## 1. MATHEMATICS

#### Subsections

- 1. mathematics - general
- 1.1 proofs
- 1.2 statistics and statisticians
- 1.3 mathematicians
- 1.4 mathematics poetry
- 1.5 mathematics quotes
- 1.6 mathematic puns
- 1.7 mathematical terms
- 1.8 mathematical exams
- 1.9 learning mathematics
- 1.10 mathematical tests to take
- 1.11 mathematical equations
- 1.12 topology
- 1.13 numbers
- 1.14 set theory
- 1.15 functions

### 1.3 MATHEMATICIANS

Index | Comments and Contributions | previous page

mathematics
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    From: Dmitry Cheryasov <dch@engacad.samara.su>
    A question is asked to CS department students. The question is: What is
    the value  of `2*2'?

    (1st year student): says `4', without any thinking.

    (2nd year student): says `4, exactly', after a moment of thinking.

    (3rd year student): takes a pocket calculator, presses some buttons and
    says `4'.

    (4th year student): writes a program of about 100 lines, debugs it, runs
    it and says: `4.0e+00'.

    (5th year student): designs a new programming language that perfectly
    fits for solving such problems, implemets it, writes a program, and
    answers: `It says "4", but I doubt if I really fixed that ugly bug last
    night...'

    (student just before the final graduation exams): cries in desperation:
    `Why, why do you think I must know all that bloody constants by heart?!'

mathematics
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    From: schaker@scubed.scubed.com (Stefan Chakerian)

    A mathematician is showing a new proof he came up with to a large group of
    peers. After he's gone through most of it, one of the mathematicians says,
    "Wait! That's not true. I have a counter-example!"

    He replies, "That's okay. I have two proofs."

mathematics
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    From:         wthedford@aol.com (Wthedford)

    One of my professors who primarially taught grad students was teaching
    factorials to a freshman algebra class.  He was overheard saying, with
    great frustration in his voice, "My god class, its just a restriction of
    the gamma function."

mathematics
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    Q: What does a mathematicians answer, when you ask him/her if (s)he wants
       the window open or closed?
    A: Yes.

mathematics
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    From: "Pierre Abbat" <phma@trellis.net>
    Le mathématicien est allé au lit pour faire des sommes.

mathematics
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    From: Dave Boll <dboll@mail.omn.com>

I was email-chatting with a friend, and he made a comment on my .sig that really cracked me up. I included it below so that you can be cracked up also.

    ---
    Home page: http://www.frii.com/~dboll/ Stop by for a visit! Lots of stuff
    on Recreational Mathematics, Amateur Astronomy, etc.
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

    >Yeah, I used to think it was just recreational... then I started
    >doin' it during the week... you know, simple stuff: differentiation,
    >kinematics.  Then I got into integration by parts... I started doin'
    >it every night: path integrals, holomorphic functions.  Now I'm
    >on diophantine equations and sinking deeper into transfinite
    >analysis.  Don't let them tell you it's just recreational.
    >
    >Just say {}.

    ROTFL! Fortunately, I can quit any time I want.

mathematics
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    From: Bert Tagge <tagge@erols.com>
    I will never forget the day in statistics when, the Professor, who had all
    of the traditional looks of one (white hair, tweed jacket with leather
    elbow patches) was writing on the board X sub i Y sub j; when one of the
    students asked, "Don't you mean X sub j Y sub i?"  The Prof looked at the
    board a bit, then erased the marks with his sleeve, and said;"yes, you are
    correct.  Quite often I will say one thing, write another, and be thinking
    a third.  What I am thinking is correct, and you will be tested on."  Every
    jaw in the classroom hit the floor!

mathematics
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    From: Hugh Robinson <hmr@coventry.ac.uk>
    Okay, here's mine. I am told that it's true, but...

    A certain well-known pure mathematician had a wife who, while
    intelligent, was not into mathematics. However, by continued
    practice, she learnt to distinguish between the conversations
    of algebraists and analysts. So when he had guests to dinner
    who were talking about mathematics, if they were analysts, she
    would introduce at a suitable pause in the conversation:
            "But what happens at the boundary?"
    Whereas, if they were algebraists, she would say:
            "But do the roots lie in the field?"
    By this means she was always able to impress his visitors by
    her knowledge of mathematics.

    (No, don't write and ask for the punchline. That's all.)

mathematics
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    From: stephen@sp2n17-t.missouri.edu (Stephen Montgomery-Smith)

    Reading the last joke made me think of something:

    My wife was at one of the math parties, getting rather bored.
    A friend of mind explained to her that there was one conversation
    line that always worked with professors.  Just say
    "Standards are falling."
    Another professor overheard this, and turned around to say that
    this was absolutely true, and we spent the next half hour
    complaining about how standards are falling.

mathematics
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    From: penny314@aol.com (Penny314)

           Here is one I cooked up when covered
    with chalk dust after a lecture.
         " How do mathemticians die?"
           " White Lung Disease"

    From: "Charles H. Giffen" <chg4k@virginia.edu>

    Since I almost always am covered with chalk after a mathematics
    lecture, I usually tell my calculus students somewhere early on
    in the course that, although coal miner's dread fear is black
    lung disease, we mathematicians suffer from white lung disease!

    I guess our minds were running in the same chalktray!

mathematics
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    Three men are in a hot-air balloon.  Soon, they find themselves lost
    in a canyon somewhere.  One of the three men says, "I've got an idea.
    We can call for help in this canyon and the echo will carry our voices
    far."

    So he leans over the basket and yells out, "Helllloooooo! Where are
    we?" (They hear the echo several times.)

    15 minutes later, they hear this echoing voice: "Helllloooooo!  You're
    lost!!"

    One of the men says, "That must have been a mathematician."

    Puzzled, one of the other men asks, "Why do you say that?"

    The reply: "For three reasons.  (1) he took a long time to answer, (2)
    he was absolutely correct, and (3) his answer was absolutely useless."

mathematics
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    A small, 14-seat plane is circling for a landing in Atlanta.  It's
    totally fogged in, zero visibility, and suddenly there's a small
    electrical fire in the cockpit which disables all of the instruments
    and the radio.  The pilot continues circling, totally lost, when
    suddenly he finds himself flying next to a tall office building.

    He rolls down the window (this particular airplane happens to have
    roll-down windows) and yells to a person inside the building, "Where
    are we?"

    The person responds "In an airplane!"

    The pilot then banks sharply to the right, circles twice, and makes a
    perfect landing at Atlanta International.

    As the passengers emerge, shaken but unhurt, one of them says to the
    pilot, "I'm certainly glad you were able to land safely, but I don't
    understand how the response you got was any use."

    "Simple," responded the pilot.  "I got an answer that was completely
    accurate and totally irrelevant to my problem, so I knew it had to be
    the IBM building."

mathematics
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    Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they
    translate into their own language and forthwith it is something
    entirely different. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

mathematics
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    Old mathematicians never die; they just lose some of their functions.
    From: Tim.Nelson@Canada.ATTGIS.COM (list of Old * Never Die, they just)

    Special Category: Old scientists never die...

    OLD MATH TEACHERS never die, they just reduce to lowest terms
    OLD MATHEMATICIANS never die, they just disintegrate
    OLD MATHEMATICIANS never die, they just go off on a tangent
    OLD NUMERICAL ANALYSTS never die, they just get disarrayed
    OLD TRIGONOMETRY TEACHERS never die, they just lose their identities
    From: jeroen@orthos.math.rulimburg.nl (Jeroen vi Rutten)

    Old mathematicians never die, they tend to zero.
    From: pml <plavietes@nh.ultranet.com>
    Old mathematicians never die...they just become angles.
    From: Dena Schanzer <schanzer@compmore.net>
    I have always been told that old statisticians do not fade away,
    but rather are "broken down by age and sex".
    From: The Professor (franbo@globalnet.co.uk)

    Old mathematicians never die, they just lose their functions.
    From: "Smiley" <Smiley66@btinternet.com>
    Old  mathematicians never die - they just decay

    From: Haider Family <haider@netutah.net>
    Old mathematicians never die....they just become irrational.

mathematics
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    From: banghar4@studentb.msu.edu (Rick Banghart)

    Two math professors are in a restaurant. One argues that the average person
    does not know any math beyond high school. The other argues that the
    average person knows some more advanced math. Just then, the first one gets
    up to use the rest room. The second professor calls over his waitress and
    says, "When you bring our food, I'm going to ask you a mathematical
    question. I want you to answer, 'One third x cubed.' Can you do that?"
       The waitress says, "I don't know if I can remember that. One thurr...
    um..."
       "One third x cubed," says the prof.
       "One thir dex cue?," asks the waitress.
       "One"
       "One"
       "Third"
       "Third"
       "X"
       "X"
       "Cubed"
       "Cubed"
       "One third X cubed"
       "One third X cubed"
    The waitress leaves, and the other professor comes back. They resume their
    conversation until a few minutes later when the waitress brings their food.
    The professor says to the waitress, "Say, do you mind if I ask you
    something?"
       "Not at all"
       "Can you tell me what the integral of x squared dx is?"
       The waitress pauses, then says, "One third x cubed."
       As she walks away, she stops, turns, and adds, "Plus a constant!"

mathematics
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    From: Oscar Lanzi III (o13@webtv.net)

    Two mathematicians walk into a restaurant for lunch.  One challenges the
    other to a wager, loser pays fthe tab:

    Said the challenger:  "The waitperson will not know the correct formula
    for (a+b)^2."

    "You're on!" was the reply.

    They place their order and the waitpersoin is asked the formula for
    (a+b)^2.  The waitperson replied:

    "Obviously, (a+b)^2 = a^2 + b^2."

    "Provided, of course, that a and b are anticommutative!"

mathematics
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    Special Category: How many scientists does it take to screw in a lightbulb
     How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
     One, who gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing it to an
       earlier riddle.
       -- from a button I bought at Nancy Lebowitz's table at Boskone

    From: rrcraig@eos.ncsu.edu (Ralph Ray Craig)

    Q:  How many numerical analysts does it take to screw in a light bulb?
    A:  0.9973 after the first three iterations.

    Q:  How many topologists does it take to change a light bulb?
    A:  It really doesn't matter, since they'd rather knot.
    From:BRIAN6@VAXC.MDX.AC.UK (canonical lightbulb collection)

    Q:  How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
    A:  None.  It's left to the reader as an exercise.
    A:  Just one, once you've managed to present the problem in terms he/she
        is familiar with.

        In earlier work, Wiener [1] has shown that one mathematician
        can change a light bulb.

        If k mathematicians can change a light bulb, and if one more simply
        watches them do it, then k+1 mathematicians will have changed the
        light bulb.

        Therefore, by induction, for all n in the positive integers,
        n mathematicians can change a light bulb.

        Bibliography:

        [1] Wiener, Matthew P., <11485@ucbvax>, "Re: YALBJ", 1986

    Q:  How many statisticians does it take to change a lightbulb ?
    A:  This should be determined using a nonparametric procedure, since
        statisticians are NOT NORMAL.
    A:  Walt Pirie to hold the bulb and one psychologist, one economist,
        one sociologist and one anthropologist to pull away the ladder.
    A:  One -- plus or minus three (small sample size).
    (Notes: Someone has been asking this as a bonus question on statistics exam
    papers for quite a while. Judging from some of his own students' exam
    answers, it depends on whether the lightbulb is negatively or positively
    screwed.)

    Q:  How many light bulbs does it take to change a light bulb?
    A:  One, if it knows its own Goedel number.
    (Has to do with Goedel's incompleteness theorem)

    From: feldco@aol.com (Zevra and his little green guy)

    How many mathematicians does it take to change a light bulb?
     None. The answer is intuitively obvious.

    How many mathematical logicians does it take to change a light bulb?
     None. They can't do it, but they can easily prove that it can be done.

    How many classical geometers does it take to change a light bulb?
     None. You can't do it with a straight edge and a compass.

    How many analysts does it take to change a light bulb?
     Three. One to prove existence, one to prove uniqueness and one to derive a
    nonconstructive algorithm to do it.

    How many number theorists does it take to change a light bulb?
     I don't know the exact number, but I am sure it must be some rather elegant
    prime.

    From: "Ron" <ron@dock.net>
    How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a light bulb? Three: one to screw it in, and two to figure out how to get rid of the remainder.
    -Jason Poole

    From: Arbel (arbel@mehr.ws)
    Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a
    light bulb?
    A: 0.999999...

mathematics
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    Special Category: Definitions and terms
    (Corrected by "Christopher J. Mark" <cjmark@speakeasy.org>)
    "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems"
     -- Alfréd Rényi (Hungarian mathematician, 1921-1970)
    (It is often attributed to Paul Erdös)

    "Weak coffee however is only fit for lemmas"
     -- Paul Turán (Hungarian mathematician, 1910-1976)

mathematics
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    Special Category: Paul Erdös
    I do what a mathematician does and therefore I drink what a mathematician
    drinks.
    (Excuse that Paul Erdös invented (too late) for the thirteen year old Louis
    Pósa, after Erdös's mother complained that he had given Pósa some coffee.)
      -- Paul Erdös (Hungarian mathematician, 1913-1996)

mathematics
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    From: Chris Morton   (mortoncp@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu)
    do it collection

    rgep@pmms.cam.ac.uk (Richard Pinch),jeffs@math.bu.edu (Jeff Suzuki)
    Joao Batista(fbatista@cc.fc.ul.pt), wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz (Bill Taylor),
    Andrew Smith <A.J.Smith@reading.ac.uk>, The Professor (franbo@globalnet.co.uk)
    Special Category: Scientists do it...

    Algebraists do it by symbolic manipulation.
    Algebraic geometers do it for variety.
    Algebraic geometers do it on the cubic three-fold.
    Algebraists do it in a ring.
    Algebraists do it in fields.
    Algebraists do it in groups.
    Algebraists do it with multiple roots.
    Analysts do it continuously.
    Analysts do it smoothly.
    Analytic number theorists do it in the critical strip.
    Analytic number theorists do it on the critical line.
    Applied mathematicians do it by computer simulation.
    Banach spacers do it completely.
    Bayesians do it with improper priors.
    Catastrophe theorists do it falling off part of a sheet.
    Chaoticians do it with sensitive dependence
    Class field theorists do it by capitulation.
    Classical geometers do it on the Euler line.
    Classical geometers do it on the nine-point circle.
    Combinatorialists do it discretely.
    Commutative algebraists do it regularly.
    Complex analysts do it between the sheets
    Complex analysts do it under a universal cover.
    Constructivists do it without excluding the middle.
    Decision theorists do it optimally.
    Differential analysts do it in a degenerate case.
    Functional analysts do it with compact support.
    Functional analysts do it with degenerate colonels.
    Galois theorists do it in a field.
    Game theorists do it by dominance or saddle points.
    Geometers do it with involutions.
    Graph theorists do it discretely.
    Graph theorists do it in four colours.
    Group theorists do it simply.
    Group theorists do it with the Monster.
    Hilbert spacers do it orthogonally.
    Large cardinals do it inaccessibly.
    Linear programmers do it with nearest neighbors.
    Logicians do it by choice.
    Logicians do it consistently and completely.
    Logicians do it incompletely or inconsistently.
    Logicians do it with Jensen's device.
    (Logicians do it) or [not (logicians do it)].
    Mathematicians do it associatively.
    Mathematicians do it by numbers.
    Mathematicians do it commutatively.
    Mathematicians do it constantly.
    Mathematicians do it continuously.
    Mathematicians do it discretely.
    Mathematicians do it exponentially.
    Mathematicians do it forever if they can do one and can do one more.
    Mathematicians do it functionally.
    Mathematicians do it homologically.
    Mathematicians do it in fields.
    Mathematicians do it in groups.
    Mathematicians do it in imaginary planes.
    Mathematicians do it in n dimensions.
    Mathematicians do it in numbers.
    Mathematicians do it in theory.
    Mathematicians do it on smooth contours.
    Mathematicians do it over and under the curves.
    Mathematicians do it parallel and perpendicular.
    Mathematicians do it partially.
    Mathematicians do it rationally.
    Mathematicians do it reflexively.
    Mathematicians do it symmetrically.
    Mathematicians do it to prove themselves.
    Mathematicians do it to their limits.
    Mathematicians do it totally.
    Mathematicians do it transcendentally.
    Mathematicians do it transitively.
    Mathematicians do it variably.
    Mathematicians do it with a Minkowski sausage.
    Mathematicians do it with imaginary parts.
    Mathematicians do it with linear pairs.
    Mathematicians do it with Nobel's wife.
    Mathematicians do it with odd functions.
    Mathematicians do it with prime roots.
    Mathematicians do it with relations.
    Mathematicians do it with rings.
    Mathematicians do it with their real parts.
    Mathematicians do it without limit.
    Mathematicians do over an open unmeasurable interval.
    Mathematicians have to prove they did it.
    Mathematicians do it ad infinitum.
    Mathematicians do it at the right angle.
    Measure theorists do it almost everywhere.
    Measure theorists do it almost nowhere.
    Moebius always does it on the same side.
    Number theorists do it perfectly.
    Number theorists do it rationally.
    Number theorists do it in the critical strip.
    Pure mathematicians do it rigorously.
    Real analysts do it almost everywhere
    Real analysts do it uniformly.
    Ring theorists do it non-commutatively.
    Set theorists do it in a morass.
    Set theorists do it with cardinals.
    Topologists do it in multiply connected domains
    Topologists do it on rubber sheets.
    Topos theorists do it pointlessly.

    From: "vIRCiated\(tm\)" <r.pinheiro@tutopia.com.br>

    Mathematicians do it with primality.
    MATHEMATICIANS do it as a finite sum of an infinite series
    MATHEMATICIANS do it as continuous function
    MATHEMATICIANS do it in imaginary domain
    MATHEMATICIANS do it with formulć
    MATHEMATICIANS prove they did it
    MATHEMATICIANS take it to the limit

    From nemo_ outis <nemo_outis@elsewhere.com>:
    Topologists do it openly.

mathematics
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    A mathematician is a person who says that, when 3 people are supposed
    to be in a room but 5 came out, 2 have to go in so the room gets
    empty...

mathematics
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    My geometry teacher was sometimes acute, and sometimes
    obtuse, but always, he was right.

mathematics physics
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    From: lyon@netcom.com (Lyman Lyon)

    Physics professor is walking across campus, runs into Math Professor.
    Physics professor has been doing an experiment, and has worked out an
    emphirical equation that seems to explain his data, and asks the Math
    professor to look at it.

    A week later, they meet again, and the Math professor says the equation
    is invalid.  By then, the Physics professor has used his equation to
    predict the results of further experiments, and he is getting excellent
    results, so he askes the Math professor to look again.

    Another week goes by, and they meet once more.  The Math professor tells
    the Physics professor the equation does work, "But only in the trivial
    case where the numbers are real and positive."

mathematics
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    From: gw@molly.informatik.Uni-Koeln.DE (Georg Wambach)

    What is the difference between an applied mathematician and a pure
    mathematician?

    Suppose a mathematician parks his car, locks it with his key and walks
    away. After walking about 50 yards the mathematician realizes that he has
    dropped his key somewhere along the way. What does he do? If he is an
    applied mathematician he walks back to the car along the path he has
    previously traveled looking for his key. If he is a pure mathematician he
    walks to the other end of the parking lot where there is better light
    and looks for his key there.

    I told this joke to my brother (he is a "pure"). He answers:
    "But we have not dropped our keys!" Hence, I suggest a slight
    modification:

    Suppose a _tax_payer_ parks his car, locks it with his key and walks
    away. After walking about 50 yards the tax payer realizes that he
    has dropped his key somewhere along the way. He asked a mathematician
    to help him. What does the mathematician do? (...)

mathematics
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    From: "John Derrico" <derrico@pixel.Kodak.COM>
    The famous professor of mathematics was in town for a conference.
    Since he had some free time, he was approached to give a seminar for
    the undergraduate mathematics students at the local college.

    After covering several blackboards with densely packed computations
    and expressions filled with Bessel functions and more, the professor
    remembered that there were many undergraduate students in the room.
    Feeling just a twinge of remorse that perhaps he was talking above
    the heads of some of the students in his audience, he turned around
    and asked the audience if there were any students who had never seen
    a Bessel function. The audience was silent for a moment. Finally, one
    intrepid student raised his hand to admit that he had never seen Bessel
    functions. The professor nodded with apparent comprehension. Without
    hesitation, he turned around and pointed at the blackboard, while saying
    "well, there's one now" and continued his talk.

mathematics
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    From: Steven Sinnott <steveisi@vt.edu>
            When a mathematician dies, does he get disfigured, dissolved,
    or disintegrated?

mathematics
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    From: ikat@msg.ti.com (KatC)

    If mathematicians are neutered, they can't multiply.

mathematics
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    From: seanr@fs-gate.uchicago.edu (Sean Roberts)

    If a mathematician writes a fantasy novel, would the pages have imaginary
    numbers?
    From: jboots@pacifier.com (John Boots)

    If Fibonacci wrote the book, they would be numbered 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21...

mathematics
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    From: Mike Banulescu <misu@dartmouth.edu>
    Since I'm studying for a math final tomorrow:

    - do mathematiciens go to the beach looking for a tan?
    - and while on a plane, do they try to figure out its equation?
    - wherever they are, mathematicians just can't seem to integrate into
    the real world...

mathematics
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    From: Melanie Aultman <afn10453@afn.org>
    Mathematicians....don't sin, they sine.
                  ....always have a  nice tan.
                  ....are always going off on a tangent.

mathematics
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    During an oral examination by the Polish Mathematician M. Kac, a student
    was asked the behaviour of the Rieman zeta function zeta(s) in s=1. When
    the student had no idea, Kac gave the hit:"Think of me." The anser came
    immediately :"Aah, it has a simple pole."

mathematics
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    From: Henry Cate's Life collection 3.6
    Just to throw in my two cents worth in to the Intuitively Obvious
    bucket, when I was a math student at Towson State University we were
    given a final exam that involved proving that two N dimensional
    matrices were related in a given way.  I started with the first matrix
    and used every theorem that I could remember trying to reach the
    second, but I got stuck halfway through.  Working feverishly on a
    piece of scrap paper, I started on the second matrix, but couldn't
    work it back to the first.  In a flash of inspiration, I set the two
    intermediate results equal to each other and copied the second set of
    equations backwards onto the tail of the first.  When I got the paper
    back, there was a C which was crossed out and replaced by an A, the
    midpoint of my equations was underlined, with a note saying - At first
    I doubted that this step was intuitively obvious, but after thinking
    about it for several hours, I decided that it was.

mathematics
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    From: Henry Cate's Life collection 3.6
    All right, you asked for it.  A (possibly apocryphal) story related to
    me by a graduate student who had come from a large midwest
    (Wisconsin?) univ.  Seems that one of his classes was taught by the
    department emeritus Prof who was very old (in his 80's) and sometimes
    a bit vague, but at other times incredibly sharp.  One day in lecture
    he was explaining something abstruse and paused to look at the board
    for a moment.  Thereupon he wrote down a result and said, eyes
    twinkling, "And this is intuitively obvious..".  Whereupon he smiled,
    looked out over the class, saw the rows of blank stares, and turned
    back to the board to contemplate the statement written there.  This
    went on for about a minute, at the end of which time he started to
    wander, rather deeply in thought, across the stage.  This went on for
    a minute or two, after which the Prof. drifted out into the hall and
    was heard walking back and forth.  People started to, well, look at
    each other and smile.  A scout was sent out who reported the old boy
    was pacing around and muttering to himself.  The class, incredibly,
    remained reasonably calm.

    About five minutes after the scout had returned, there was a happy
    shout from the hallway, and the again bright-eyed Prof. scuttled back
    in, pointed to the intuitively obvious result written on the
    blackboard, turned to the class and said, all aglow,
    	"Yes, yes, it IS intuitively obvious".

    Same source, different Prof.  This one happened to not like students
    coming in late to the math class he taught..so much so that he would
    do any of the following to the offender: lock them out, yell at them
    abusively, throw chalk at them. One day, the Prof. was late.  Five
    minutes went by.  Silently, one of the students went down and started
    passing up to the audience all the chalk pieces and erasers.  The
    Prof. came rushing in at last, gave no excuse, and began to lecture.
    After about a minute, he needed the chalk, and asked "Has anyone seen
    the chalk?".  The entire class stood up and bombarded him with chalk
    and erasers.  The professor was said never to have abused a student
    for lateness again.....

mathematics
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    From: mlc@iberia.cca.rockwell.com (Michael Cook, Canonical list of Math Jokes)

    This actually happened about 15 years ago, when -- as a young lecturer -- I
    was asked to give a course on Foundations of Analysis.  I was sure at the
    time that the students already know the subject matter and they will be
    wasting their time listening to me.  I was quite surprised, when I entered
    the classroom for the first lecture, to find a room packed with students.
    I was going to suggest that those who know the subject matter leave the
    course, so as not to waste time and energy.  I therefore asked the
    following question: "Has any one of you, by chance, read the book of
    Landau: Foundations of Analysis?"

    The class suddenly became very quiet, until a student from the last
    row said: "I did not read the book, but I saw the movie."

    Weeks later we were laughing, trying to imagine to ourselves how a
    movie on Foundation of Analysis could look like.

mathematics
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    A "small college story" going around here (at least three people have
    told me this story, each one claiming it was them):

    A student, working on a rather long math homework assignment,
    discovered that one problem was fairly easy to solve, except that it
    required about three pages of fairly simple proof after the one or two
    difficult steps.  It being rather late at night, he did the difficult
    steps and left the proof undone, along with a note:

    "This proof is left as an exercise for the grader."

    Next week, he received his homework back.  He noted that several extra
    pages had been stapled to the back of it.  Examining the extra pages,
    he was surprised to find the entire proof written down step-by step.
    At the end, in red pen, the grader had written:

    "I made a minor math error.  Minus 2."

mathematics
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    From: reg@pinet.aip.org (Dr. Richard Glass)

    While taking a psych. course in college, the teacher had a habit of
    putting the following questions on an exam:

    "Ask yourself a question and answer it"

    Being a math major, I asked myself "Solve the following differential
    equation [* equation deleted *] under the following conditions
    [* conditions deleted *]"

    and proceeded to solve it.

    The next day I stopped by the math office to see one of the profs.  He
    told me "Go away, I'm stuck grading your stupid psych. exam".

    I got full credit, and the psych prof. never put that question on an
    exam again.

    From: Seth Breidbart (sethb@Morgan.COM)

    The story around Harvard was that there was a graduate Math course
    whose final always consisted of "Make up an appropriate final exam for
    this course and answer it.  You will be graded on both parts."

    Then one year, a student answered as follows:

    The exam is: "Make up an appropriate final exam for this course and
    answer it.  You will be graded on both parts."  The answer is: "Make
    up an appropriate final exam for this course and answer it.  You will
    be graded on both parts."

    His reasoning was that since that was the best exam the professor
    could write, it certainly ought to be good enough for a student.

    He got an A.  The professor specifically prohibited that answer from
    then on.

    From: Evan Kirshenbaum (evan@hplabs.hpl.hp.com)

    I heard the same story at Stanford.  It bothered those of us whe were
    into recursion because the proposed question is a two-part question
    (question and answer) and the proposed answer only adresses one of the
    parts.  The story should really be recursive:

      The exam is: "Make up an appropriate final exam for this course and
      answer it.  You will be graded on both parts."  The answer is:
         "The exam is `Make up an appropriate final exam for this course
         and answer it.  You will be graded on both parts.'  The answer is
             `The exam is "Make up an appropriate final exam for this course
             and answer it.  You will be graded on both parts."  The answer is
                ....

    or, using Common Lisp notation,

      #1: The exam is: "Make up an appropriate final exam for this course and
          answer it.  You will be graded on both parts."  The answer is: "#1#"

mathematics
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    From: neufeld@aurora.physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld)

    Well, I've got a favorite story from my Math-Phys course in undergrad.
    I figure the statute of limitations on the marks has expired now, so
    here goes.

    The typical problem, show <expr> is equal to <much simpler expr>.  The
    math was pretty nasty, and half-way through it looked like I'd need a
    clue to getting to the answer, so I went to the result and tried to
    work it back to the intermediate result (typical test/homework trick).
    They didn't meet.  I had two expressions which I knew were equal from
    plugging into the calculator, but I couldn't show it algebraically.
    So, I used another familiar trick, between the two lines I wrote: ICBS
    (it can be shown) and stuck it between the two pieces I couldn't
    connect.

    Now, somebody else in the class did the same thing, exactly, and got
    stuck in exactly the same place.  He wrote: TAMO (then a miracle
    occurs) in the same place.

    I got full marks, he lost marks and got a sarcastic comment from the
    corrector.

mathematics
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"The reason that every major university maintains a department of mathematics is that it is cheaper to do this than to institutionalize all those people."

mathematics
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    From:   Mike Deeth <mad@ashland.baysat.net>
    Why did Cantor get fired from the M&M factory?
    He kept throughing away the W's.
    On his way out of the building he was heard muttering,
    "Doesn't the idiot realize that there are an infinite amount
    of w's?  Throughing away a few w's won't change the number
    of w's that remain.  ...Oh!..  Pardon me Mr. Tree.  How are
    your leaves today?"

mathematics
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    From: Michael Stueben
    Q: How can you tell an extroverted mathematician?
    A: He stares at YOUR shoes while talking to you.

mathematics
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    From: Joachim Verhagen.
    Adapted from part of an article by Hendrik Lenstra in Natuur & Techniek,
    October 2001.

    One of my students told me about a conversation he had with another
    student.  The other student studied law and Jim asked why he did that.
    Law student: I can get a good job by studying law.
    Jim        : And why do you want a good job?
    Law student: I will earn a lot of money with a good job.
    Jim        : And why do want to earn a lot of money?
    Law student: I can buy a big car and a house, marry a woman and start a
                 family.
    Jim        : And why do want all those things?
    Law student: That makes me happy.
    Jim        : I study mathematics and by studying mathematics I reach the
    same in one step as doing mathematics makes me happy directly.

    Adapted from part of an article by Hendrik Lenstra in Natuur & Techniek,
    October 2001.

mathematics
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    From: Keith King <keithkng@gnt.net>
    A mathematician was in a habit of making a cup of tea when working late at
    night. His normal method was to get the teapot from the cupboard, take the
    teapot to the sink, add water, heat to boiling, then make the cup of tea.
    Unfortunately, one night when he went to make tea, the teapot was already
    full of water and sitting on the stove. He thought about this for several
    minutes, then emptied the teapot and put it back in the cupboard, thereby
    reducing this to a previously solved problem.

mathematics
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    From: Grozzybrokedown@aol.com

    A mathematician organized a raffle in which the prize was advertised as an
    infinite amount of money. He sold all the tickets quickly.  When the winning
    ticket was drawn, and the happy winner came to claim his prize, the
    mathematician explained the mode of payment:
    1 dollar now, 1/2 a dollar next week, 1/3 a dollar the week after that...

mathematics
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    From: Joachim Verhagen.
    Special Category: Famous last words

                                 Famous last words

    Mathematician: And now we divide by zero.

mathematics
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    Special Category: You might be a scientist if...

    From: Aubrey Jaffer <agj@alum.mit.edu>

    You Might be a Mathematician if ...

    * hypergeometric summations are the most fun you can have with your clothes
      on;

    * you cannot refrain from blurting out counterexamples when someone claims
      an impossibility;

    * at the age of 19 your most productive years are behind you;

    * your major result will be named for someone else;

    * you make mistakes ... but they are really interesting mistakes;

    * you wonder how Euler pronounced "Euclid";

    * you understand all the mathematics Gauss produced ... through age 13;

    * Russel's letter to Frege adorns your wall;

    * your major was Mathematics, minor Caffeine;

    * you know all of the Greek alphabet, but not a word of Greek;

    * your favorite story is Pretty Poly Nomial and Curly Pi;

    * irresistible little combinatorics puzzles keep appearing like a nervous
      tic;

    * your progeny are relieved to learn that Mathematics is not a heritable
      genetic trait;

    * the solution to every problem involves counting balls into boxes;

    * you can fold planar strips into regular polyhedra ... entirely in your
      head;

    * doing something more than once is boring;

    * you suffer dental and gum disease because brushing teeth more than once
      was boring;

    * you have already obtained your next three years of reading material;

    * it is difficult to plan for retirement given the current state of the
      continuum hypothesis;

    * you celebrate Erdös's birthday decadently with donuts and champagne in
      paper cups;

    * you remember postal addresses by means of number theory: "The smallest
      integer which is the sum of two cubes in two different ways";

    * you count on your fingers in binary;

    * your romantic relationship is stressed when you show too much interest in
      your beloved's mathematician acquaintances;

    * you know a six-letter word with three vowels, all of which are
      "y";

    (In case you are as ignorant at me: It is syzygy. Syzygy is the position of
    an object when it is in line with other objects. It is then "at syzygy".  -
    Joachim.)

    * you learned French so you could read Bourbaki;

    * you bring Bourbaki's Varietes Differentielles Analytiques Fascicule de
      Resultats on vacation;

    * you don't bother taking vacations when you can read Bourbaki at
      home;

    * you visit Earth primarily for lectures and family obligations;

    * your opinion of A Beautiful Mind is "been there; done that."

    Copyright 2002 Aubrey Jaffer
    http://swissnet.ai.mit.edu/~jaffer/YMBAMI

    From: qqquet@mindspring.com (Leroy Quet)

    * you tell those who ask you what you do for a living that you are a
    mathematician.... which is a lie...

    * you think of math as an art, not as a science...

    * you would rewrite the above joke as :'you think of math as an art, not
    ONLY as a science'...

    * you think that jokes about math are funny...

    From: qqquet@mindspring.com (Leroy Quet)
    One more. related to last one I gave:

    * you MUST reply to your original reply to news:sci.math just to point out
    that "You know you are a mathematician when" you appreciate humor
    which is in any way self-referential...

    From: Joona I Palaste <palaste@cc.helsinki.fi>
    You know you are a mathematician when you find yourself saying "there
    exists" instead of "there is".

    From: "Russell Easterly" <logiclab@attbi.com>
    You Might be a Mathematician if ...
    * You get into heated arguments over 0.999... = 1.0...

    From: Joona I Palaste <palaste@cc.helsinki.fi>
    * Or into heated arguments whether "Two coins are tossed and one is
    heads" is any different from "Two coins are tossed. Given that one is
    heads".

    From: "Russell Easterly" <logiclab@attbi.com>

    You Might be a Mathematician if ...

    You think Cantor's set is "beautiful"

    Your retirement plans include solving the twin prime conjecture

    You think finding a new formula that sums to e is cool

    Cantor's diagonal proof makes sense to you

    You spend time helping people you don't know do their homework

    You have read articles with titles like "Betti numbers of Z^n-graded
    modules"

    You know the difference between a conjecture and a theorem

    You care how people pronounce "Euler"

    You think Zeno was a troublemaker

    You know what an "Erdos number" is

    You have an Erdos number

    You write emails in Latex

mathematics
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    From: Marcin Mieszek <mieszek@post.pl>

    A mathematician found out that a pipe was leaking, so he called a
    plumber. The plumber  changed a gasket and asked for $100.

    "But how is it possible? You've been working for only 10 minutes and it
    takes me full week to earn $100",  exclaimed the mathematician.
    "Well, that's why I became a plumber. But let me tell you something - I'll
    give you the address of my company. Go there and say that you want to work
    as a plumber. And don't mention that you are a mathematician."

    And so the mathematician did. Soon he earned quite a lot of money.

    But the company decided to educate the plumbers and send them to primary
    school. On the first day the mathematician was asked to write the equation
    for the surface of a circle on the blackboard. He could not remember it,
    but he wanted to use integral calculus to derive it. However, he made some
    error and obtained a negative result. He repeated the calculations twice,
    thrice - and still obtained a negative result.

    He looked stressed at the class
    and found all the fellow plumbers shouting to him: "Change the range of
    integration! Change the range of integration!"

next page | Index | Comments and Contributions

#### Subsections

- 1. mathematics - general
- 1.1 proofs
- 1.2 statistics and statisticians
- 1.3 mathematicians
- 1.4 mathematics poetry
- 1.5 mathematics quotes
- 1.6 mathematic puns
- 1.7 mathematical terms
- 1.8 mathematical exams
- 1.9 learning mathematics
- 1.10 mathematical tests to take
- 1.11 mathematical equations
- 1.12 topology
- 1.13 numbers
- 1.14 set theory
- 1.15 functions

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