Here's some math related humor obtained from various sources.
Send comments, ideas, etc. via e-mail, rather than posting to rec.humor.
New items: #9 in the Sin, Cos, Tan order mnemonics list.
The Northwestern University Marching band's "The Calculus Cheer"
Michael Cook
MLC@IBERIA.CCA.ROCKWELL.COM
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"A person who can, within a year, solve x^2 - 92y^2 = 1 is a mathematician."
-- Brahmagupta
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Math and Alcohol don't mix, so...
PLEASE DON'T DRINK AND DERIVE
Then there's every parent's scream when their child walks into the
room dazed and staggering:
OH NO...YOU'VE BEEN TAKING DERIVATIVES!!
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MADD = Mathematicians
Against
Drunk
Deriving
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[This limerick was previously posted incorrectly.
The integral limit has been changed.]
Here's a limerick I picked up off the net a few years back - looks better
on paper.
3_
\/3
/
| 2 3 X pi 3_
| z dz X cos(--------) = ln (\/e )
| 9
/
1
Which, of course, translates to:
Integral z-squared dz
from 1 to the cube root of 3
times the cosine
of three pi over 9
equals log of the cube root of 'e'.
And it's correct, too.
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This poem was written by John Saxon (an author of math textbooks).
((12 + 144 + 20 + (3 * 4^(1/2))) / 7) + (5 * 11) = 9^2 + 0
Or for those who have trouble with the poem:
A Dozen, a Gross and a Score,
plus three times the square root of four,
divided by seven,
plus five times eleven,
equals nine squared and not a bit more.
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'Tis a favorite project of mine
A new value of pi to assign.
I would fix it at 3
For it's simpler, you see,
Than 3 point 1 4 1 5 9.
("The Lure of the Limerick" by W.S. Baring-Gould, p.5. Attributed to
Harvey L. Carter).
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If inside a circle a line
Hits the center and goes spine to spine
And the line's length is "d"
the circumference will be
d times 3.14159
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If (1+x) (real close to 1)
Is raised to the power of 1
Over x, you will find
Here's the value defined:
2.718281...
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An engineer thinks that his equations are an approximation to reality.
A physicist thinks reality is an approximation to his equations.
A mathematician doesn't care.
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Why is the number 10 afraid of seven?
-- because seven ate nine.
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We use epsilons and deltas in mathematics because mathematicians tend
to make errors.
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What's big, grey, and proves the uncountability of the reals?
Cantor's Diagonal Elephant!
How can you tell that Harvard was layed out by a mathematician?
The div school [divinity school] is right next to the grad school...
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The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center was known as SLAC, until the
big earthquake, when it became known as SPLAC.
SPLAC? Stanford Piecewise Linear Accelerator.
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Q: How many topologists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: It really doesn't matter, since they'd rather knot.
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A mathematician decides he wants to learn more about practical
problems. He sees a seminar with a nice title: "The Theory of Gears."
So he goes. The speaker stands up and begins, "The theory of gears
with a real number of teeth is well known ..."
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A group of scientists were doing an investigation into problem-solving
techniques, and constructed an experiment involving a physicist, an
engineer, and a mathematician.
The experimental apparatus consisted of a water spigot and two identical
pails, one of which was fastened to the ground ten feet from the spigot.
Each of the subjects was given the second pail, empty, and told to fill the
pail on the ground.
The physicist was the first subject: he carried his pail to the spigot,
filled it there, carried it full of water to the pail on the ground, and
poured the water into it. Standing back, he declared, "There: I have
solved the problem."
The engineer and the mathematician each approached the problem similarly.
Upon finishing, the engineer noted that the solution was exact, since the
volumes of the pails were equal. The mathematician merely noted that he
had proven that a solution exists.
Now, the experimenters altered the parameters of the task a bit: the pail
on the ground was still empty, but the subjects were presented with a pail
that was already half-filled with water.
The physicist immediately carried his pail over to the one on the ground,
emptied the water into it, went back to the spigot, *filled* the pail, and
finally emptied the entire contents into the pail on the ground,
overflowing it and spilling some of the water. Upon finishing, he
commented that the problem should have been better stated.
The engineer, in turn, thought for some time before going into action. He
then took his half-filled pail to the spigot, filled it to the brim, and
filled the pail on the ground from it. Again he noted that the problem had
an exact solution, which of course he had found.
The mathematician thought for a long time before stirring. At last he
stood up, emptied his pail onto the ground, and declared, "The problem has
been reduced to one already solved."
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Professor Dirac, a famous Applied Mathematician-Physicist, had a horse
shoe over his desk. One day a student asked if he really believed
that a horse shoe brought luck. Professor Dirac replied, "I
understand that it brings you luck if you believe in it or not."
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First of all let me make it clear that I have nothing against
contravariant functors. Some of my best friends are cohomology
theories! But now you aren't supposed to call them contravariant
anymore. It's Algebraically Correct to call them 'differently
arrowed'!!
In the same way that transcendental numbers are polynomially
challenged?
Manifolds are personifolds (humanifolds).
Neighborhoods are neighbor victims of society.
It's the Asian Remainder Theorem.
It isn't PC to use "singularity" - the function is "convergently
challenged" there.
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Why did the computer scientist die in the shower?
Because he read the instructions on the shampoo bottle, "Lather,
rinse, repeat."
Why did the calculus student have so much trouble making Kool-Aid?
Because he couldn't figure out how to get a quart of water into the
little package.
Q: Why do computer scientists confuse Christmas and Halloween?
A: Because Oct 31 = Dec 25
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Here are some phrases used to remember SIN, COS, and TAN.
(SIN = Opposite/Hypotenuse, COS = Adjacent/H, TAN = O/A).
1. SOHCAHTOA (sock-a-toe-a)
2. The Cat Sat
On An Orange
And Howled Hard
3. Some Old Hulks
Carry A Huge
Tub Of Ale
4. Silly Old Hitler
Caused Awful Headaches
To Our Airmen
5. Some Old Hag
Cracked All Her
Teeth On Asparagus
6. Some Old Hairy
Camels Are Hairier
Than Others Are
7. Silly Old Harry
Caught A Herring
Trawling Off America
8. SOPHY, CADHY, TOAD
9. Some Old Horse
Caught Another Horse
Taking Oats Away
--------------------------------units and dimensions-------------
2 monograms 1 diagram
8 nickles 2 paradigms
2 wharves 1 paradox
10E5 bicycles 2 megacycles
1 unit of suspense in an Agatha Christie novel 1 whod unit
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Three Laws of Thermodynamics (paraphrased):
First Law: You can't get anything without working for it.
Second Law: The most you can accomplish by work is to break even.
Third Law: You can't break even.
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Q: What goes "Pieces of seven! Pieces of seven!"?
A: A parroty error!!
Q: What did the circle say to the tangent line?
A: "Stop touching me!"
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A mathematician is a person who says that, when 3 people are supposed
to be in a room but 5 came out, 2 have to go in so the room gets
empty...
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The upgrade path to the most powerful and satisfying computer:
* Pocket calculator
* Commodore Pet / Apple II / TRS 80 / Commodore 64 / Timex Sinclair
(Choose any of the above)
* IBM PC
* Apple Macintosh
* Fastest workstation of the time (HP, DEC, IBM, SGI: your choice)
* Minicomputer (HP, DEC, IBM, SGI: your choice)
* Mainframe (IBM, Cray, DEC: your choice)
And then you reach the pinnacle of modern computing facilities:
*********************************************************
******* G R A D U A T E S T U D E N T S ********
*********************************************************
Yes, you just sit back and do all of your computing through lowly
graduate students. Imagine the advantages:
* Multi-processing, with as many processes as you have
students. You can easily add more power by promising more
desperate undergrads that they can indeed escape college
through your guidance. Special student units can even
handle several tasks *on*their*own*!
* Full voice recognition interface. Never touch a keyboard or
mouse again. Just mumble commands and they *will* be
understood (or else!).
* No hardware upgrades and no installation required. Every
student comes complete with all hardware necessary. Never
again fry a chip or $10,000 board by improper installation!
Just sit that sniveling student at a desk, give it writing
utensils (making sure to point out which is the dangerous
end) and off it goes.
* Low maintenance. Remember when that hard disk crashed in
your Beta 9900, causing all of your work to go the great bit
bucket in the sky? This won't happen with grad. students.
All that is required is that you give them a good *whack!*
upside the head when they are acting up, and they will run
good as new.
* Abuse module. Imagine yelling expletives at your computer.
Doesn't work too well, because your machine just sits there
and ignores you. Through the grad student abuse module you
can put the fear of god in them, and get results to boot!
* Built-in lifetime. Remember that awful feeling two years
after you bought your GigaPlutz mainframe when the new
faculty member on the block sneered at you because his
FeelyWup workstation could compute rings around your
dinosaur? This doesn't happen with grad. students. When
they start wearing and losing productivity, simply give them
the PhD and boot them out onto the street to fend for
themselves. Out of sight, out of mind!
* Cheap fuel: students run on Coca Cola (or the high-octane
equivalent -- Jolt Cola) and typically consume hot spicy
chinese dishes, cheap taco substitutes, or completely
synthetic macaroni replacements. It is entirely unnecessary
to plug the student into the wall socket (although this does
get them going a little faster from time to time).
* Expansion options. If your grad. students don't seem to be
performing too well, consider adding a handy system manager
or software engineer upgrade. These guys are guaranteed to
require even less than a student, and typically establish
permanent residence in the computer room. You'll never know
they are around! (Which you certainly can't say for an
AXZ3000-69 150gigahertz space-heater sitting on your desk
with its ten noisy fans....) [Note however that the
engineering department still hasn't worked out some of the
idiosyncratic bugs in these expansion options, such as
incessant muttering at nobody in particular, occasionaly
screaming at your grad. students, and posting ridiculous
messages on world-wide bulletin boards.]
So forget your Babbage Engines and abacuses (abaci?) and PortaBooks
and DEK 666-3D's and all that other silicon garbage. The wave of the
future is in wetware, so invest in graduate students today! You'll never
go back!
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If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was
standing on the shoulder of giants.
-- Isaac Newton
If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants
were standing on my shoulders.
-- Hal Abelson
In computer science, we stand on each other's feet.
-- Brian K. Reid
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He thinks he's really smooth, but he's only C^1.
He's always going off on a tangent.
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A mathematician and a physicist agree to a psychological experiment.
The mathematician is put in a chair in a large empty room and a
beautiful naked woman is placed on a bed at the other end of the room.
The psychologist explains, "You are to remain in your chair. Every
five minutes, I will move your chair to a position halfway between its
current location and the woman on the bed." The mathematician looks
at the psychologist in disgust. "What? I'm not going to go through
this. You know I'll never reach the bed!" And he gets up and storms
out. The psychologist makes a note on his clipboard and ushers the
physicist in. He explains the situation, and the physicist's eyes
light up and he starts drooling. The psychologist is a bit confused.
"Don't you realize that you'll never reach her?" The physicist smiles
and replied, "Of course! But I'll get close enough for all practical
purposes!"
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Dean, to the physics department. "Why do I always have to give you
guys so much money, for laboratories and expensive equipment and
stuff. Why couldn't you be like the math department - all they need
is money for pencils, paper and waste-paper baskets. Or even better,
like the philosophy department. All they need are pencils and paper."
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An engineer, physicist, and mathematician are all challenged with a
problem: to fry an egg when there is a fire in the house. The
engineer just grabs a huge bucket of water, runs over to the fire, and
puts it out. The physicist thinks for a long while, and then measures
a precise amount of water into a container. He takes it over to the
fire, pours it on, and with the last drop the fire goes out. The
mathematician pores over pencil and paper. After a few minutes he
goes "Aha! A solution exists!" and goes back to frying the egg.
Sequel: This time they are asked simply to fry an egg (no fire). The
engineer just does it, kludging along; the physicist calculates
carefully and produces a carefully cooked egg; and the mathematician
lights a fire in the corner, and says "I have reduced it to the
previous problem."
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A physicist and a mathematician setting in a faculty lounge.
Suddenly, the coffee machine catches on fire. The physicist grabs a
bucket and leaps towards the sink, fills the bucket with water and
puts out the fire. The second day, the same two sit in the same
lounge. Again, the coffee machine catches on fire. This time, the
mathematician stands up, gets a bucket, hands the bucket to the
physicist, thus reducing the problem to a previously solved one.
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An engineer, a mathematician, and a physicist are staying in three
adjoining cabins at a decrepit old motel.
First the engineer's coffee maker catches fire on the bathroom vanity.
He smells the smoke, wakes up, unplugs it, throws it out the window,
and goes back to sleep.
Later that night the physicist smells smoke too. He wakes up and sees
that a cigarette butt has set the trash can on fire. He says to
himself, "Hmm. How does one put out a fire? One can reduce the
temperature of the fuel below the flash point, isolate the burning
material from oxygen, or both. This could be accomplished by applying
water." So he picks up the trash can, puts it in the shower stall,
turns on the water, and, when the fire is out, goes back to sleep.
The mathematician, of course, has been watching all this out the
window. So later, when he finds that his pipe ashes have set the
bedsheet on fire, he is not in the least taken aback. He immediately
sees that the problem reduces to one that has already been solved and
goes back to sleep.
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A mathematician and a physicist were asked the following question:
Suppose you walked by a burning house and saw a hydrant and
a hose not connected to the hydrant. What would you do?
P: I would attach the hose to the hydrant, turn on the water, and put out
the fire.
M: I would attach the hose to the hydrant, turn on the water, and put out
the fire.
Then they were asked this question:
Suppose you walked by a house and saw a hose connected to
a hydrant. What would you do?
P: I would keep walking, as there is no problem to solve.
M: I would disconnect the hose from the hydrant and set the house on fire,
reducing the problem to a previously solved form.
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There were two men trying to decide what to do for a living. They
went to see a counselor, and he decided that they had good problem
solving skills.
He tried a test to narrow the area of specialty. He put each man in a
room with a stove, a table, and a pot of water on the table. He said
"Boil the water". Both men moved the pot from the table to the stove
and turned on the burner to boil the water. Next, he put them into a
room with a stove, a table, and a pot of water on the floor. Again,
he said "Boil the water". The first man put the pot on the stove and
turned on the burner. The counselor told him to be an Engineer,
because he could solve each problem individually. The second man
moved the pot from the floor to the table, and then moved the pot from
the table to the stove and turned on the burner. The counselor told
him to be a mathematician because he reduced the problem to a
previously solved problem.
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So a mathematician, an engineer, and a physicist are out hunting
together. They spy a deer(*) in the woods.
The physicist calculates the velocity of the deer and the effect of
gravity on the bullet, aims his rifle and fires. Alas, he misses; the
bullet passes three feet behind the deer. The deer bolts some yards,
but comes to a halt, still within sight of the trio.
"Shame you missed," comments the engineer, "but of course with an
ordinary gun, one would expect that." He then levels his special
deer-hunting gun, which he rigged together from an ordinary rifle, a
sextant, a compass, a barometer, and a bunch of flashing lights which
don't do anything but impress onlookers, and fires. Alas, his bullet
passes three feet in front of the deer, who by this time wises up and
vanishes for good.
"Well," says the physicist, "your contraption didn't get it either."
"What do you mean?" pipes up the mathematician. "Between the two of
you, that was a perfect shot!"
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(*) How they knew it was a deer:
The physicist observed that it behaved in a deer-like manner, so it
must be a deer.
The mathematician asked the physicist what it was, thereby reducing it
to a previously solved problem.
The engineer was in the woods to hunt deer, therefore it was a deer.
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A computer scientist, mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were
travelling through Scotland when they saw a black sheep through the
window of the train.
"Aha," says the engineer, "I see that Scottish sheep are black."
"Hmm," says the physicist, "You mean that some Scottish sheep are
black."
"No," says the mathematician, "All we know is that there is at least
one sheep in Scotland, and that at least one side of that one sheep is
black!"
"Oh, no!" shouts the computer scientist, "A special case!"
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A Mathematician (M) and an Engineer (E) attend a lecture by a
Physicist. The topic concerns Kulza-Klein theories involving physical
processes that occur in spaces with dimensions of 11, 12 and even
higher. The M is sitting, clearly enjoying the lecture, while the E
is frowning and looking generally confused and puzzled. By the end
the E has a terrible headache. At the end, the M comments about the
wonderful lecture. The E says "How do you understand this stuff?"
M: "I just visualize the process."
E: "How can you POSSIBLY visualize something that occurs in
11-dimensional space?"
M: "Easy, first visualize it in N-dimensional space, then let N go to 11."
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What is "pi"?
Mathematician: Pi is the number expressing the relationship between the
circumference of a circle and its diameter.
Physicist: Pi is 3.1415927 plus or minus 0.00000005
Engineer: Pi is about 3.
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When considering the behaviour of a howitzer:
A mathematician will be able to calculate where the shell will land.
A physicist will be able to explain how the shell gets there.
An engineer will stand there and try to catch it.
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An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an
anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no
doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations
the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few
minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to himself
happily as he now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper.
This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed
right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite
rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers
this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let
alone funny.
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Q: What's purple and commutes?
A: An abelian grape.
Q: Why did the mathematician name his dog "Cauchy"?
A: Because he left a residue at every pole.
Q: Why is it that the more accuracy you demand from an interpolation
function, the more expensive it becomes to compute?
A: That's the Law of Spline Demand.
Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One, who gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing it to an
earlier riddle.
-- from a button I bought at Nancy Lebowitz's table at Boskone
Q: What do a mathematician and a physicist [or engineer, or musician,
or whatever the profession of the person addressed] have in common?
A: They are both stupid, with the exception of the mathematician.
Q: What do you call a teapot of boiling water on top of mount everest?
A: A high-pot-in-use
Q: What do you call a broken record?
A: A Decca-gone
Q: What do you get when you cross 50 female pigs and 50 male deer?
A: One hundred sows-and-bucks
Q: Why did the chicken cross the Moebius strip?
A: To get to the other ... er, um ...
Q: What is the world's longest song?
A: "Aleph-nought Bottles of Beer on the Wall."
Q: What does a mathematician do when he's constipated?
A: He works it out with a pencil.
Q: What's yellow and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice.
A: Zorn's Lemon.
Q: What do you get if you cross an elephant with a zebra.
A: Elephant zebra sin theta.
Q: What do you get if you cross an elephant with a mountain climber.
A: You can't do that. A mountain climber is a scalar.
Q: What do you get when you cross an elephant with a banana?
A: Elephant banana sine theta in a direction mutually perpendicular to
the two as determined by the right hand rule.
Q: To what question is the answer "9W."
A: "Dr. Wiener, do you spell your name with a V?"
A somewhat advanced society has figured how to package basic knowledge
in pill form.
A student, needing some learning, goes to the pharmacy and asks what
kind of knowledge pills are available. The pharmacist says "Here's a
pill for English literature." The student takes the pill and swallows
it and has new knowledge about English literature!
"What else do you have?" asks the student.
"Well, I have pills for art history, biology, and world history,"
replies the pharmacist.
The student asks for these, and swallows them and has new knowledge
about those subjects.
Then the student asks, "Do you have a pill for math?"
The pharmacist says "Wait just a moment", and goes back into the
storeroom and brings back a whopper of a pill and plunks it on the
counter.
"I have to take that huge pill for math?" inquires the student.
The pharmacist replied "Well, you know math always was a little hard
to swallow."
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"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems"
-- P. Erdos
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Three standard Peter Lax jokes (heard in his lectures) :
1. What's the contour integral around Western Europe?
Answer: Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe!
Addendum: Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but
they are removable!
2. An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his very religious
colleague:
Do you believe in one God?
Answer: Yes, up to isomorphism!
3. What is a compact city?
It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted
policemen!
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"Algebraic symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about."
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Heisenberg might have slept here.
Moebius always does it on the same side.
Statisticians probably do it
Algebraists do it in groups.
(Logicians do it) or [not (logicians do it)].
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A promising PhD candidate was presenting his thesis at his final
examination. He proceeded with a derivation and ended up with
something like:
F = -MA
He was embarrassed, his supervising professor was embarrassed, and the
rest of the committee was embarrassed. The student coughed nervously
and said "I seem to have made a slight error back there somewhere."
One of the mathematicians on the committee replied dryly, "Either that
or an odd number of them!"
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There was a mad scientist ( a mad ...social... scientist ) who
kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a
mathematician, and locked each of them in seperate cells with plenty
of canned food and water but no can opener.
A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's
cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can
opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to
make an explosive, and escaped.
The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off
the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a
good pitching arm and a new quantum theory.
The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising
solution to the kissing problem; his desiccated corpse was propped
calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood:
Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die.
Proof: assume the opposite...
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Problem: To Catch a Lion in the Sahara Desert.
(Hunting lions in Africa was originally published as "A contribution
to the mathematical theory of big game hunting" in the American
Mathematical Monthly in 1938 by "H. Petard, of Princeton NJ" oo ------ = 6
n
Proof: cancel the n in the numerator and denominator.
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Two male mathematicians are in a bar.
The first one says to the second that the average person knows very
little about basic mathematics.
The second one disagrees, and claims that most people can cope with a
reasonable amount of math.
The first mathematician goes off to the washroom, and in his absence
the second calls over the waitress.
He tells her that in a few minutes, after his friend has returned, he
will call her over and ask her a question. All she has to do is
answer one third x cubed.
She repeats `one thir -- dex cue'? He repeats `one third x cubed'.
Her: `one thir dex cuebd'? Yes, that's right, he says. So she
agrees, and goes off mumbling to herself, `one thir dex cuebd...'.
The first guy returns and the second proposes a bet to prove his
point, that most people do know something about basic math.
He says he will ask the blonde waitress an integral, and the first
laughingly agrees.
The second man calls over the waitress and asks `what is the integral
of x squared?'.
The waitress says `one third x cubed' and while walking away, turns
back and says over her shoulder `plus a constant'!
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This was made by Mike Bender and Sarah Herr:
MATHEMATICS PURITY TEST
Count the number of yes's, subtract from 60, and divide by 0.6.
----------
The Basics
1) Have you ever been excited about math?
2) Had an exciting dream about math?
3) Made a mathematical calculation?
4) Manipulated the numerator of an equation?
5) Manipulated the denominator of an equation?
6) On your first problem set?
7) Worked on a problem set past 3:00 a.m.?
8) Worked on a problem set all night?
9) Had a hard problem?
10) Worked on a problem continuously for more than 30 minutes?
11) Worked on a problem continuously for more than four hours?
12) Done more than one problem set on the same night (i.e. both
started and finished them)?
13) Done more than three problem sets on the same night?
14) Taken a math course for a full year?
15) Taken two different math courses at the same time?
16) Done at least one problem set a week for more than four months?
17) Done at least one problem set a night for more than one month
(weekends excluded)?
18) Done a problem set alone?
19) Done a problem set in a group of three or more?
20) Done a problem set in a group of 15 or more?
21) Was it mixed company?
22) Have you ever inadvertently walked in upon people doing a problem set?
23) And joined in afterwards?
24) Have you ever used food doing a problem set?
25) Did you eat it all?
26) Have you ever had a domesticated pet or animal walk over you while you
were doing a problem set?
27) Done a problem set in a public place where you might be discovered?
28) Been discovered while doing a problem set?
Kinky Stuff
29) Have you ever applied your math to a hard science?
30) Applied your math to a soft science?
31) Done an integration by parts?
32) Done two integration by parts in a single problem?
33) Bounded the domain and range of your function?
34) Used the domination test for improper integrals?
35) Done Newton's Method?
36) Done the Method of Frobenius?
37) Used the Sandwich Theorem?
38) Used the Mean Value Theorem?
39) Used a Gaussian surface?
40) Used a foreign object on a math problem (eg: calculator)?
41) Used a program to improve your mathematical technique (eg: MACSYMA)?
42) Not used brackets when you should have?
43) Integrated a function over its full period?
44) Done a calculation in three-dimensional space?
45) Done a calculation in n-dimensional space?
46) Done a change of bases?
47) Done a change of bases specifically in order to magnify your vector?
48) Worked through four complete bases in a single night (eg: using the
Graham-Schmidt method)?
49) Inserted a number into an equation?
50) Calculated the residue of a pole?
51) Scored perfectly on a math test?
52) Swallowed everything your professor gave you?
53) Used explicit notation in your problem set?
54) Purposefully omitted important steps in your problem set?
55) Padded your own problem set?
56) Been blown away on a test?
57) Blown away your professor on a test?
58) Have you ever multiplied 23 by 3?
59) Have you ever bounded your Bessel function so that the membrane
did not shoot to infinity?
69) Have you ever understood the following quote:
"The relationship between Z^0 to C_0, B_0, and H_0
is an example of a general principle which we have
encountered: the kernel of the adjoint of a linear
transformation is both the annihilator space of the
image of the transformation and also the dual space
of the quotient of the space of which the image is
a subspace by the image subspace."
(Sternberg & Bamberg's _A "Course" in Mathematics for
Students of Physics_, vol. 2)
Not precisely pure-math, but ...
Fuller's Law of Cosmic Irreversability:
1 pot T --> 1 pot P
but
1 pot P -/-] 1 pot T
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A tribe of Native Americans generally referred to their woman by the
animal hide with which they made their blanket. Thus, one woman might
be known as Squaw of Buffalo Hide, while another might be known as
Squaw of Deer Hide. This tribe had a particularly large and strong
woman, with a very unique (for North America anyway) animal hide for
her blanket. This woman was known as Squaw of Hippopotamus hide, and
she was as large and powerful as the animal from which her blanket was
made.
Year after year, this woman entered the tribal wrestling tournament,
and easily defeated all challengers; male or female. As the men of
the tribe admired her strength and power, this made many of the other
woman of the tribe extremely jealous. One year, two of the squaws
petitioned the Chief to allow them to enter their sons together as a
wrestling tandem in order to wrestle Squaw of the Hippopotamus hide as
a team. In this way, they hoped to see that she would no longer be
champion wrestler of the tribe.
As the luck of the draw would have it, the two sons who were wrestling
as a tandem met the squaw in the final and championship round of the
wrestling contest. As the match began, it became clear that the squaw
had finally met an opponent that was her equal. The two sons wrestled
and struggled vigorously and were clearly on an equal footing with the
powerful squaw. Their match lasted for hours without a clear victor.
Finally the chief intervened and declared that, in the interests of
the health and safety of the wrestlers, the match was to be terminated
and that he would declare a winner.
The chief retired to his teepee and contemplated the great struggle he
had witnessed, and found it extremely difficult to decide a winner.
While the two young men had clearly outmatched the squaw, he found it
difficult to force the squaw to relinquish her tribal championship.
After all, it had taken two young men to finally provide her with a
decent match. Finally, after much deliberation, the chief came out
from his teepee, and announced his decision. He said...
"The Squaw of the Hippopotamus hide is equal to the sons of the squaws
of the other two hides"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A topologist is a man who doesn't know the difference between a coffee
cup and a doughnut.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A statistician can have his head in an oven and his feet in ice, and
he will say that on the average he feels fine.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A guy decided to go to the brain transplant clinic to refreshen his
supply of brains. The secretary informed him that they had three
kinds of brains available at that time. Doctors' brains were going
for $20 per ounce and lawyers' brains were getting $30 per ounce. And
then there were mathematicians' brains which were currently fetching
$1000 per ounce.
"A 1000 dollars an ounce!" he cried. "Why are they so expensive?"
"It takes more mathematicians to get an ounce of brains," she explained.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A topologist walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender,
being a number theorist, says, "I'm sorry, but we don't serve
topologists here."
The disgruntled topologist walks outside, but then gets an idea and
performs Dahn surgery upon herself. She walks into the bar, and the
bartender, who does not recognize her since she is now a different
manifold, serves her a drink. However, the bartender thinks she looks
familiar, or at least locally similar, and asks, "Aren't you that
topologist that just came in here?"
To which she responds, "No, I'm a frayed knot."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three kinds of people in the world;
those who can count and those who can't.
And the related:
There are two groups of people in the world;
those who believe that the world can be
divided into two groups of people,
and those who don't.
And then:
There are two groups of people in the world:
Those who can be categorized into one of two
groups of people, and those who can't.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The world is divided into two classes:
people who say "The world is divided into two classes",
and people who say
The world is divided into two classes:
people who say: "The world is divided into two classes",
and people who say:
The world is divided into two classes:
people who say ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What follows is a "quiz" a student of mine once showed me (which she'd
gotten from a previous teacher, etc...). It's multiple choice, and if
you sort the letters (with upper and lower case disjoint) questions
and answers will come out next to each other. Enjoy...
S. What the acorn said when he grew up
N. bisects
u. A dead parrot
g. center
F. What you should do when it rains
R. hypotenuse
m. A geometer who has been to the beach
H. coincide
h. The set of cards is missing
y. polygon
A. The boy has a speech defect
t. secant
K. How they schedule gym class
p. tangent
b. What he did when his mother-in-law wanted to go home
D. ellipse
O. The tall kettle boiling on the stove
W. geometry
r. Why the girl doesn't run a 4-minute mile
j. decagon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
___ 1. That which Noah built.
___ 2. An article for serving ice cream.
___ 3. What a bloodhound does in chasing a woman.
___ 4. An expression to represent the loss of a parrot.
___ 5. An appropriate title for a knight named Koal.
___ 6. A sunburned man.
___ 7. A tall coffee pot perking.
___ 8. What one does when it rains.
___ 9. A dog sitting in a refrigerator.
___ 10. What a boy does on the lake when his motor won't run.
___ 11. What you call a person who writes for an inn.
___ 12. What the captain said when the boat was bombed.
___ 13. What a little acorn says when he grows up.
___ 14. What one does to trees that are in the way.
___ 15. What you do if you have yarn and needles.
___ 16. Can George Washington turn into a country?
A. hypotenuse I. circle
B. polygon J. axiom
C. inscribe K. cone
D. geometry L. coincide
E. unit M. cosecant
F. center N. tangent
G. decagone O. hero
H. arc P. perpendicular
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A team of engineers were required to measure the height of a flag
pole. They only had a measuring tape, and were getting quite
frustrated trying to keep the tape along the pole. It kept falling
down, etc.
A mathematician comes along, finds out their problem, and proceeds to
remove the pole from the ground and measure it easily.
When he leaves, one engineer says to the other: "Just like a
mathematician! We need to know the height, and he gives us the
length!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A man camped in a national park, and noticed Mr. Snake and Mrs. Snake
slithering by. "Where are all the little snakes?" he asked. Mr.
Snake replied, "We are adders, so we cannot multiply."
The following year, the man returned to the same camping spot. This
time there were a whole batch of little snakes. "I thought you said
you could not multiply," he said to Mr. Snake. "Well, the park ranger
came by and built a log table, so now we can multiply by adding!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Einstein dies and goes to heaven only to be informed that his room is
not yet ready. "I hope you will not mind waiting in a dormitory. We
are very sorry, but it's the best we can do and you will have to share
the room with others." he is told by the doorman (say his name is
Pete). Einstein says that this is no problem at all and that there is
no need to make such a great fuss. So Pete leads him to the dorm.
They enter and Albert is introduced to all of the present
inhabitants. "See, Here is your first room mate. He has an IQ of
180!"
"Why that's wonderful!" Says Albert. "We can discuss mathematics!"
"And here is your second room mate. His IQ is 150!"
"Why that's wonderful!" Says Albert. "We can discuss physics!"
"And here is your third room mate. His IQ is 100!"
"That Wonderful! We can discuss the latest plays at the theater!"
Just then another man moves out to capture Albert's hand and shake it.
"I'm your last room mate and I'm sorry, but my IQ is only 80."
Albert smiles back at him and says, "So, where to you think interest
rates are headed?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
97.3% of all statistics are made up.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did you hear the one about the statistician?
Probably....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was once a very smart horse. Anything that was shown it, it
mastered easily, until one day, its teachers tried to teach it about
rectangular coordinates and it couldn't understand them. All the
horse's acquaintances and friends tried to figure out what was the
matter and couldn't. Then a new guy (what the heck, a computer
engineer) looked at the problem and said,
"Of course he can't do it. Why, you're putting Descartes before the
horse!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOP TEN EXCUSES FOR NOT DOING THE MATH HOMEWORK
1. I accidentally divided by zero and my paper burst into flames.
2. Isaac Newton's birthday.
3. I could only get arbitrarily close to my textbook. I couldn't
actually reach it.
4. I have the proof, but there isn't room to write it in this margin.
5. I was watching the World Series and got tied up trying to prove
that it converged.
6. I have a solar powered calculator and it was cloudy.
7. I locked the paper in my trunk but a four-dimensional dog got in
and ate it.
8. I couldn't figure out whether i am the square of negative one or
i is the square root of negative one.
9. I took time out to snack on a doughnut and a cup of coffee.
I spent the rest of the night trying to figure which one to dunk.
10. I could have sworn I put the homework inside a Klein bottle, but
this morning I couldn't find it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The guy gets on a bus and starts threatening everybody: "I'll integrate
you! I'll differentiate you!!!" So everybody gets scared and runs
away. Only one person stays. The guy comes up to him and says:
"Aren't you scared, I'll integrate you, I'll differentiate you!!!" And
the other guy says; "No, I am not scared, I am e to the x."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A mathematician went insane and believed that he was the
differentiation operator. His friends had him placed in a mental
hospital until he got better. All day he would go around frightening
the other patients by staring at them and saying "I differentiate
you!"
One day he met a new patient; and true to form he stared at him and
said "I differentiate you!", but for once, his victim's expression
didn't change. Surprised, the mathematician marshalled his energies,
stared fiercely at the new patient and said loudly "I differentiate
you!", but still the other man had no reaction. Finally, in
frustration, the mathematician screamed out "I DIFFERENTIATE YOU!" --
at which point the new patient calmly looked up and said, "You can
differentiate me all you like: I'm e to the x."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/
| 1
| ----- = log cabin
| cabin
/
Oops, you forgot your constant of integration.
/
| 1
| ----- = log cabin + C
| cabin
/
And, as we all know,
log cabin + C = houseboat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8 5
If lim - = oo (infinity), then what does lim - = ?
x-]0 x x-]0 x
answer: (write 5 on it's side)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why did the cat fall off the roof?
Because he lost his mu. (mew=sound cats make, mu=coeff of friction)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Boy's Life, May 1973:
Ralph: Dad, will you do my math for me tonight?
Dad: No, son, it wouldn't be right.
Ralph: Well, you could try.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mrs. Johnson the elementary school math teacher was having children do
problems on the blackboard that day.
``Who would like to do the first problem, addition?''
No one raised their hand. She called on Tommy, and with some help he
finally got it right.
``Who would like to do the second problem, subtraction?''
Students hid their faces. She called on Mark, who got the problem but
there was some suspicion his girlfriend Lisa whispered it to him.
``Who would like to do the third problem, division?''
Now a low collective groan could be heard as everyone looked at
nothing in particular. The teacher called on Suzy, who got it right
(she has been known to hold back sometimes in front of her friends).
``Who would like to do the last problem, multiplication?''
Tim's hand shot up, surprising everyone in the room. Mrs. Johnson
finally gained her composure in the stunned silence. ``Why the
enthusiasm, Tim?''
``God said to go fourth and multiply!''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Definitions of Terms Commonly Used in Higher Math
The following is a guide to the weary student of mathematics who
is often confronted with terms which are commonly used but rarely
defined. In the search for proper definitions for these terms we
found no authoritative, nor even recognized, source. Thus, we
followed the advice of mathematicians handed down from time
immortal: "Wing It."
CLEARLY: I don't want to write down all the "in-
between" steps.
TRIVIAL: If I have to show you how to do this, you're
in the wrong class.
OBVIOUSLY: I hope you weren't sleeping when we discussed
this earlier, because I refuse to repeat it.
RECALL: I shouldn't have to tell you this, but for
those of you who erase your memory tapes
after every test...
WLOG (Without Loss Of Generality): I'm not about to do all the
possible cases, so I'll do one and let you
figure out the rest.
IT CAN EASILY BE SHOWN: Even you, in your finite wisdom, should
be able to prove this without me holding your
hand.
CHECK or CHECK FOR YOURSELF: This is the boring part of the
proof, so you can do it on your own time.
SKETCH OF A PROOF: I couldn't verify all the details, so I'll
break it down into the parts I couldn't
prove.
HINT: The hardest of several possible ways to do a
proof.
BRUTE FORCE (AND IGNORANCE): Four special cases, three counting
arguments, two long inductions, "and a
partridge in a pair tree."
SOFT PROOF: One third less filling (of the page) than
your regular proof, but it requires two extra
years of course work just to understand the
terms.
ELEGANT PROOF: Requires no previous knowledge of the subject
matter and is less than ten lines long.
SIMILARLY: At least one line of the proof of this case is
the same as before.
CANONICAL FORM: 4 out of 5 mathematicians surveyed
recommended this as the final form for their
students who choose to finish.
TFAE (The Following Are Equivalent): If I say this it means that,
and if I say that it means the other thing,
and if I say the other thing...
BY A PREVIOUS THEOREM: I don't remember how it goes (come to
think of it I'm not really sure we did this
at all), but if I stated it right (or at
all), then the rest of this follows.
TWO LINE PROOF: I'll leave out everything but the conclusion,
you can't question 'em if you can't see 'em.
BRIEFLY: I'm running out of time, so I'll just write
and talk faster.
LET'S TALK THROUGH IT: I don't want to write it on the board lest
I make a mistake.
PROCEED FORMALLY: Manipulate symbols by the rules without any
hint of their true meaning (popular in pure
math courses).
QUANTIFY: I can't find anything wrong with your proof
except that it won't work if x is a moon of
Jupiter (Popular in applied math courses).
PROOF OMITTED: Trust me, It's true.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the bayous of Louisiana, there is a small river called the Dirac.
Many wealthy people have their mansions near its mouth. One of the
social leaders decided to have a grand ball. Being a cousin of the
Governor, she arranged for a detachment of the state militia to serve
as guards and traffic directors for the big doings. A captain was
sent over with a small company; naturally he asked if there was enough
room for him and his unit. The social leader replied, "But of course,
Captain! It is well known that the Dirac delta function has unit
area."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Albert Einstein, who fancied himself as a violinist, was rehearsing a
Haydn string quartet. When he failed for the fourth time to get his
entry in the second movement, the cellist looked up and said, "The
problem with you, Albert, is that you simply can't count."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some famous mathematician was to give a keynote speech at a
conference. Asked for an advance summary, he said he would present a
proof of Fermat's Last Theorem -- but they should keep it under their
hats. When he arrived, though, he spoke on a much more prosaic
topic. Afterwards the conference organizers asked why he said he'd
talk about the theorem and then didn't. He replied this was his
standard practice, just in case he was killed on the way to the
conference.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I was a Math/Chem grad student at Princeton in 1973-74, there was
a story going around about a grad student. This guy was always late.
One day he stumbled into class late, saw seven problems written on the
board, and wrote them down. As the week went on he began to panic:
the math department at Princeton is fiercely competitive, and here he
was unable to do most of a simple homework assignment! When the next
class rolled around he only had solved two of the problems, although
he had a pretty good idea of how to solve a third but not enough time
to complete it.
When he dejectedly flung his partial assignment on the prof's desk,
the prof asked him "What's that?" "The homework." "What homework?"
Eventually it came out that what the prof had written on the board
were the seven most important unsolved problems in the field.
This is largely an academic legend, at least according to Jan Harold
Brunvand, the author of a series of books on so-called Urban Legends.
He talks about it in his latest book _Curses! Broiled Again!_ in the
chapter entitled "The Unsolvable Math Problem." It is, however, based
in some fact. The Stanford mathematician, George B. Danzig,
apparently managed to solve two statistics problems previously
unsolved under similar circumstances.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following problem can be solved either the easy way or the hard way.
Two trains 200 miles apart are moving toward each other; each one is
going at a speed of 50 miles per hour. A fly starting on the front of
one of them flies back and forth between them at a rate of 75 miles
per hour. It does this until the trains collide and crush the fly to
death. What is the total distance the fly has flown?
The fly actually hits each train an infinite number of times before it
gets crushed, and one could solve the problem the hard way with pencil
and paper by summing an infinite series of distances. The easy way
is as follows: Since the trains are 200 miles apart and each train is
going 50 miles an hour, it takes 2 hours for the trains to collide.
Therefore the fly was flying for two hours. Since the fly was flying
at a rate of 75 miles per hour, the fly must have flown 150 miles.
That's all there is to it.
When this problem was posed to John von Neumann, he immediately
replied, "150 miles."
"It is very strange," said the poser, "but nearly everyone tries to
sum the infinite series."
"What do you mean, strange?" asked Von Neumann. "That's how I did it!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them, they
translate it into their own language, and forthwith it means something
entirely different.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The reason that every major university maintains a department of
mathematics is that it is cheaper to do this than to institutionalize
all those people."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three mathematicians and a physicist walk into a bar.
You'd think the second one would have ducked. (Ha, that quack's me up!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What do you call a young eigensheep?
A lamb, duh!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The world is everywhere dense with idiots."
- LFS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One day a farmer called up an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician
and asked them to fence of the largest possible area with the least
amount of fence. The engineer made the fence in a circle and
proclaimed that he had the most efficient design. The physicist made
a long, straight line and proclaimed 'We can assume the length is
infinite...' and pointed out that fencing off half of the Earth was
certainly a more efficient way to do it. The Mathematician just
laughed at them. He built a tiny fence around himself and said 'I
declare myself to be on the outside.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An engineer, a mathematician, and a computer programmer are driving
down the road when the car they are in gets a flat tire. The engineer
says that they should buy a new car. The mathematician says they
should sell the old tire and buy a new one. The computer programmer
says they should drive the car around the block and see if the tire
fixes itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A math/computer science convention was being held. On the train to
the convention, a bunch of math majors and a bunch of computer science
majors were on the train. Each of the math majors had his/her train
ticket. The group of computer science majors had only ONE ticket for
all of them. The math majors started laughing and snickering.
Then, one of the CS majors said "here comes the conductor" and then
all of the CS majors went into the bathroom. The math majors were
puzzled. The conductor came aboard and said "tickets please" and got
tickets from all the math majors. He then went to the bathroom and
knocked on the door and said "ticket please" and the CS majors stuck
the ticket under the door. The conductor took it and then the CS
majors came out of the bathroom a few minutes later. The math majors
felt really stupid.
So, on the way back from the convention, the group of math majors had
one ticket for the group. They started snickering at the CS majors,
for the whole group had no tickets amongst them. Then, the CS major
lookout said "Conductor coming!". All the CS majors went to the
bathroom. All the math majors went to another bathroom. Then, before
the conductor came on board, one of the CS majors left the bathroom,
knocked on the other bathroom, and said "ticket please."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is supposedly a true story about Russell. It isn't
really a math joke since it makes fun of the British hierarchy, but
it's funny anyway....
Around the time when Cold War started, Bertrand Russell was giving a
lecture on politics in England. Being a leftist in a conservative
women's club, he was not received well at all: the ladies came up to
him and started attacking him with whatever they could get their hands
on. The guard, being an English gentleman, did not want to be rough
to the ladies and yet needed to save Russell from them. He said, "But
he is a great mathematician!" The ladies ignored him. The guard said
again, "But he is a great philosopher!" The ladies ignore him again.
In desperation, finally, he said, "But his brother is an earl!" Bert
was saved.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another "true" story, kinda like the aforementioned urban legend:
Enrico Fermi, while studying in college, was bored by his math
classes. He walked up to the professor and said, "My classes are too
easy!" The professor looked at him, and said, "Well, I'm sure you'll
find this interesting." Then the professor copied 9 problems from a
book to a paper and gave the paper to Fermi. A month later, the
professor ran into Fermi, "So how are you doing with the problems I
gave you?" "Oh, they are very hard. I only managed to solve 6 of
them." The professor was visibly shocked, "What!? But those are
unsolved problems!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician find themselves in an
anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no
doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations,
the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few
minutes later the physicist understands, too, and chuckles to himself
happily as he now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper.
This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed
right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite
rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers
this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let
alone funny.
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