My
Combinatorial Algorithms professor (Jeff Erikson) told us in class
one day that he was seriously considering putting this book on the Recommended
Books list for class, to help us learn
recursion.
At one point, the Cat in the Hat needs to clean up a big mess.
So, the Cat takes off his hat, and underneath his hat is another
hat, a hat with a big "A" on it. He takes off the "A" hat and underneath
is a "B" hat. He takes off the "B" hat, and there's a "C" hat...all
the way down to "Z". He finally takes off the "Z" hat, and underneath
that hat is a little "Z" cat who uses "Voom" to do all the work.
Then, the "Z" cat gets back on the Cat's head, and the Cat puts
back on all his hats.
Lo and behold, recursion!
Prof. Erikson, however, realized that he did not yet have tenure and
thus didn't want to risk waking up one day to see "COLLEGE PROFESSOR TEACHING
DR. SEUSS!" plastered on the front page of the New York Times.