Hah! Actually, that's pretty funny-condusive to accuracy!
That's one of those self canceling phrases, or whatever they call them.
You know what's also funny is that there actually was an old math teacher, 86 years old, who did say that "accuracy..." statement. Right after he said it, he was trying to solve a trig idenity and came up with the wrong answer on the chalk board. His writing was a mess, and it jumped all over the board. I do not know if he was trying to be clever by demonstrating his own point, or if he just flubbed it.
He was a good teacher. I took the trig final with a slide rule just to jazz up the old timer. He saw me using it and came over while I was taking the final and started rapping up a story about all the slap sticks that he still had, right during the final! One slide rule that he had was made out of ivory!!!
He used to return homework papers while we were taking mid terms. At first I thought, dude!, I'm taking a test! But then I realized it was his savvy way of de-stressing everybody. And it worked.
He was the only person I ever saw with a complete set of the Steinmetz volumes, God rest his soul.
Oh, I got 100 percent on the final. Granted, some of the kids might have had their logs to 5 places, but mine were good to 4, plus or minus 0.5.
Who is Steinmetz?
http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/steinmetz.html
If your short on time, here are a couple of good ones:
No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.
-- Charles Steinmetz, quoted from The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection, AApex Software (1994)
Here's an interesting anecdote, as told by Charles M. Vest, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, during commencement on June 4th, 1999. "In the early years of this century, Steinmetz was brought to General Electric's facilities in Schenectady, New York. GE had encountered a performance problem with one of their huge electrical generators and had been absolutely unable to correct it. Steinmetz, a genius in his understanding of electromagnetic phenomena, was brought in as a consultant - not a very common occurrence in those days, as it would be now. Steinmetz also found the problem difficult to diagnose, but for some days he closeted himself with the generator, its engineering drawings, paper and pencil. At the end of this period, he emerged, confident that he knew how to correct the problem. After he departed, GE's engineers found a large "X" marked with chalk on the side of the generator casing. There also was a note instructing them to cut the casing open at that location and remove so many turns of wire from the stator. The generator would then function properly. And indeed it did. Steinmetz was asked what his fee would be. Having no idea in the world what was appropriate, he replied with the absolutely unheard of answer that his fee was $1000. Stunned, the GE bureaucracy then required him to submit a formally itemized invoice. They soon received it. It included two items: 1. Marking chalk "X" on side of generator: $1. 2. Knowing where to mark chalk "X": $999."