A Mathematician's Humour
Noah's ark lands after The Flood. Noah
lets all the animals out. Says, "Go and multiply." After several months
have passed, Noah decides to check up all the animals. All are doing fine
except for a pair of snakes. "What's the problem?", Noah asks. "Cut down
some trees and let us live there.", the snakes reply. Noah follows their
advice. After several more weeks have passed, Noah checks the snakes again.
Lots of little snakes, everybody happy. Noah asks, "Could You tell me how
the trees helped?" "Certainly!", the snakes answer, "We're adders, and
we need logs to multiply."
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 maths department? All
they need is money for pencils, paper, and wastepaper baskets. Or even
better, like the philosophy department. All they need is money for pencils
and paper!"
97.3% of all statistics are just made up.
Did you hear the one about the statistician?
Probably...
3 out of 4 Americans make up 75% of the population.
Death is 99 per cent fatal to laboratory rats.
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, thus reducing the problem to a previously solved form.
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.
A 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!"
A mathematician and an engineer attend
a lecture by a physicist. The topic concerns
Kulza-Klein theories involving
physical processes that occur in spaces with dimensions of 9, 12 and even
higher. The mathematician is sitting, clearly enjoying the lecture, while
the engineer is frowning and looking generally confused and puzzled. At
the end, the engineer has a terrible headache, whereas the mathematician
comments about the wonderful lecture.
E: "How do you understand this stuff?"
M: "I just visualize the process."
E: "How can you *possibly* visualize something that occurs
in 9-dimensional space?"
M: "Easy, first visualize it in N-dimensional space,
then let N be 9"
Approaches to find the value of 2+2.
Engineer (after 3 minutes, with a slide rule): "The answer
is precisely 3.9974."
Physicist (after 6 hours of experiments): "The value
is approximately 4.002, with an error of plus-or-minus 0.005."
Mathematician (after a week of calculation): "Well, I
haven't found an answer yet but I *can* prove that an answer exists."
Philosopher: "But what do you mean by 2+2?"
Logician: "Please define 2+2 more precisely."
Accountant: Closes all the doors and windows, looks around
carefully, then asks "What do you want the answer to be?"
Computer Hacker: Breaks into the NSA super-computer and
gives the answer.
Some say the pope is the greatest cardinal.
But others insist this cannot be so, as every pope has a successor.
Numb, adj., devoid of sensation...
Number, comparative of numb.
[Webster's Third New International Dictionary]
Theorem:
All positive integers are interesting.
Proof:
Assume the contrary. Then there is a lowest non-interesting positive
integer. But, hey, that's pretty interesting! A contradiction.
Theorem:
All horses have an infinite
number of legs.
Proof (by intimidation):
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 in back. 4+2=6 legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for
a horse to have! Now the only number that is both even and odd is infinity;
therefore all horses have an infinite number of legs.
Theorem:
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.
1+1=3, for very large values of 1.
A doctor, a lawyer, and a mathematician
were discussing the relative merits of having a wife or a
mistress.
The lawyer says: "For sure a mistress is better.
If you have a wife and want a divorce, it causes all sorts of legal
problems."
The doctor says: "It's better to have a wife
because the sense of security lowers your stress and is good for
your health."
The mathematician says: " You're both wrong.
It's best to have both so that when the wife thinks you're with the mistress
and the mistress thinks you're with your wife - you can do some mathematics."
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 cubed...". 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!"
Engineers think that equations approximate the real world.
Scientists think that the real world approximates equations.
Mathematicians are unable to make the connection...
A Mathematician, a Biologist and a
Physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming
out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people
going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons
coming out of the house.
The Physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate."
The Biologist's conclusion: "They have reproduced."
The Mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters
the house then it will be empty again."
Three engineering students were gathered
together discussing the possible designers of the human body.
One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at
all the joints."
Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The
nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections."
The last said, "Actually it was a civil engineer. Who
else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"
An engineer and a mathematicians have
to build a fence around a flock of sheep, using as little material as possible.
The engineer herds the flock into a circular shape and constructs a fence
around it.
The mathematicians thinks for a while, then builds a fence around
himself and defines himself as being outside.
In some foreign country a priest,
a lawyer and an engineer are about to be guillotined.
The priest puts his head on the block, they pull the
rope and nothing happens -- he declares that he's been saved by divine
intervention -- so he's let go.
The lawyer is put on the block, and again the rope doesn't
release the blade, he claims he can't be executed twice for the same crime
and he is set free too.
They grab the engineer and shove his head into the guillotine,
he looks up at the release mechanism and says, "Wait a minute, I see your problem..."
Three men, a physicist, an engineer and a computer scientist, are
travelling in a car. Suddenly, the car breaks down. The three astonished men try to analyze and solve the problem:
The physicist says: This is obviously a
classic problem of torque. It has been overloaded the elasticity limit of
the main axis.
The engineer says: Let's be serious! The problem is that it has been
burned the spark of the connecting rod to the dynamo
of the radiator. I can easily repair it by hammering.
The computer scientist says : What if we
get off the car, wait a minute, and then get back in and try again?
A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing
about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their
arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden.
The doctor says: The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because
Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply
incredible surgical feat.
The architect says: But if you look at the
Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of
that, the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an
architect.
The computer scientist says: Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?
Answering machine message: "The number you have dialed is imaginary.
Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again."
We use epsilons and deltas in mathematics because mathematicians tend to make errors.
Question:
How many times can you subtract 7 from 83, and what is left afterwards?
Answer:
I can subtract it as many times as I want, and it leaves 76 every time.
Question:
Why did the chicken cross the Möbius
Strip?
Answer:
To get to the other... um... er...
Question:
Do you believe in one God?
Answer:
Yes, up to isomorphism!
Question:
What's the difference between a mathematician and a physicist?
Answer:
A mathematician thinks that two points are enough to define a straight
line while a physicist wants more data.
Question:
What's the easiest way to observe
Doppler's
effect optically (not acoustically) in one's everyday life?
Answer:
Go out in the evening and look at the cars. They lights are white
or yellow when they approach, but they are red when they are moving away from you.
Since I have a counter, I
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