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From: winkler@harvard.UUCP (Dan Winkler)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Coffee is the Source of All Higher Intelligence
Message-ID: <515@harvard.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-Nov-85 22:10:22 EST
Article-I.D.: harvard.515
Posted: Tue Nov 19 22:10:22 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Nov-85 22:13:25 EST
Organization: Aiken Comp Lab, Harvard
Lines: 29
Keywords: coffee intelligence mathematics

Dear Movers and Shakers,

In the course of reading Hadamard's "The Psychology of Invention in the
Mathematical Field", I have come across evidence supporting a fact
which we coffee achievers have long appreciated:  no really creative,
intelligent thought is possible without a good cup of coffee.  On page
14, Hadamard is discussing Poincare's theory of fuchsian groups and
fuchsian functions, which he describes as "...one of his greatest
discoveries, the first which consecrated his glory..."  Hadamard refers
to Poincare having had a "...sleepless night which initiated all that
memorable work..." and gives the following, very revealing quote:

	"One evening, contrary to my custom, I drank black coffee and
	could not sleep.  Ideas rose in crowds;  I felt them collide
	until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable
	combination."

Too bad drinking black coffee was contrary to his custom.  Maybe he
could really have amounted to something as a coffee achiever.

So as you're solving P=?NP, proving the unified field theory, and
computing the 10 millionth digit of pi in your head while juggling,
perfoming surgery on your own appendix, and whistling "Dixie" under
water, at zero gravity, in the dark, upside down, with one hand tied
behind your back, remember where you'd be without coffee.  And the next
time you see some poor, confused, under-achieving tea drinker stumble
by, say solemnly to yourself "There but for the grace of coffee go I."

Dan Winkler, Brown University Coffee Czar.