Archive for the "Math" Category

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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.

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

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.

Dead Parrot

What do you call a dead parrot?

A Polygon.

Statistical one-liner

Some statisticians dont drink because they are t-test totalers. Others drink the hard stuff as evidenced by the proliferation of box-and-whiskey plots.

Pen (Math)

Q: Why did the mathematicians pen run out of ink?
A: Because he was writing in recursive.

Math one-liner

Student: Yes sir, but what happens if the number of sheep is not x?

Math is turning bad

Psst, cmere, said the shifty-eyed man wearing a long black trenchcoat, as he beckoned me off the rainy street into a damp dark alley. I followed.

What are you selling? I asked.

Geometrical algebra drugs.

Huh!?

Geometry drugs. Ya got your uppers, your downers, your sidewaysers, your inside-outers…

Stop right there, I interrupted. Ive never heard of inside-outers.

Oh, man, youll love em. Makes you feel like M.C. ever-lovin Escher on a particularly weird day.

Go on…

OK, your inside-outers, your arbitrary bilinear mappers, and here, heh, here are the best ones, he said, pulling out a large clear bottle of orange pills.

What are those, then? I asked.

Givens transformers. Theyll rotate you about more planes than you even knew existed.

Sounds gross. What about those bilinear mappers?

Theres a whole variety of them. Heres one youll love — they call it One Over Z on the street. Take one of these little bad boys and youll be on speaking terms with the Point at Infinity.

Vectors (Math)

Q: Why did the two vectors start an internet-based company?
A: Because they thought they had a good dot product.