(to the tune of Piano Man)
July 17th, in the summertime,
the crowd of alums shuffles in.
There's a silver-haired guy who just challenged me
to a 16-8-9 game of Nim.
He says, "Find longest path in a DAG.
A quite simple question to pose.
But it's NP-complete with computer discrete;
unless NP is in P, who knows?"
Chorus:
La la la, di di da, la la, di di da, da dum.
Show us the way you're the Yellow Pig.
Bring the solution to light.
We can see all of math in its majesty,
and then fly off into the night.
Now 17 is a number so fine,
it's better than pi and than e,
in wallpaper baroque symmetry is evoked;
also it's Fermat prime number three.
And HCSSiM is in full swing,
as the whiteboards are filled, then erased,
it's a union of math and math-geekiness
centered in this incredible place.
Chorus