"Math Jokes"
"Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination. "
"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems (P. Erdos)"
"Addendum: American coffee is good for lemmas. "
"An engineer thinks that his equations are an approximation to reality. A physicist thinks reality is an approximation to his equations. A mathematician doesn't care. "
"Old mathematicians never die; they just lose some of their functions. "
"Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them, they translate it into their own language, and forthwith it means something entirely different. -- Goethe "
"What is a rigorous definition of rigor? "
"There is no logical foundation of mathematics, and G�del has proved it! "
"I do not think -- therefore I am not. Here is the illustration of this principle: One evening Rene Descartes went to relax at a local tavern. The tender approached and said, Ah, good evening Monsieur Descartes! Shall I serve you the usual drink?. Descartes replied, I think not., and promptly vanished. "
"A topologist is a person who doesn't know the difference between a coffee cup and a doughnut. "
"Classification of mathematical problems as linear and nonlinear is like classification of the Universe as bananas and non-bananas. "
"A law of conservation of difficulties: there is no easy way to prove a deep result. "
"A tragedy of mathematics is a beautiful conjecture ruined by an ugly fact."
"Algebraic symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about. "
"Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives. "
"The actual quote from the Webster dictionary: trillion n syn SCAD, gob(s), heap, jillion, load(s), million, oodles, quantities, thousand, wad(s) "
"Mathematics is like checkers in being suitable for the young, not too difficult, amusing, and without peril to the state. (Plato) "
"A bit of theology. Math is the language God used to write the universe. "
"Asked if he believes in one God, a mathematician answered: Yes, up to isomorphism."
"Medicine makes people ill, mathematics make them sad and theology makes them sinful. (Martin Luther) "
"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell. (St. Augustine) "
"He who can properly define and divide is to be considered a god. (Plato) "
"God geometrizes says Plato. and here is the analytical continuation of this saying: Biologists think they are biochemists, Biochemists think they are Physical Chemists, Physical Chemists think they are Physicists, Physicists think they are Gods, And God thinks he is a Mathematician."
"Physicists defer only to mathematicians, mathematicians defer only to God."
"An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician are staying in a hotel. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trash can from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. He goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. He thinks for a moment and then exclaims, Ah, a solution exists! and then goes back to bed."
"A physicist and a mathematician are sitting in a faculty lounge. Suddenly, the coffee machine catches on fire. The physicist grabs a bucket and leap towards the sink, filled the bucket with water and puts out the fire. Second day, the same two sit in the same lounge. Again, the coffee machine catches on fire. This time, the mathematician stands up, got a bucket, hands the bucket to the physicist, thus reducing the problem to a previously solved one."
"A mathematician and an engineer are on desert island. They find two palm trees with one coconut each. The engineer shins up one tree, gets the coconut, eats. The mathematician shins up the other tree, gets the coconut, climbs the other tree and puts it there. Now we've reduced it to a problem we know how to solve."
"A biologist, a physicist and a mathematician were sitting in a street cafe watching the crowd. Across the street they saw a man and a woman entering a building. Ten minutes they reappeared together with a third person. - They have multiplied, said the biologist. - Oh no, an error in measurement, the physicist sighed. - If exactly one person enters the building now, it will be empty again, the mathematician concluded."
"An chemist, a physicist, and a mathematician are stranded on an island when a can of food rools ashore. The chemist and the physicist comes up with many ingenious ways to open the can. Then suddenly the mathematician gets a bright idea: Assume we have a can opener ..."
"A mathematician is asked to design a table. He first designs a table with no legs. Then he designs a table with infinitely many legs. He spend the rest of his life generalizing the results for the table with N legs (where N is not necessarily a natural number)."
"Several scientists were all posed the following question: What is pi ?, The engineer said: It is approximately 3 and 1/7 The physicist said: It is 3.14159, The mathematician thought a bit, and replied It is equal to pi."
"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 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 (M) and an Engineer (E) 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 M is sitting, clearly enjoying the lecture, while the E is frowning and looking generally confused and puzzled. By the end the E has a terrible headache. At the end, the M 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 go to 9"
"The physicist and the engineer are in a hot-air balloon. Soon, they find themselves lost in a canyon somewhere. They yell out for help: Helllloooooo! Where are we? 15 minutes later, they hear an echoing voice: Helllloooooo! You're in a hot-air balloon!! The physicist says, That must have been a mathematician. The engineer asks, Why do you say that? The physicist replied: The answer was absolutely correct, and it was utterly useless."
"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 math. department - all they need is money for pencils, paper and waste-paper baskets. Or even better, like the philosophy department. All they need are pencils and paper."
"A mathematician, an engineer, and a chemist were walking down the road when they saw a pile of cans of beer. Unfortunately, they were the old-fashioned cans that do not have the tab at the top. One of them proposed that they split up and find can openers. The chemist went to his lab and concocted a magical chemical that dissolves the can top in an instant and evaporates the next instant so that the beer inside is not affected. The engineer went to his workshop and created a new HyperOpener that can open 25 cans per second. They went back to the pile with their inventions and found the mathematician finishing the last can of beer. How did you manage that? they asked in astonishment. The mathematician answered, Oh, well, I assumed they were open and went from there."
"Golden rule for math teachers: You must tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth."
"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."
"Golden rule of deriving: never trust any result that was proved after 11 pm."
"Relations between pure and applied mathematicians are based on trust and understanding. Namely, pure mathematicians do not trust applied mathematicians, and applied mathematicians do not understand pure mathematicians."
"How dare of you to think that I am an analyst!"
"Some mathematicians become so tense these days that they that they do not go to sleep during seminars."
"Isaac Newton proclaimed: If I have seen further than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants. Isn't that true, than, that if I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders?"
"Discovery: Mathematicians have announced the existence of a new whole number which lies between 27 and 28. We don't know why it's there or what it does, says Cambridge mathematician, Dr. Hilliard Haliard, we only know that it doesn't behave properly when put into equations, and that it is divisible by six, though only once."
"Theorem: There are two groups of people in the world; those who believe that the world can be divided into two groups of people, and those who don't."
"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 number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again."
"The shortest math joke: let epsilon be < 0"
"Q: how many times can you subtract 7 from 83, and what is left afterwards? A: I can subtract it as many times as I want, and it leaves 76 every time."
"Q: Did you hear the one about the statistician? A: Probably...."
"How many professors does it take to replace a lightbulb?? One: With eight research students, two programmers, three post-docs and a secretary to help him."
"How many university lecturers does it take to replace a lightbulb?? Four: One to do it and three to co-author the paper."
"How many graduate students does it take to replace a lightbulb?? Only one: But it takes nine years"
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