones could get in.
But I was mistaken --
This was a crafty crew;
All old guests were moved over
to their old room numbers times 2
This left them a sequence
Of odd-numbered rooms
So they were accomodated
And regular business resumed.
I was stuck in this hotel;
I could only leave
if they couldn't get everyone in --
I had no reprieve.
Chorus
Verse 4
Last night, in came Cantor Set,
trying to get in.
But did they have the room?
Could they make it fit in?
A countable process
Can produce this set.
So they started filling up the rooms
in a way I'll never forget.
They put in all the endpoints
(All rational, they're fine)
But so many left over --
Enough to fill a line.
Obvious to see
they'd never be done.
There was no way around it --
Sent them to Hotel Aleph One.