This equation uses mathematical symbols to write "Sex is fun".
A 'mathematical joke' is a form of
humor which relies on aspects of
mathematics or a
stereotype of
mathematicians to derive humor. The humor may come from a pun, or from a double meaning of a mathematical term. It may also come from a lay person's misunderstanding of a mathematical concept (which is not wholly unexpected). These jokes are frequently inaccessible to those without a mathematical bent.
Pun-based jokes
An example:
:''Why do mathematicians like
national parks?''
:''Because of the
natural logs.''
A more sophisticated example:
:''Person 1: What's the integral of
1/
cabin?''
:''Person 2: 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 when finding the
antiderivative) of the function 1/x is
log(x). The second part is then based on the fact that the
antiderivative is actually a class of functions, requiring the inclusion of a constant of integration, usually denoted as C – something which many calculus students forget. Thus, the indefinite integral of 1/cabin is "log(cabin) + c", or "A
log cabin plus the
sea", ie. "A
houseboat".
★ ''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 or non-computer programmers ''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. This joke is only feasible in written form; when speaking a binary number aloud, "10" would be phrased as "One Zero" or simply "two", rather than "Ten".
A self-deprecating version is as follows:
:''There are only 10 types of people in the world — those who understand binary, and those who get laid.''
The following joke refers to the original joke:
:''There are only 10 types of people in the world — those who understand
ternary, those who don't, and those who mistake it for binary.''
A similar joke may be played by asking the question:
:''If only DEAD people understand hexadecimal, how many people understand hexadecimal?''
In this case, DEAD refers to a
hexadecimal number (57005 base 10), not
the state of being no longer alive.
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.''
(This one is also often attributed to computer scientists: ''Real programmers confuse Halloween and Christmas — because dec(25)=oct(31).'')
Another joke involving counting is:
:''There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't.''
This implies, of course, that the person making the statement is the latter.
Almost everyone knows the trite line: "
Why did the chicken cross the road?" "To get to the other side". A mathematical variation follows as: "Why did the chicken cross the
Möbius strip?" This joke relies on the audience knowing that since the Möbius Strip is a surface with only one "side" (i.e. one "edge"), anyone trying to give the typical answer will realise its impossibility. The answer is sometimes also given as "To get to the same side", with the same rationale.
Stereotypes of 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
physicists,
engineers, or the
"soft" sciences in a form similar to those which begin "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman…" 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 ''n''-dimensional space and then set ''n'' = 13."
★ A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street café 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 says, "The measurement wasn't accurate." The biologist says, "They must have reproduced." The mathematician says, "If one more person enters the house then it will be empty."
An example of a joke relying on mathematicians' propensity for not taking the implied action is as follows:
:A mathematician, an engineer and a chemist are at a conference. They are staying in adjoining rooms. One evening they are downstairs in the bar. The mathematician goes to bed first. The chemist goes next, followed a minute or two later by the engineer. The chemist notices that in the corridor outside their rooms a rubbish bin is ablaze. There is a bucket of water nearby. The chemist starts concocting a means of generating carbon dioxide in order to create a makeshift extinguisher but before he can do so the engineer arrives, dumps the water on the fire and puts it out. The next morning the chemist and engineer tell the mathematician about the fire. He admits he saw it. They ask him why the hell he didn't put it out. He replies contemptuously "there was a fire and a bucket of water: a solution ''obviously'' existed."
Mathematicians are also averse to making sweeping generalizations 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 generalization 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 at least one Scottish sheep is 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 from here!"
A variant has the punchline "No," says the mathematician, "all we can say is that there is at least half of a black sheep in Scotland."
Pure mathematicians are mainly concerned with the properties of the abstract systems under study, not their actual applications. However, such applications are sometimes found in mathematics itself, resulting in new insights as old problems are cast in new light. In striving not to miss such connections, mathematicians often see problems in novel (but theoretically valid) ways, which unfortunately are not always as illuminating as one could wish for:
: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 my location to be outside of the fence!"
A small set of jokes involves only mathematicians, such as the following involving statisticians:
:Three statisticians go duck hunting. Their dog chases out a duck and it starts to fly. The first statistician aims and takes his shot, it misses a foot too high. The second statistician aims and takes his shot, it misses a foot too low. The third statistician says, "We got him!"
The humor there is derived from the fact that the average of the shots hits the duck, and so it is dead.
Non-mathematician's math
The next category of jokes comprises 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."
In the above example, the humour is that the employee fails to understand the scientist's implication of the inaccuracy of the age of the fossil.
★ Two mathematicians are in a bar. The first one says to the second that the average person knows very little about basic math. 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 agrees, and goes off mumbling to herself. The first guy returns and the second proposes a bet to prove his point. 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." Then, while walking away, she turns back and says, "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 mathematician's omission.
Mock mathematics
A form of mathematical humor comes from using mathematical tools (both abstract symbols and physical objects such as calculators) in various ways which transgress their intended ambit. These constructions are generally devoid of any "real" mathematics, besides some basic arithmetic.
Mock mathematical reasoning
A set of
equivocal 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
syllogisms:
'Example:'
★ Premise I: Knowledge is power.
Premise II: Power corrupts.
Conclusion: Therefore, knowledge corrupts.
There are also a number of joke
proofs, such as the proof that Women are evil:
# Women are the product of time and money:
# Time is money:
# So women are money
squared:
# "Money is the
root of all evil":
# So women are evil:
An alternate version of this joke uses the sign ambiguity inherent in taking the square root of a square:
:
to say that
:
Thus stating that either women are entirely evil, or entirely good (the opposite, or negative, of evil), but there's no way of knowing which state it is without a further test.
Another set of jokes relate to the absence of mathematical reasoning, or misinterpretation of conventional notation:
'Examples:'
★
(That is, the limit as ''x'' goes to 8 is a sideways 8 or the infinity sign, in the same way that the limit as ''x'' goes to three is a sideways 3 or the Greek letter omega.)
★
Mathematical rebuses
A mathematical formalism is used to spell out words and phrases in the form of a
rebus, often of a crude nature. For example, a t-shirt from the
University of Chicago reads:
Bearing in mind that the integral symbol is derived from the letter "S", it reads "The limit of sex as U (you) approaches "U of C" is zero", implying that the average U of C student is unlikely to engage in sexual relations.
Calculator spelling
Tangential to mathematics 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), these are usually spread by schoolchildren. Often the words are accompanied by stories involving numbers that lead to the "final solution". A favorite word to spell is hello, which is 0.1134 or 0.7734. Dropping the 0 and changing the number to an integer results in another child's favorite. Another favourite is the spelling of 'I sell boobs' on the calculator which is the number 5800877351.
Math limericks
A Math Limerick is an expression which, when read aloud, matches the form of a
limerick. The following is an example which closely matches the form of a limerick, if 'z' is said using the American pronunciation (zee):
:
which reads as follows:''
: ''The integral z-squared dz''
: ''From one to the cube root of three''
: ''Times the cosine''
: ''Of three pi over nine''
: ''Equals log of the cube root of e''
Another, attributed to Leigh Mercer
[1]:
:
This is read as follows
: ''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''
See also
★
Funny numbers
★
Ralph P. Boas, Jr
★ ''
The Complexity of Songs''
★
Science humour
★
Tom Lehrer's satirical songs "
Lobachevsky" and "
New Math".
Notes
1. http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/mayhem.htm
Further reading
★
Foolproof: A Sampling of Mathematical Folk Humor, Paul Renteln and Alan Dundes, , , Notices of the AMS,
External links
★
Mathematical Humor — From Mathworld
★
A Sampling of Mathematical Folk Humor
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