Mathematics jokes

Jai Ganesh · 2005-08-26 19:09:21

How do you prove in three steps that a sheet of paper is a lazy dog?
1. A sheet of paper is an ink-lined plane.
2. An inclined plane is a slope up.
3. A slow pup is a lazy dog.

Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.

A tragedy of mathematics is a beautiful conjecture ruined by an ugly fact.

Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules.
Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.

How many mathematical logicians does it take to replace a lightbulb?
None: They can't do it, but they can prove that it can be done.

ahgua · 2005-08-26 19:14:37

Haha! I haven't heard of something like that!

wcy · 2005-08-27 23:13:25

lol!!! really funny

Roraborealis · 2005-08-28 06:52:47

They're great, thanks ganesh.

Jai Ganesh · 2005-08-28 16:11:55

Thanks Rora, we miss you in this forum!

Jai Ganesh · 2005-08-31 00:24:39

Do you know why they never have beer at a math party?
Because you can't drink and derive...

Did you hear about the teacher who was arrested trying to board an airplane with a compass, a protractor and a calculator?
He was charged with carrying weapons of math instruction.

If it's zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?

I believe five out of four people have trouble with fractions. -- Steven Wright

A teacher was trying to impress her students with the fact that terms cannot be subtracted from one another unless they are like terms. "For example," she continued, "we cannot take five apples from six bananas."
"Well," countered a pupil, "can't we take five apples from three trees?"

Question: "How many seconds are there in a year?"
Answer: "Twelve. January second, February second, March second, ..."

Q. What did one math book say to the other?
A. Don't bother me! I've got my own problems!

You Might Be a Mathematician if...
you are fascinated by the equation e^(i*pi) +1=0

you know by heart the first fifty digits of pi.

you have tried to prove Fermat's Last Theorem.

you know ten ways to prove Pythagoras' Theorem.

your telephone number is the sum of two prime numbers.

you have calculated that the World Series actually diverges.

you are sure that differential equations are a very useful tool.

you comment to your wife that her straight hair is nice and parallel.

when you say to a car dealer "I'll take the red car or the blue one", you must add "but not both of them."

Zach · 2005-08-31 00:27:46

Ganesh wrote:

I believe five out of four people have trouble with fractions. -- Steven Wright

I must admit, I found that one slightly amsuing.

MathsIsFun · 2005-08-31 09:29:16

Great stuff!

Thanks for the jokes, they brighten my day.

Jai Ganesh · 2005-08-31 23:01:57

A math professor is talking to her little brother who just started his first year of graduate school in mathematics.
"What's your favorite thing about mathematics?" the brother wants to know.
"Knot theory."
"Yeah, me neither."

"Divide fourteen sugar cubes into three cups of coffee so that each cup has an odd number of sugar cubes in it."
"That's easy: one, one, and twelve."
"But twelve isn't odd!"
"It's an odd number of cubes to put in a cup of coffee..."

An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are trying to set up a fenced-in area for some sheep, but they have a limited amount of building material. The engineer gets up first and makes a square fence with the material, reasoning that it's a pretty good working solution. "No no," says the physicist, "there's a better way." He takes the fence and makes a circular pen, showing how it encompasses the maximum possible space with the given material.
Then the mathematician speaks up: "No, no, there's an even better way." To the others' amusement he proceeds to construct a little tiny fence around himself, then declares:
"I define myself to be on the outside."

Two Secrets for Success
1. Never tell anyone everything you know.

There are 10 kinds of people in the world:
Those who understand Binary and those who don't.

MathsIsFun · 2005-09-01 00:43:12

Love the fence one - it kinda says something about the world. I remember someone saying on TV once "You are lost, aren't you ...?", and the other person responded "No I'm not, I'm here"

Jai Ganesh · 2005-09-01 19:11:36

Old mathematicians never die; they just lose some of their functions.

The highest moments in the life of a mathematician are the first few moments after one has proved the result, but before one finds the mistake.

A cat has nine tails.
Proof:
No cat has eight tails. A cat has one tail more than no cat. Therefore, a cat has nine tails.

An insane mathematician gets on a bus and starts threatening everybody: "I'll integrate you! I'll differentiate you!!!" Everybody gets scared and runs away. Only one lady stays. The guy comes up to her and says: "Aren't you scared, I'll integrate you, I'll differentiate you!!!" The lady calmly answers: "No, I am not scared, I am e^x ."

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!"

Q: Why didn't Newton discover group theory?
A: Because he wasn't Abel.

Q:What is a dilemma?
A: A lemma that proves two results.

Jai Ganesh · 2005-09-02 17:38:17

Theorem: All horses have infinitely many legs.
Proof (i): Everyone would agree that all horses have an even number of legs. It is also well-known that horses have forelegs in front and two legs at the back. 4 + 2 = 6 legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a horse to have! So, since we have shown the number of legs on a horse to be both even and odd, there must be infinitely many of them. QED.

The great logician Bertrand Russell once claimed that he could prove anything if given that 1+1=1. So one day, an undergraduate demanded: "Prove that you're the Pope." Russell thought for a while and proclaimed, "I am one. The Pope is one. Therefore, the Pope and I are one."

Q: Why do you rarely find mathematicians spending time at the beach?
A: Because they have sine and cosine to get a tan and don't need the sun!

It is only two weeks into the term that, in a calculus class, a student raises his hand and asks: "Will we ever need this stuff in real life?"
The professor gently smiles at him and says: "Of course not - if your real life will consist of flipping hamburgers at MacDonald's!"

A physicist, a mathematician and a computer scientist discuss what is better: a wife or a girlfriend.
The physicist: "A girlfriend. You still have freedom to experiment."
The mathematician: "A wife. You have security."
The computer scientist: "Both. When I'm not with my wife, she thinks I'm with my girlfriend. With my girlfriend it's vice versa. And I can be with my computer without anyone disturbing me..."

Jai Ganesh · 2005-09-03 20:10:51

Q: What did the baby acorn say when it grew up:

A: Gee, I'm a tree! (Geometry)

Q: What did the ship captain say when his ship got bombed?

A: Deck a Gone!

Q: What do you call a tall coffee pot while it's making coffee?

A: High pot in use (hypotenuse)

Q: Why do computer scientists confuse Christmas and Halloween?

A: Because Oct 31 = Dec 25

Q: What did the circle say to the tangent line?

A: "Stop touching me!"

Q: What's purple and commutes?

A: An abelian grape.

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.

Yoram · 2005-10-12 14:41:40

The principal sits in on a class to see how things are going. In the middle, he interrupts the teacher and asks if he can ask the class a question. The teacher obliges, and the principal asks the pupils: "This classroom is 10 meters long and 20 feet wide. How old am I?". No one answers, so he repeats the question and adds, "Are you all stupid or something?!". Again, silence.

Then little Tommy in the back row raises his hand. "Yes?", says the principal. Tommy says: "You are 54 years old!". "Correct," says the principal, "and would you kindly explain to the rest of your dim classmates how you figured that out?".

Tommy says "Certainly Sir. My Mother has a brother whose 27. And she always says that he's half-crazy!"

justlookingforthemoment · 2005-10-12 18:28:15

It's probably just me, but i don't get it.

Arrghh!! I've just realised that this is my 500th post. And all I wrote in it was 'I don't get it'.

Last edited by justlookingforthemoment (2005-10-12 18:39:45)

MathsIsFun · 2005-10-12 19:41:32

LOL !

(½ crazy = 27)

justlookingforthemoment · 2005-10-12 20:13:02

Ohhhh! Right! I see! I was a bit slow on the uptake.

insomnia · 2005-10-13 02:09:57

So full crasy= 54.

Agnishom · 2013-04-06 04:13:18

ganesh wrote:

...your telephone number is the sum of two prime numbers

I seriously need that or some other technique to show my parents why I mustn't change my phone number

bobbym · 2013-04-06 04:26:14

It will be easy to prove that to your parents!

Agnishom · 2013-04-06 04:30:16

But first I need to make a list of primes up to ten digits. I am scared about that part

bobbym · 2013-04-06 04:38:44

Is your phone number an even number?

Agnishom · 2013-04-06 04:41:57

Alas! It is not and I was just going to say that
Maybe I need three primes

Last edited by Agnishom (2013-04-06 04:42:22)

bobbym · 2013-04-06 04:42:43

If Goldbach is correct you only need two!

Agnishom · 2013-04-06 04:50:04

Mine isn't even
I am sorry, I just edited that post

Math Is Fun Forum

#1 2005-08-26 19:09:21

Mathematics jokes

#2 2005-08-26 19:14:37

Re: Mathematics jokes

#3 2005-08-27 23:13:25

Re: Mathematics jokes

#4 2005-08-28 06:52:47

Re: Mathematics jokes

#5 2005-08-28 16:11:55

Re: Mathematics jokes

#6 2005-08-31 00:24:39

Re: Mathematics jokes

#7 2005-08-31 00:27:46

Re: Mathematics jokes

#8 2005-08-31 09:29:16

Re: Mathematics jokes

#9 2005-08-31 23:01:57

Re: Mathematics jokes

#10 2005-09-01 00:43:12

Re: Mathematics jokes

#11 2005-09-01 19:11:36

Re: Mathematics jokes

#12 2005-09-02 17:38:17

Re: Mathematics jokes

#13 2005-09-03 20:10:51

Re: Mathematics jokes

#14 2005-10-12 14:41:40

Re: Mathematics jokes

#15 2005-10-12 18:28:15

Re: Mathematics jokes

#16 2005-10-12 19:41:32

Re: Mathematics jokes

#17 2005-10-12 20:13:02

Re: Mathematics jokes

#18 2005-10-13 02:09:57

Re: Mathematics jokes

#19 2013-04-06 04:13:18

Re: Mathematics jokes

#20 2013-04-06 04:26:14

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#21 2013-04-06 04:30:16

Re: Mathematics jokes

#22 2013-04-06 04:38:44

Re: Mathematics jokes

#23 2013-04-06 04:41:57

Re: Mathematics jokes

#24 2013-04-06 04:42:43

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#25 2013-04-06 04:50:04

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