A mathematical joke is a form of humor which relies on aspects of mathematics or a stereotype of mathematicians to derive humor. Humour or humor (see spelling differences) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke Laughter and provide Amusement Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and A stereotype (from Greek: stereo + týpos = "solid impression" is a generalized perception of first impressions behaviors presumed by a group A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is the field of Mathematics. 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.

Contents 1 Pun-based jokes 2 Stereotypes of mathematicians 3 Non-mathematician's math 4 Mock mathematics 4.1 Mock mathematical reasoning 4.2 Calculator spelling 5 Math limericks 6 See also 7 Notes 8 Further reading 9 External links

Pun-based jokes

Q. Why do mathematicians like national parks?

A. A national park is a reserve of land usually declared and owned by a national Government, protected from most Human development and pollution Because of the natural logs. The natural logarithm, formerly known as the Hyperbolic logarithm is the Logarithm to the base e, where e is an irrational

Q. What's purple and commutes ?

A. An Abelian grape. (A pun on Abelian group. An abelian group, also called a commutative group, is a group satisfying the additional requirement that the product of elements does not depend on their order (the )^[1]

A more sophisticated example:

Person 1: What's the integral of ¹/_cabin?

Person 2: A natural 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 ln(x). In Calculus, an antiderivative, primitive or indefinite integral of a function f is a function F whose Derivative The natural logarithm, formerly known as the Hyperbolic logarithm is the Logarithm to the base e, where e is an irrational 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. In Calculus, an antiderivative, primitive or indefinite integral of a function f is a function F whose Derivative Thus, the indefinite integral of 1/cabin is "ln(cabin) + c", or "A natural log cabin plus the sea", ie. The natural logarithm, formerly known as the Hyperbolic logarithm is the Logarithm to the base e, where e is an irrational This article is about the body of water For other uses see SEA and Seas. "A houseboat". A houseboat is a Boat that has been designed or modified to be used primarily as a Human Dwelling.

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. The binary numeral system, or base-2 number system, is a Numeral system that represents numeric values using two symbols usually 0 and 1. 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".

There are only 10 types of people in the world —
those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who understand Gray code. Name Bell Labs researcher Frank Gray introduced the term reflected binary code in his 1947 patent application remarking that the code had "as

In Gray code, "10" would be phrased as "one zero" or simply "three", rather than "ten", adding another layer of subtlety to the joke. Name Bell Labs researcher Frank Gray introduced the term reflected binary code in his 1947 patent application remarking that the code had "as

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. Ternary or trinary is the base - Numeral system. Analogous to a " Bit " a ternary digit is known as a trit (

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. In Mathematics and Computer science, hexadecimal (also base -, hexa, or hex) is a Numeral system with a Death is the termination of the biological functions that define living Organisms It refers both to a specific

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. In mathematical numeral systems, the base or radix is usually the number of unique digits, including zero that a positional Numeral The octal Numeral system, or oct for short is the base -8 number system and uses the digits 0 to 7 The decimal ( base ten or occasionally denary) Numeral system has ten as its base.

The humor lies in the fact that Halloween occurs on October 31 and Christmas occurs on December 25, thus equating "oct" in October and octal, and "dec" in December and decimal. (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". "Why did the chicken cross the road?" is one of the oldest and most famous Joke Riddles still in use in the English language 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. This article is about the mathematical object See Mobius Band (music group for the music group e. , one "edge"), anyone trying to give the typical answer will realize 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. A physicist is a Scientist who studies or practices Physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning An engineer is a person professionally engaged in a field of Engineering. Soft science is a colloquial term often used for Academic Research or Scholarship which is purportedly "scientific" however it is not based 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 entering and leaving the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people entering the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three people leaving 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 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 shown as 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:

An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician are on a train in Scotland. The astronomer looks out of the window, sees a black sheep standing in a field, and remarks, "How odd. Scottish sheep are black. " "No, no, no!" says the physicist. "Only some Scottish sheep are black. " The mathematician rolls his eyes at his companions' muddled thinking and says, "In Scotland, there is at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which appears 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. " Another variant with cows was featured in the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is a 2003 Novel by British writer Mark Haddon. Mark Haddon (born on September 26, 1962 in Northampton) is a British Novelist and Poet, best known for his 2003 novel

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, and it misses a foot too high. The second statistician aims and takes his shot, and 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.

An engineer and a physicist are in a hot-air balloon. After a few hours they lose track of where they are and descend to get directions. They yell to a jogger, "Hey, can you tell us where we're at?" After a few moments the jogger responds, "You're in a hot-air balloon. " The engineer says, "You must be a mathematician. " The jogger, shocked, responds, "yeah, how did you know I was a mathematician?" "Because, it took you far too long to come up with your answer, it was 100% correct, and it was completely useless. "

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. The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology (commonly known as the Royal Tyrrell Museum) is a popular Canadian tourist attraction and a leading center of palaeontological Tyrannosaurus ( or, meaning 'tyrant lizard' is a Genus of Theropod Dinosaur. "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?" she asked. "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. False precision occurs when numerical data are presented in a manner that implies better precision than is actually the case since precision is a limit to accuracy this often "

In the above example, the humor is that the employee fails to understand the scientist's implication of the uncertainty in the age of the fossil. The significant figures (also called significant digits and abbreviated sig figs) of a number are those digits that carry meaning contributing to its accuracy

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 humor 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. In Calculus, the Indefinite integral of a given function (ie the set of all Antiderivatives of the function is always written with a constant the constant

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. Equivocation is classified as both a formal and Informal fallacy. 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. Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. A syllogism, or logical appeal, (συλλογισμός &mdash "conclusion" "inference" (usually the categorical syllogism) is a kind of
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:	women = time × money
Time is money:	time = money
So women are money squared:	women = money2
Money is the root of all evil:	money = √evil
So women are evil:	women = (√evil)2 = evil

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. In Mathematics, a proof is a convincing demonstration (within the accepted standards of the field that some Mathematical statement is necessarily true In Algebra, the square of a number is that number multiplied by itself In Mathematics, a square root of a number x is a number r such that r 2 = x, or in words a number r whose This limit works in real projective line instead of the more popular extended real number line in calculus, where the equation have to address the difference between and ^[2])

(That is, the "n" in "sin" cancels with the "n" in the denominator, giving "six" and 1 respectively. In Real analysis, the real projective line (also called the one-point compactification of the Real line, or the projectively extended real numbers In Mathematics, the affinely extended real number system is obtained from the Real number system R by adding two elements +∞ and &minus∞ (pronounced ) See also Anomalous cancellation. An anomalous cancellation or accidental cancellation is a particular kind of Arithmetic procedural error that gives a numerically correct answer

Calculator spelling

Tangential to mathematics is calculator spelling: words and phrases formed by entering a number and turning the calculator upside down. Calculator spelling (also known as beghilos; see Description below is a technique of spelling words by reading characters upside-down from Calculators equipped 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 favorite 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. A limerick is a five-line Poem with a strict form originally popularized in English by Edward Lear. The following is an example which closely matches the form of a limerick:

which reads as follows:

The integral t-squared dt

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:^[3]

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

Is nine squared and not a bit more

See also

• Funny numbers
• Ralph P. Boas, Jr
• The Complexity of Songs
• Tom Lehrer's satirical songs "Lobachevsky" and "New Math". The belief that certain words are inherently funny, for reasons ranging from Onomatopoeia to Phonosemantics to Sexual innuendo, is widespread Ralph Philip Boas Jr ( August 8, 1912 - July 25, 1992) was a mathematician teacher and journal editor " The Complexity of Songs " was an article published by Donald Knuth, an example of an In-joke in Computer science, namely in Computational Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehrer (born April 9 1928)is an American Singer-songwriter, satirist, Pianist, and mathematician One of Harvard mathematics graduate Tom Lehrer 's most famous songs was a Satire named " New Math " which centered around the process of subtracting
• Proof by intimidation
• Spherical cow

Notes

Further reading

• Paul Renteln and Alan Dundes (2004-12-08). "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Events 1609 - Biblioteca Ambrosiana opens its reading room the second public library of Europe. "Foolproof: A Sampling of Mathematical Folk Humor" (PDF). Notices of the AMS 52 (1).  

External links

• Mathematical Humor — From Mathworld
• A Sampling of Mathematical Folk Humor
• Mathematical Jokes

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