Jennifer Ouellette Quotes & Sayings

I abandoned the assigned problems in standard calculus textbooks and followed my curiosity. Wherever I happened to be
a Vegas casino, Disneyland, surfing in Hawaii, or sweating on the elliptical in Boesel's Green Microgym
I asked myself, Where is the calculus in this experience? — Jennifer Ouellette

I succeeded at math, at least by the usual evaluation criteria: grades. Yet while I might have earned top marks in geometry and algebra, I was merely following memorized rules, plugging in numbers and dutifully crunching out answers by rote, with no real grasp of the significance of what I was doing or its usefulness in solving real-world problems. Worse, I knew the depth of my own ignorance, and I lived in fear that my lack of comprehension would be discovered and I would be exposed as an academic fraud
psychologists call this "imposter syndrome". — Jennifer Ouellette

The German astronomer Johannes Kepler coined the term "camera obscura" in the early seventeenth century, but by then the phenomenon had been known for millennia; in fact, it is perhaps the oldest known optical illusion. Some form of camera obscura was most likely behind a popular illusion performed in ancient Greece and Rome, in which spectral images were cast upon the smoke of burning incense by performers using concave metal mirrors - hence the expression "smoke and mirrors. — Jennifer Ouellette

I will never listen to ocean waves or view a beautiful sunset in quite the same way again. That is perhaps the greatest gift one can gain by delving into calculus: It is a whole new way of looking at the world, accessible only through the realm of mathematics. — Jennifer Ouellette

Genes are deterministic but they are not destiny. — Jennifer Ouellette

I think scientists have a valid point when they bemoan the fact that it's socially acceptable in our culture to be utterly ignorant of math, whereas it is a shameful thing to be illiterate. — Jennifer Ouellette

Stupid entropy ruins everything. — Jennifer Ouellette

Male fruit flies also become a bit randy, although they are less likely to mate successfully - perhaps because, in their alcohol-induced haze, they frequently court other males by mistake, instead of females. — Jennifer Ouellette