Q: What is the difference
between a Ph.D. in mathematics and a large pizza?
A: A large pizza can feed a family of four...
Q: What is the difference between a mathematician and a philosopher?
A: The mathematician only needs paper, pencil, and a trash bin
for his work - the philosopher can do without the trash bin...
Q: What do you get
if you add two apples and three apples?
A: A high school math problem!
Q: What does the
zero say to the the eight?
A: Nice belt!
Q: How does one insult a mathematician?
A: You say: "Your brain is smaller than any >0!"
Q: What does a mathematician
present to his fiancée when he wants to propose?
A: A polynomial ring!
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!
Q: Why do mathematicians,
after a dinner at a Chinese restaurant, always insist on taking
the leftovers home?
A: Because they know the Chinese remainder theorem!
Q: What do you get if you divide the cirucmference of a jack-o-lantern
by its diameter?
A: Pumpkin Pi!
Teacher: "Who
can tell me what 7 times 6 is?"
Student: "It's 42!"
Teacher: "Very good! - And who can tell me what 6 times
7 is?"
Same student: "It's 24!"
A mathematician is
flying non-stop from Edmonton to Frankfurt with AirTransat.
The scheduled flying time is nine hours.
Some time after taking off, the pilot announces that one engine
had to be turned off due to mechanical failure: "Don't
worry - we're safe. The only noticeable effect this will have
for us is that our total flying time will be ten hours instead
of nine."
A few hours into the flight, the pilot informs the passengers
that another engine had to be turned off due to mechanical failure:
"But don't worry - we're still safe. Only our flying time
will go up to twelve hours."
Some time later, a third engine fails and has to be turned off.
But the pilot reassures the passengers: "Don't worry -
even with one engine, we're still perfectly safe. It just means
that it will take sixteen hours total for this plane to arrive
in Frankfurt."
The mathematician remarks to his fellow passengers: "If
the last engine breaks down, too, then we'll be in the air for
twenty-four hours altogether!"
A math student is
pestered by a classmate who wants to copy his homework assignment.
The student hesitates, not only because he thinks it's wrong,
but also because he doesn't want to be sanctioned for aiding
and abetting.
His classmate calms him down: "Nobody will be able to trace
my homework to you: I'll be changing the names of all the constants
and variables: a to b, x to y, and so on."
Not quite convinced, but eager to be left alone, the student
hands his completed assignment to the classmate for copying.
After the deadline, the student asks: "Did you really change
the names of all the variables?"
"Sure!" the classmate replies. "When you called
a function f, I called it g; when you called a variable x, I
renamed it to y; and when you were writing about the log of
x+1, I called it the timber of x+1..."
The chef instructs
his apprentice: "You take two thirds of water, one third
of cream, one third of broth..."
The apprentice: "But that makes four thirds already!"
"Well - just take a larger pot!"
The math teacher
asks his students: "What is 9 times 7?"
He gets several answers - all are either 62 or 65.
"Come one - the correct answer can either be 62 or 65!"
"That math prof's
marriage is falling apart!"
"No wonder! He's into scientific computing - and she's
incalculable!"
A woman in a bar
tries to pick up a mathematician.
"How old, do you think, am I?" she asks coyly.
"Well - 18 by that fire in your eyes, 19 by that glow on
your cheeks, 20 by that radiance of your face, and adding that
up is something you can probably do for yourself..."
Theorem. A cat has
nine tails.
Proof. No cat has
eight tails. Since one cat has one more tail than no cat, it
must have nine tails.
Trigonometry for
farmers: swine and coswine...
Two math students,
a boy and his girlfriend, are going to a fair. They are in line
to ride the ferris wheel when it shuts down.
The boy says: "It's a sin for those people to keep us waiting
like this!"
The girl replies: "No - it's a cosin, silly!!!"
The math professor
just accepted a new position at a university in another city
and has to move. He and his wife pack all their belongings into
cardboard boxes and have them shipped off to their new home.
To sort out some family matters, the wife stays behind for a
few more days while her husband has already left for their new
residence.
The boxes arrive when the wife still hasn't rejoined her husband.
When they talk on the phone in the evening, she asks him to
count the boxes, just to make sure the movers didn't loose any
of them.
"Thirty nine boxes altogether", says the prof on the
phone.
"That can't be", the wife exclaims. "The movers
picked up forty boxes at our old place."
The prof counts once again, but again his count only reaches
39.
The next morning, the wife calls the moving company and complains.
The company promises to check; a few hours later, someone calls
back and reports that all forty boxes did arrive.
In the evening, when the prof and his wife are on the phone
again, she asks: "I don't understand it. When you count,
you get 39, and when they do, they get 40. That's more than
strange..."
"Well", the prof says. "This is a cordless phone,
so you can stay on the line and count with me: zero, one, two,
three,..."
New York (CNN). At
John F. Kennedy International Airport today, a Caucasian male
(later discovered to be a high school mathematics teacher) was
arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a compass,
a protractor and a graphical calculator.
According to law enforcement officials, he is believed to have
ties to the Al-Gebra network. He will be charged with carrying
weapons of math instruction.
Two mathematicians
are studying a convergent series.
The first one says: "Do you realize that the series converges
even when all the terms are made positive?"
The second one asks: "Are you sure?"
"Absolutely!"
"Students nowadays
are so clueless", the math professor complains to a colleague.
"Yesterday, a student came to my office hours and wanted
to know if General Calculus was a Roman war hero..."
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!"
An investment firm
is hiring mathematicians. After the first round of interviews,
three hopeful recent graduates - a pure mathematician, an applied
mathematician, and a graduate in mathematical finance - are
asked what starting salary they are expecting.
The pure mathematician: "Would $30,000 be too much?"
The applied mathematician: "I think $60,000 would be OK."
The math finance person: "What about $300,000?"
The personnel officer is flabberghasted: "Do you know that
we have a graduate in pure mathematics who is willing to do
the same work for a tenth of what you are demanding!?"
"Well, I thought of $135,000 for me, $135,000 for you -
and $30,000 for the pure mathematician who will do the work."
Statistics Canada
is hiring mathematicians. Three recent graduates are invited
for an interview: one has a degree in pure mathematics, another
one in applied math, and the third one obtained his B.Sc. in
statistics.
All three are asked the same question: "What is one third
plus two thirds?"
The pure mathematician: "It's one."
The applied mathematician takes out his pocket calculator, punches
in the numbers, and replies: "It's 0.999999999."
The statistician: "What do you want it to be?"
In a speech to a
gathering of mathematics professors from throughout the United
States, George W. Bush warned the academics not to misuse their
position to force their often extremist political views on young
Americans. "It is my understanding", the president
said, "that you are frequently teaching algebra classes
in which your students learn how to solve equations with the
help of radicals. I can't say that I approve of that..."
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