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A mathematical joke is a form of Professional Humor which relies on aspects of Mathematics or a Stereotype of Mathematician s to derive humor. The humor may come from a Pun or double meaning of a mathematical term, or on a non-mathematician's misunderstanding of a mathematical concept. Such jokes are frequently inaccessible to those without a mathematical bent. PUN-BASED JOKES ''Person 1'': What's the integral of 1/cabin? ''Person 2'': A log cabin. ''Person 1'': No, a houseboat - you forgot to add the C! The first part of this joke relies on the fact that the primitive (formed during Integration ) of the function 1/x is Log(x) . The second part is then based on the fact that when taking an indefinite integral it is necessary to include a constant of integration, usually denoted as C - something which many calculus students forget. Thus, the integral of 1/cabin is "log(cabin) + C", or "A Log Cabin plus the Sea ", ie. "A Houseboat ". Some of these jokes rely on the fact that many mathematical terms have non-mathematical meanings, such as the and Imaginary components." 'MATHEMATICAL PUN' BASED JOKES ''There are only 10 types of people in the world -- those who understand binary, and those who don't'' This joke relies on the fact that mathematical expressions, just as expressions in natural languages, may have multiple meanings. When multiple meanings are available, puns are possible. In this case a pun is made using the expression ''10''. For non-mathematicians ''10'' almost always refers to the number ''ten''. However, in Binary , the expression ''10'' means the number ''two''. Thus the joke says that there are only two kinds of people, those who understand binary, and those who don't. However, those who do not understand binary will certainly not get the joke. It must be noted this joke is only feasible in written form; when speaking a binary number aloud, most would phrase "10" as "One Zero" rather than "Ten". Telling a joke beginning with "There are only One Zero types of people in the world" would give away the joke immediately, or perhaps get the joke teller shouted down immediately. Another pun using different Radices , sometimes attributed to computer scientists, asks "Why do mathematicians think Halloween and Christmas are the same? Because 31 Oct = 25 Dec ." MATHEMATICAL REASONING A similar set of jokes applies mathematical reasoning to situations where it is not entirely valid. Many of these are based on a combination of well-known quotes and basic Logical constructs such as Syllogism s: Examples:
The second of these syllogisms happens to be a Logical Fallacy even when taken purely logically. There are also a number of joke Proof s, such as the proof that "Girls are evil": # Girls require time and money: # "Time is money": # So girls are money squared: # "Money is the root of all evil": # So girls are evil: MATHEMATICIANS Some jokes are based on stereotypes of mathematicians tending to think in complicated, abstract terms, causing them to lose touch with the "real world". Many of these jokes compare mathematicians to other professions, typically Physicist s, Engineers , or the "soft" Sciences in a form similar to those which begin "An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman ..." or the like. The joke generally shows the other scientist doing something practical, while the mathematician does something less useful such as making the necessary calculation but not performing the implied action. Examples: :A mathematician and his best friend, an engineer, attend a public lecture on geometry in thirteen-dimensional space. "How did you like it?" the mathematician wants to know after the talk. "My head's spinning", the engineer confesses. "How can you develop any intuition for thirteen-dimensional space?" "Well, it's not even difficult. All I do is visualize the situation in arbitrary N-dimensional space and then set N = 13." :A sociologist, a physicist and a mathematician are all given equal amounts of fencing, and are asked to enclose the greatest area. The sociologist pauses for a moment and decides to enclose a square area with his fence. The physicist, realizing he can fence off a greater amount of land with the same amount of fencing, promptly sets his fence in the form of a circle, and smiles. "I'd like to see you beat that!" he says to the mathematician. The mathematician, in response, takes a very small piece of his own fencing, and wraps it around himself, proclaiming, "I define myself to be outside of the fence!" (That is, he fences the rest of the Earth's surface. A circle on a sphere divides it into two parts and the mathematician makes it clear he refers to the larger one.) :A physicist and a mathematician are sharing a hotel room, and in the middle of the night both are awakened by the smell of smoke - a small fire has started in the room. The physicist jumps out of bed, rushes to the kitchen, fills a saucepan with water and throws it over the fire, which fizzles out. The physicist leaves the saucepan, with some water still in it, near their beds in case it is needed again, and both men go back to sleep. :Some time later, the mathematician again wakes up to the smell of smoke, but the physicist does not. Once again, a small fire has started in the room. The mathematician jumps out of bed, grabs the saucepan, and takes it back to the kitchen where he empties it and puts it back in the cupboard. He then returns to bed, safe in the knowledge that he has reduced the problem to one already solved. : A Sociologist , a physicist and a mathematician are each locked in a prison cell and given a supply of canned food, but no can opener. After thirty days, the cells are unlocked.
These jokes may also compare different strands of mathematicians and statisticians. For example, in the above joke, a fourth cell may hold a Topologist , and when the cell is opened again one of the cans is on the floor but the topologist is nowhere to be found. After hearing some tapping noises from the can, a can opener is quickly procured and the can is opened to reveal the topologist, who has somehow gotten himself stuck inside. Says the topologist, "Damn! I made a sign error!" (the joke being that in topology two orientations of an object - such as inside and outside - are usually distinguished by a negative sign). Mathematicians are also averse to making sweeping generalisations from a small amount of data, preferring instead to state only that which can be logically deduced from the given information - even if some form of generalisation seems plausible: :A mathematician,a physicist,and an engineer were traveling 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, at least one side of which looks black!" Mathematician and astronomer Mathematicians and astronomers had different ideas about what Convergence Of A Series means: ∑(1000''n''/''n''!) and ∑(''n''!/1000''n'') {Link without Title} Mathematically, the former series converges to E 1000, and the latter eventually diverges, but, looking to the first few (that is, less than several thousand) terms, the former seems to be diverging and the latter seems to be converging to slightly more than 0.001. Therefore, since most software cannot calculate numbers as large as 10001000 or 1000!, the series could be said to be 'practically' respectively divergent or convergent. (On the graph beside, the series are actually ∑(40''n''/''n''!) and ∑(''n''!/40''n''). Note that the ''y''-axis is logarithmic, so although the former series looks like it immediately starts slowing down, it actually speeds up until ''n'' = 40. On a linear axis the illusion of divergence would be more striking.) PoincarĂ© argued that a mathematician would consider the first convergent and the second divergent, while an astronomer would label them the other way round. The joke was based on Sundman's Solution To The Three-body Problem . It is based on a convergent series, but it converges so slow that getting the value to any useful precision requires so many terms that his solution is of little practical use. Thus astronomers argue that the problem has not really been solved. NON-MATHEMATICIANS The next category of jokes is those that exploit common misunderstandings of mathematics, or the expectation that most people have only a basic mathematical education, if any. Examples: :A visitor to the Royal Tyrell Museum was admiring a Tyrannosaurus fossil, and asked a nearby museum employee how old it was. :"That skeleton's sixty-five million and three years, two months and eighteen days old," the employee replied. :"How can you know it that well?" :"Well, when I started working here, I asked a scientist the exact same question, and he said it was sixty-five million years old - and that was Three Years, Two Months And Eighteen Days Ago ." :Two mathematicians are eating together at a diner, and they wind up arguing over how much mathematics the average person knows - one believes that most people have a reasonable knowledge, while the other thinks most people are incredibly ignorant when it comes to mathematics. While the second mathematician is in the restroom, the first decides to have a little fun to argue his point so he calls a waitress over and tells her "In a few minutes, I'm going to call you over again and ask you a question, and the answer will be 'One-third x cubed'. Can you remember that for me?" :"One thir dex cube," she says. :"One-third x cubed," he corrects her. :"One third ex cube," she repeats, and leaves. :When the second mathematician returns, the first one calls to the waitress and asks her "Waitress, what is the integral of x squared?" She replies "one-third x cubed," and then turns to walk away, but then calls over her shoulder "plus a constant!" In the above example, the humour is that the waitress, chosen as an example of someone not expected to know much mathematics beyond adding up the bill, turns out to know enough calculus to correct the professor's omission. NON-MATHEMATICAL MATHEMATICAL JOKES One final form of mathematical humor comes from using mathematical tools (both abstract symbols and physical objects such as calculators) to form words and phrases, often of a crude nature. These constructions are generally devoid of any "real" mathematics, besides some basic arithmetic. One such example is Calculator Spelling , words and phrases formed by entering a number and turning the calculator upside down. Due to their crudeness and relative simplicity (requiring only basic calculator skills to achieve), they are usually spread by schoolchildren. Often the words are accompanied by stories involving numbers that lead to the final "solution". Example: : Christina Aguilera 's breasts weigh 69 pounds (enter 69 into calculator), which is too, too, too much (enter 222, making 69222). She lives on 51st Street (enter 51, making 6922251) with the other hookers. She sees a doctor, who thinks it will take 8 (multiply the number by 8, giving 55378008) operations to make her (turn the calculator upside down to reveal the calculator word) BOOBLESS. Instead of numbers on a calculator, mathematical notation may be used to form the phrases. Examples: : :This "integral" (which is not in the proper form, as it isn't integrating with respect to any variable) uses the similarity of the integral sign to the letter S to form the phrase "Sex = fun". A sly and rude pickup line is also demonstrated by {Link without Title} ? which ends up being 69? (A reference to the 69 Sex Position .) : :This can be read, interpreting the expression mathematically, as "Before I root you, are you over 18?" (in some countries, "to root" is slang for "to have sex with"). SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS |
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