Adding insult
Q: How does one insult a mathematician?
A: You say: Your brain is smaller than any ε>0!
Archive for the "Math" Category
Mathematical baby formula
Add a bed, subtract the clothes, divide the legs, and multiply.
The birthday study
It is proven that the celebration of birthdays is healthy. Statistics show that those people who celebrate the most birthdays become the oldest. — S. den Hartog, Ph D. Thesis Universtity of Groningen.
Statistical one-liner
There is no truth to the allegation that statisticians are mean. They are just your standard normal deviates.
Statistical one-liner
Q: Did you hear about the statistician who took the Dale Carnegie course?
A: He improved his confidence from .95 to .99.
One is negative one
Theorem: 1 = -1
Proof:
1 = sqrt(1) = sqrt(-1 * -1) = sqrt(-1) * sqrt(-1) = 1^ = -1
Also one can disprove the axiom that things equal to the same thing are equal to each other.
1 = sqrt(1)
-1 = sqrt(1)
Therefore 1 = -1
As an alternative method for solving:
Theorem: 1 = -1
Proof:
x=1
x^2=x
x^2-1=x-1
(x+1)(x-1)=(x-1)
(x+1)=(x-1)/(x-1)
x+1=1
x=0
0=1
=> 0/0=1/1=1
Statistical one-liner
Q: How do you tell one bathroom full of statisticians from another?
A: Check the p-value.
Debate about the box
An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are trying to set up a fenced-in area for some sheep, but they have a limited amount of building material. The engineer gets up first and makes a square fence with the material, reasoning that its a pretty good working solution. No no, says the physicist, theres a better way. He takes the fence and makes a circular pen, showing how it encompasses the maximum possible space with the given material.
Then the mathematician speaks up: No, no, theres an even better way. To the others amusement he proceeds to construct a little tiny fence around himself, then declares:
I define myself to be on the outside.
Statistical one-liner
According to recent surveys, 51% of the people are in the majority.
Risk of plane bombs
A mathematician and a non-mathematician are sitting in an airport hall waiting for their flight to go. The non has terrible flight panic.
Hey, dont worry, its just every 10000th flight that crashes.
1:10000? So much? Then it surely will be mine!
Well, there is an easy way out. Simply take the next plane. Its much more probable that you go from a crashing to a non-crashing plane than the other way round. So you are already at 1:10000 squared.