## 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

### 1.6 MATHEMATIC PUNS

Index | Comments and Contributions | previous page

New after last time posted (February 28, 2004) mathematics
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    From: stan kegel <kegel@fea.net>,  Puns of the weak
    Mathematic puns are the first sine of madness (Johann Von Haupkoph)

mathematics
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    From: "Risto A. Paju" <rp241@cam.ac.uk>
    Q: How is a PhD student in Theology like the Laplacian operator?
    A: div grad

    (of course this refers to a graduate student of divinity, as well as
    del^2.)

mathematics
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    From: "David Lowenstein" <animepc@ix.netcom.com>

    Mother: Why are you placing a tablecloth with the word "truth" on it on the
    study table?
    Daughter: Mom, I'd like to make this a "truth table."

mathematics
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    From: Pat McQuatty
    Special Category: Afterlife
    Jesus and his disciples were walking around one day, when Jesus said, "The
    Kingdom of Heaven is like 3x squared plus 8x minus 9."  The disciples
    looked very puzzled, and finally asked Peter, "What on earth does Jesus
    mean - the Kingdom of Heaven is like 3x squared plus 8x minus 9?  Peter
    said, "Don't worry.  It's just another one of his parabolas."

mathematics
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    From: Alain Gottcheiner <agot@ulb.ac.be>
    This happened during a 2nd year college course of probability theory.

    Some girls come in quite a bit late, making all sorts of loud noises as
    they go down the classroom stairs, grab a seat, pivot the writing
    tablet, ...

    The teacher, cold as a cucumber :
    "you've come at the right moment, miladies. Is was speaking about
    discrete variables."

mathematics
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    From: fc3a501@math.uni-hamburg.de (Hauke Reddmann)

    The zombie: "I HATE integrating by parts!"

mathematics
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    From: Pierre Abbat <phma@oltronics.net>
    How does a Jew compute an improper integral?
    He takes the kosher principal value.

mathematics
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    From: Mariano Cecowski <Mcecowsk@dc.uba.ar>

    Big party; every possible function is having fun, chatting and drinking
    this evening.
    In an n-dimensional corner e^x stands bitter and alone.  Near the lonely
    one there's a small group of exponential functions, and 2^x within them
    turns to see e^x on it's corner.
    - Hey, e^x, come-on, integrate yourself - Said 2^x pointing to the group.
    - What for - whispers e^x - it makes no difference.

mathematics
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    From: naphtalia_leba@yahoo.com
    You hear the one about the geometer who went to the beach to catch some
    rays and came back a tangent?

mathematics
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    From: Larry Bavly <bavly@rci.rutgers.edu>
    Some of my freshman math students are so clueless. They think General
    Calculus was a famous war hero!

    Here is a follow up:
    If General Calculus actually did exist, he probably knew how to
    integrate his troops together and differentiate between his enemies and
    his allies.

mathematics
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    From: rp241@cam.ac.uk (Risto A. Paju)

    To all these poor guys who ran into differentiation operators

    I know this one bloke who managed to avoid these nasty operators. Until he
    met the creature Del, which was on the same day he received his first
    degree. The result: the guy is a grad.

mathematics
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    Special Category: Definitions and terms
    From:  S Nelson <snibbler@my.forest>  Date: 1999/04/13, 1999/03/14
          Random entries from Nelson's Dictionary of Mathematical Terms:

                                         C

    Calculus - what a dentist scrapes from teeth.
    Center of Mass - the Priest.
    Centroid - a 100 year old nerd.
    Chaos - Kmart.
    Chord - a pile of wood.
    Circle - the longest distance between any two points.
    Circumference - a circuitous inference.
    Coefficient - two heads are better than one.
    Cylinder - Budweiser.

                                         D

    Discrete number - a digit that won't talk out of class
    Divisor - what you wear on da head to protect from da sun.
    Disjoint - what I am about to smoke in dis moment.
    Denominator - one who nominates da candidate
    Decagon - what termites can do to a wooden ship
    Deduct - to butcher a waterfowl
    Differential - to show great respect

    From:  Pierre Abbat <phma@pop.trellis.net>
    Parabolas - two balls connected by a rope, and another one like it
    Rectangle - a twisted mess
    Scalar - mountain climber
    Abelian - a tousand melian
    Number - less sensitive

mathematics
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    From: "Martin Gillstedt" <m_gillstedt@hotmail.com>
    One time the famous mathematician Kurt Gödel was to a restaurant, and
    when one of the waitresses went by, he started slapping her ass. Then she
    told him to stop it, and then he said: Don't worry, I'm just checking the
    consistency.

mathematics
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    From Fabio Rojas (aaprana@mazel.spc.uchicago.edu)
    Q- What do you call a student who goes to campus, tries to go
    home but doesn't arrive in the same place he started?
    A - A non-commuting student.

mathematics
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    From: Luka Crnkovic (e98_tcr@e.kth.se)

    What does the math student say when he steps on a spider?
    -R3->R2!
    What does he call the spider?
    -Orthogonal projection!

mathematics
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    From: Andy Hicks (rah@grip.cis.upenn.edu)

    Q - do you know a good anagram of "banach-tarski" ?
    A - banach-tarski banach tarski

mathematics
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    From: Quiplash (quiplash@aol.comnojunk)

    For a good prime call:  555.793.7319

mathematics
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    From: Diogenes@kear.tdsnet.com wrote:

What is the square root of 69? 8 something ("Ate something")

From: tam@quest1.questconsult.com (Timothy Melton)

What about sqrt(-69)? I 8 something

From: deborah apple <debvolt@sirius.com>

    Q:and what about 68?
    A: do me and i'll owe you 1.

mathematics
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    From: Michael Rothgery <detroit@mci2000.com>
    Before Al Gore became vice president of the United States, he worked
    briefly as a drummer for a little known night club act. Some people
    say that during that time he came up with the best most mathematically
    precise rhythms ever known to man. They are now called appropriately
    enough:

                          Al Gore Rhythms.

    [author unknown]

mathematics
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    From: The Professor (franbo@globalnet.co.uk)

    She was only a mathematicians daughter, but she knew how to multiply.

mathematics
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    From:         qseep@iname.com (Quantum Seep)

My mother is a mathematician, so she knows how to induce good behavior. "If I've told you n times, I've told you n+1 times...."

mathematics
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    From:         madore@news.ens.fr (David Madore)

    Q. What is grey and huge and has integer coefficients?
    A. An elephantine equation.

mathematics
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    From:         madore@news.ens.fr (David Madore)

    Q. What is locally like a ring and very evil?
    A. A devilish scheme.

mathematics
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    From: Larry Bavly <bavly@rci.rutgers.edu>
    Graphing rational functions is a pain in the asymptote.

mathematics
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    From: Larry Bavly <bavly@rci.rutgers.edu>
    Q: Why did the identity sin(2r) = 2sin(r) get turned down for a loan?
    A: Because it needed a cos(r). (co-signer)

mathematics
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    From: Larry Bavly <bavly@rci.rutgers.edu>
    Q: Why would defeating the Chicago Bulls in the playoffs be like solving
    a system of linear equations?

    A: Because one would accomplish a Krause-Jordan elimination. - (Bulls GM
    Jerry Krause, Bulls player Michael Jordan)

    For non-americans: The Chicago Bulls belong to the National Basketball
    Association (USA) and their superstar player is Michael Jordan.

mathematics
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    From:         ijf16@math.canterbury.ac.nz (Isaac Freeman)

    This one's original.  That is to say, I made it up myself, and I've never
    met anyone else who claims to have invented it.

    There was once a factory that specialised in armour.  They made leather
    jerkins, full plate suits, greaves, helmets, anything that would stop an
    arrow or a sword.

    One day, an order arrived from a foreign kingdom.  It was a big contract,
    to outfit an entire army with chain-mail leggings.  The factory owner
    was delighted, and immediately took the design specifications down to the
    factory floor to begin production.

    Several days later, a second message arrived.  Due to various
    circumstances, the design of the leggings had changed.  The new
    standardised national military uniform required that the hems be lowered
    by several centimetres.

    The factory owner grumbled about the loss of time and money involved in
    changing the design, but there was nothing he could do.  He took the new
    plans down to the foreman.

    Several days later, another new design arrived.  The nation's uniform
    requirements had changed again, and the hems must be raised, even higher
    than the original design.

    This went on for several weeks.  Every few days, there was a change of
    plan, and the leggings had to be changed.  Sometimes the hems went up,
    sometimes they went down, but every change meant a loss of money.  Finally
    one day, the factory owner called the foreman up to his office, and asked
    him if there was any way to stop the appalling wastage.

    "Well," said the foreman "it might be that the changes are gradually
    settling down, and will eventually lead to a stable set of leggings.  If
    so, we could extrapolate from what we already know to find the ultimate
    design, and start producing it now, knowing that it's what they'll
    eventually ask for."

    The factory owner agreed this was a good plan.

    "On the other hand," continued the foreman, "it might be that the changes
    will never settle down to any final form, in which case there's nothing
    much we can do."

    This prospect depressed the owner, and he demanded to know whether there
    was any way to tell which situation they faced.

    "Oh, certainly." said the foreman, "There's a simple way to tell."

    He paused.

    "It's called the Wire Trousers Hem Test for Uniform Convergence."

    This was, of course, made up during an Analysis lecture.

mathematics
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    From:         "Pierre Abbat" <phma@pop.trellis.net>
    Tabby and Calico are sitting on two tables, the addition table and the
    multiplication table, and were playing with a string. They are still
    holding it, one at each end, though it is now dangling motionless between
    them. What is the shape of the string?

    A catenary.

    From:         charlie@tuna.net (charlie)

    The cats then took off after, and cought, a 4-dimensional rodent... a
    tessarat

mathematics
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    From: feder001@coyote.csusm.edu (Todd Federman)

       If a travelling salesman starts in Houston, visits every city in the
    United States just once, and ends up where he started, has he completed a
    Houston Euler Circuit?

    From: Alain Gottcheiner <agot@ulb.ac.be>
    Funny, but wrong.  This is a Hamiltonian circuit.  He should have
    taken each and every motorway exactly once and come back in Houston.
    This would constitute a Euler circuit.

mathematics
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    From: amconn01@homer.louisville.edu (Andrew Connor)

    A better math joke might have been the one about the Neanderthal child who
    rode to school with a boy from Hamilton. When his mother found out she
    said, "What did I tell you? If you commute with a Hamiltonian you'll never
    evolve!"

mathematics
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    From: kovarik@mcmail.cis.McMaster.CA (Zdislav V. Kovarik)

    Expand (a+b)^n.

    Solution:                  (a+b)^n

                             (a + b) ^ n

                            (a  +  b)  ^  n

                           (a   +   b)   ^   n

    etc.

mathematics
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    From: Tpotter@voyager.cris.com (Tom_Potter)

    Tom Potter:   Life is complex. It has real and imaginary components.

mathematics
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    From: Erland.Gadde@sm.luth.se (Erland Gadde)

    Trigonometry for farmers: swine and cowswine.

mathematics
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    From: mstueben@pen.k12.va.us (Michael A. Stueben)

    I liked the PI-ous one best.

mathematics
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    From: rja093@nwu.edu (Rajan Jain)

    mathematician's PICK UP LINE
    Hey baby, How would you like to join me in some math?  We'll add you and me,
    subtract our clothes, divide your legs, and multiply!
    Of course, we'll be entirely discrete.

mathematics
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    From: achiever@mcs.net (Steve Warrington)

    How do you teach mathematics to a woman

    Look for the tan line
    subtract her pants
    stack her on the bed
    divide her legs
    calculate the distance
    arc her back
    add a length
    function properly
    provide constant movement
    give her a square root
    turn her over for a reverse polish notion
    gradiently increase the integer
    round the remainder
    fill the pi
    hope she doesn't multiply
    log the event
    sine on the dotted line
    get her to cosine
    profit from the experience
    base the result on an exponent

mathematics
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    UR 2 Good
       2 Me
       2 Be
       4 Got
      ==
      10            "You are too good to me to be forgotten"

mathematics
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    From: A Friend to Society <freya@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>

    	2 Good		2 Cute		2 Young
           +2 Be           +2 Be           +4 That
          ----------       ---------       --------
            4 Gotten        4 Gotten        6 Pack

mathematics
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    A lazy dog is a slow pup.
    A slope up is an inclined plane.
    An ink-lined plane is a sheet of writing-paper.
    Therefore lazy dog is a sheet of writing-paper.

mathematics
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    Patageometry, n.:
            The study of those mathematical properties that are invariant
    under brain transplants.

mathematics
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    From:kcarver@fox.nstn.ns.ca (Kevin Carver)

    I know most of you people who are "into" math have heard the pun (over and
    over and over ...) about knowing the difference between your "asymptote and
    a hole in the graph" but here's one you may not have heard. IT'S A TRUE
    STORY!

    A student at our high school a few years back, having had his fill with
    drawing graph after graph in senior high math class, told his teacher:
    Mrs. ___, I'll do algebra, I'll do trig, and I'll even do statistics, but
    graphing is where I draw the line!

mathematics
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    A bunch of Polish scientists decided to flee their repressive
    government by hijacking an airliner and forcing the pilot to fly them
    to a western country.  They drove to the airport, forced their way on
    board a large passenger jet, and found there was no pilot on board.
    Terrified, they listened as the sirens got louder.  Finally, one of
    the scientists suggested that since he was an experimentalist, he
    would try to fly the aircraft.

    He sat down at the controls and tried to figure them out.  The sirens
    got louder and louder.  Armed men surrounded the jet.  The would be
    pilot's friends cried out, "Please, please take off now!!!
    Hurry!!!!!!"

    The experimentalist calmly replied, "Have patience. I'm just a simple
    pole in a complex plane."

mathematics
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    A group of Polish tourists is flying on a small airplane through the
    Grand Canyon on a sightseeing tour.  The tour guide announces: "On the
    right of the airplane, you can see the famous Bright Angle Falls."
    The tourists leap out of their seats and crowd to the windows on the
    right side.  This causes a dynamic imbalance, and the plane violently
    rolls to the side and crashes into the canyon wall.  All aboard are
    lost.  The moral to this episode is:  always keep your poles off the
    right side of the plane.

    Caveat:  While this joke mentions Polish people, it is not, in my
    opinion, in the category of the infamous Polish jokes.  I hope no one
    is offended but only humored.

mathematics
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    Three standard Peter Lax jokes (heard in his lectures) :

    1. What's the contour integral around Western Europe?
            Answer: Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe!
            Addendum: Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but
                      they are removable!

    2. An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his very religious
       colleague:
            Do you believe in one God?
            Answer: Yes, up to isomorphism!

    3. What is a compact city?
            It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted
            policemen!

mathematics
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    From: wheierman@corunduminium.com (Will Heierman)

    Recently, I read the following riddle on a math joke website.  It was
    attributed to Peter Lax.
        "What is a compact city?"
        "A city that can be guarded by a finite number of nearsighted policemen."

    However, I doubt that he would make such a mistake.  Moreover, he was my
    advisor when I was a graduate student, and I actually recall a conversation
    with him regarding this anecdote.  It did not go exactly like this (but
    this makes a better story):
         "Dr. Lax, wouldn't it be better to say that a compact city is one that
         can be guarded by a finite number of policemen, no matter how
         nearsighted they are?"
         "That's not any better, really, for if the nth policeman could only
         see a distance of 1/2^(n+2), no finite number of them could guard even
         [0,1]!"
         "Wow!  How do we handle this?"
         "I might reword it slightly: A compact city is one which can be
         guarded by a finite number of policemen, no matter how nearsighted a
         policeman is."

    Up until that moment, I had always thought that the only people who were
    uniformly nearsighted were baseball umpires!

    Great teaching does not merely expose the truth.  It leads to the truth
    along a path which is fun to travel.

mathematics
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    Asked how his pet parrot died, the mathematician answered
        "Polynomial.  Polygon."

mathematics
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    Lumberjacks make good musicians because of their natural logarithms.

mathematics
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    Statement: pi * r^2
    Reaction: Pie are not square.  Pie are round.  Cornbread are square.

mathematics
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    From: RVFT60@email.sps.mot.com (Mike Scott)

    A Cherokee indian chief had three wives, each of whom was pregnant.
    The first squaw gave birth to a boy, and the chief was so elated he
    built her a teepee made of buffalo hide.  A few days later, the second
    squaw gave birth, and also had a boy.  The chief was extremely happy;
    he built her a teepee made of antelope hide.
    The third squaw gave birth a few days later, but the chief kept the
    birth details a secret.  He built the woman a teepee out of
    hippopotamus hide, and challenged the people in the tribe to guess the
    most recent birth details, the correct guesser receiving a fine prize.
    Several of his people tried, but were unsuccessful in their guesses.
    Finally, a young brave came forth and declared that the third wife had
    delivered twin boys.  "Correct"!, cried the chief.  "How did you know"?
     "It's simple", replied the warrior.  "The value of the squaw of the
    hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides."

mathematics
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    A tribe of Native Americans generally referred to their woman by the
    animal hide with which they made their blanket.  Thus, one woman might
    be known as Squaw of Buffalo Hide, while another might be known as
    Squaw of Deer Hide.  This tribe had a particularly large and strong
    woman, with a very unique (for North America anyway) animal hide for
    her blanket.  This woman was known as Squaw of Hippopotamus hide, and
    she was as large and powerful as the animal from which her blanket was
    made.

    Year after year, this woman entered the tribal wrestling tournament,
    and easily defeated all challengers; male or female.  As the men of
    the tribe admired her strength and power, this made many of the other
    woman of the tribe extremely jealous.  One year, two of the squaws
    petitioned the Chief to allow them to enter their sons together as a
    wrestling tandem in order to wrestle Squaw of the Hippopotamus hide as
    a team.  In this way, they hoped to see that she would no longer be
    champion wrestler of the tribe.

    As the luck of the draw would have it, the two sons who were wrestling
    as a tandem met the squaw in the final and championship round of the
    wrestling contest.  As the match began, it became clear that the squaw
    had finally met an opponent that was her equal.  The two sons wrestled
    and struggled vigorously and were clearly on an equal footing with the
    powerful squaw.  Their match lasted for hours without a clear victor.
    Finally the chief intervened and declared that, in the interests of
    the health and safety of the wrestlers, the match was to be terminated
    and that he would declare a winner.

    The chief retired to his teepee and contemplated the great struggle he
    had witnessed, and found it extremely difficult to decide a winner.
    While the two young men had clearly outmatched the squaw, he found it
    difficult to force the squaw to relinquish her tribal championship.
    After all, it had taken two young men to finally provide her with a
    decent match.  Finally, after much deliberation, the chief came out
    from his teepee, and announced his decision.  He said...

    "The Squaw of the Hippopotamus hide is equal to the sons of the squaws
    of the other two hides"

mathematics
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    From: CarjL <carjl@springtime.org>

    There were three Medieval kingdoms on the shores of a lake. There was an
    island in the middle of the lake, which the kingdoms had been fighting
    over for years. Finally, the three kings decided that they would send
    their knights out to do battle, and the winner would take the island.

    The night before the battle, the knights and their squires pitched camp
    and readied themselves for the fight. The first kingdom had 12 knights,
    and each knight had 5 squires, all of whom were busily polishing armor,
    brushing horses, and cooking food. The second kingdom had 20 knights,
    and each knight had 10 squires. Everyone at that camp was also busy
    preparing for battle. At the camp of the third kingdom, there was only
    one knight, with his squire. This squire took a large pot and hung it
    from a looped rope in a tall tree. He busied himself preparing the meal,
    while the knight polished his own armor.

    When the hour of the battle came, the three kingdoms sent their squires
    out to fight (this was too trivial a matter for the knights to join in).
    The battle raged, and when the dust cleared, the only person left was
    the lone squire from the third kingdom, having defeated the squires from
    the other two kingdoms.

    Thus proving that the squire of the high pot and noose is equal to the
    sum of the squires of the other two sides.

mathematics
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    From: stan kegel <kegel@fea.net>,  Puns of the weak

    	THE POET'S WILL
     The Moslem poet, Abdul-El-Hashiff,
     wrote sonnets, not the usual specialty
     of his own culture, but he felt that if
     he could disseminate his poetry
     he'd find a bride. In fact he did so well
     he married three, to each of which he wrote
     for the few months he lived. In that short spell
     Abdul became a poet of some note.
     He loved his brides, although I ought to mention
     he loved the most one for whom hypertension
     had been a chronic problem. We heard news
     he'd left her half his wealth. His will provides
     as follows: "The share of the hypertense muse
     equals the sum of the shares of the other two brides."
    	(Pedro J. Saavedra)

mathematics
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    Special Category: quizes and tests to do
    What follows is a "quiz" a student of mine once showed me (which she'd
    gotten from a previous teacher, etc...).  It's multiple choice, and if
    you sort the letters (with upper and lower case disjoint) questions
    and answers will come out next to each other.  Enjoy...

     S. What the acorn said when he grew up
     N.                                                     bisects
     u. A dead parrot
     g.                                                     center
     F. What you should do when it rains
     R.                                                     hypotenuse
     m. A geometer who has been to the beach
     H.                                                     coincide
     h. The set of cards is missing
     y.                                                     polygon
     A. The boy has a speech defect
     t.                                                     secant
     K. How they schedule gym class
     p.                                                     tangent
     b. What he did when his mother-in-law wanted to go home
     D.                                                     ellipse
     O. The tall kettle boiling on the stove
     W.                                                     geometry
     r. Why the girl doesn't run a 4-minute mile
     j.                                                     decagon

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    Special Category: quizes and tests to do

    ___  1. That which Noah built.
    ___  2. An article for serving ice cream.
    ___  3. What a bloodhound does in chasing a woman.
    ___  4. An expression to represent the loss of a parrot.
    ___  5. An appropriate title for a knight named Koal.
    ___  6. A sunburned man.
    ___  7. A tall coffee pot perking.
    ___  8. What one does when it rains.
    ___  9. A dog sitting in a refrigerator.
    ___ 10. What a boy does on the lake when his motor won't run.
    ___ 11. What you call a person who writes for an inn.
    ___ 12. What the captain said when the boat was bombed.
    ___ 13. What a little acorn says when he grows up.
    ___ 14. What one does to trees that are in the way.
    ___ 15. What you do if you have yarn and needles.
    ___ 16. Can George Washington turn into a country?

    A. hypotenuse              I. circle
    B. polygon                 J. axiom
    C. inscribe                K. cone
    D. geometry                L. coincide
    E. unit                    M. cosecant
    F. center                  N. tangent
    G. decagone                O. hero
    H. arc                     P. perpendicular

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    There was once a very smart horse.  Anything that was shown it, it
    mastered easily, until one day, its teachers tried to teach it about
    rectangular coordinates and it couldn't understand them.  All the
    horse's acquaintances and friends tried to figure out what was the
    matter and couldn't.  Then a new guy (what the heck, a computer
    engineer) looked at the problem and said,

    "Of course he can't do it.  Why, you're putting Descartes before the
    horse!"

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    Special Category: René Descartes

    From: "Gregory N. Jelinek, M.D." <gnjmd@txcyber.com>

    Rene was busy putting the last touches to a lavish table spread with all
    sorts of goodies at the annual Descartes' New Year's Party.

    The guests arrived and Rene was mingeling with them and astounding them
    with his alacrity of thought, when Mrs. Descartes called to him to take out
    the special New Year's meat pies. He placed them on a sideboard away from
    the main table -- intended for the traditional post midnight revel repast.

    Still mingeling he espied a hungry guest ranging over toward the meat pies.
    Like a flash he was upon him.

    "Not now Monsieur, he cried, "I think they're for 1 a.m.!"

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    From:         Tim Hagman <hagmanti@pilot.msu.edu>
    Remember, never put Horace before Descartes...

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    From: "I.A. Paul" <I.A.Paul@gmx.net>
    What is the error of saying,
    "I am, therefore I think"?

    You end up placing de Horace before Descartes!

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    Mrs. Johnson the elementary school math teacher was having children do
    problems on the blackboard that day.

    ``Who would like to do the first problem, addition?''

    No one raised their hand.  She called on Tommy, and with some help he
    finally got it right.

    ``Who would like to do the second problem, subtraction?''

    Students hid their faces.  She called on Mark, who got the problem but
    there was some suspicion his girlfriend Lisa whispered it to him.

    ``Who would like to do the third problem, division?''

    Now a low collective groan could be heard as everyone looked at
    nothing in particular.  The teacher called on Suzy, who got it right
    (she has been known to hold back sometimes in front of her friends).

    ``Who would like to do the last problem, multiplication?''

    Tim's hand shot up, surprising everyone in the room.  Mrs. Johnson
    finally gained her composure in the stunned silence.  ``Why the
    enthusiasm, Tim?''

    ``God said to go forth and multiply!''

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    In the bayous of Louisiana, there is a small river called the Dirac.
    Many wealthy people have their mansions near its mouth.  One of the
    social leaders decided to have a  grand ball.  Being a cousin of the
    Governor, she arranged  for a detachment of the state militia to serve
    as guards and traffic directors for the big doings.  A captain was
    sent over with a small company; naturally he asked if there was enough
    room for him and his unit.  The social leader replied, "But of course,
    Captain!  It is well known that the Dirac delta function has unit
    area."

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    Special Category: Bertrand (Arthur William) Russell

    Russell to Whitehead: "My Godel is killing me!"

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    One attractive young businesswoman to another, over lunch:
    My life is all math. I am trying to add to my income, subtract from my
    weight, divide my time, and avoid multiplying.

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    What keeps a square from moving ? why, square roots of course.
    How many square roots does it have ? why, 2 obviously.

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    From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>, Puns of the weak
    What happened to the plant in the math classroom?
    It got square roots (Jake, 10)

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    How can you tell that Harvard was layed out by a mathematician?
    The div school [divinity school] is right next to the grad school...

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                            Mathematical Sex

       Wherein it is related how that Polygon of Womanly Virtue, your Polly
    Nomial (our heroine) is accosted by that Notorious Villain Curly Pi, and
    factored (oh, horror).

       Once upon a time ( 1/T ), Pretty Polly Nomial was strolling across a
    field of vectors when she came to the boundary of a singularly large
    matrix. Now Polly was convergent and her mother had made it an absolute
    condition that she never enter such an array without her brackets on.
    Polly, however, who had changed her variables that morning and was feeling
    particularly badly behaved, ignored this condition on the basis that it was
    insufficient, and made her way amongst the complex elements. Rows and
    columns closed in from all sides. Tangents approached her surface. She
    became tensor and tensor. Quite suddenly, two branches of a hyperbola
    touched her at a single point. She oscillated violently, lost all sense of
    directrix, and went completely divergent. As she reached a turning point,
    she tripped over a square root that was protruding from the erf and plunged
    headlong down a steep gradient. When she rounded off once more, she found
    herself inverted, apparently alone, in a non-Euclidian space.
       She was being watched, however. That smooth operator, Curly Pi, was
    lurking innerproduct. As his eyes devoured her curvilinear coordinates, a
    singular expression crossed his face. He wondered, was she still
    convergent? He decided to integrate improperly at once.
       Hearing a common fraction behind her, Polly rotated and saw Curly Pi
    approaching with his power series extrapolated.  She could see at once by his
    degenerate conic and dissipative terms that he was bent on no good.
       "Arcsinh," she gasped.
       "Ho, ho," he said. "What a symmetric little asymptote you have. I can see
    your angles have a lot of secs."
       "Oh, sir," she protested, "keep away from me. I haven't got my brackets
    on."
       "Calm yourself, My Dear," said our Suave Operator.  "Your fears are purely
    imaginary."
       "I, I," she thought, "perhaps he's not normal but homologous."
       "What order are you?" the Brute demanded.
       "Seventeen," replied Polly.
       Curly leered. "I suppose you've never been operated on."
       "Of course not," Polly replied quite properly. "I'm absolutely
    convergent."
       "Come, come," said Curly, "Let's off to a decimal place I know and I'll
    take you to the limit."
       "Never," gasped Polly.
       "Abscissa," he swore, using the vilest oath he knew. His patience was
    gone. Coshing her over the coefficient with a log until she was powerless,
    Curly removed her discontinuities. He stared at her significant places, and
    began smoothing out her points of inflection. Poor Polly. The algorithmic
    method was now her only hope. She felt his hand tending to her asymptotic
    limit. Her convergence would soon be gone forever.
       There was no mercy, for Curly was a heavyside operator. Curly's radius
    squared itself; Polly's loci quivered. He integrated by parts. He
    integrated by partial fractions. After he cofactored, he performed
    rungecutta on her. The complex beast even went all the way around and did a
    contour integration. Curly went on operating until he had satisfied her
    hypothesis, then he exponentiated and became completely orthogonal.
       When Polly got home that night, her mother noticed that she was no
    longer piecewise continuous, but had been truncated in several places. But
    is was too late to differentiate now. As the months went by, Polly's
    denominator increased monotonically. Finally, she went to the L'Hopital and
    generated a small but pathological function which left surds all over the
    place and drove Polly to deviation.

       The moral of our sad story is this:
       'If you want to keep your expressions convergent, never allow them a
    single degree of freedom...'

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    He thinks he's really smooth, but he's only C^1. He's always going off on a
    tangent.

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    From: <U42157@uicvm.uic.edu> Jim Slepicka
         After the earth dries out, Noah tells all the animals to 'go forth
    and multiply'. However, two snakes, adders to be specific, complain to
    Noah that this is one thing they have never been able to do, hard as
    they have tried. Undaunted, Noah instructs the snakes to go into the
    woods, make tables from the trunks of fallen trees and give it a try
    on the tabletops.
    The snakes respond that they don't understand how this will help them
    to procreate whereupon Noah explains: "Well, even adders can multiply
    using log tables!"

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    A man camped in a national park, and noticed Mr. Snake and Mrs. Snake
    slithering by.  "Where are all the little snakes?" he asked.  Mr.
    Snake replied, "We are adders, so we cannot multiply."

    The following year, the man returned to the same camping spot.  This
    time there were a whole batch of little snakes.  "I thought you said
    you could not multiply," he said to Mr. Snake.  "Well, the park ranger
    came by and built a log table, so now we can multiply by adding!"

mathematics
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    Math and Alcohol don't mix, so...

    PLEASE DON'T DRINK AND DERIVE

    Then there's every parent's scream when their child walks into the
    room dazed and staggering:

    OH NO...YOU'VE BEEN TAKING DERIVATIVES!!

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    From: jwalradt@rmci.net (John R. Walradt)

    Q: Where do mathematicians go shopping?
    a: At the decimall.

    From: dhobus@YESnet.yk.ca (Dave and Sandy Hobus)

    And when they park, they put their money in the decimeter.

    From: Intech <intech@imperium.net>
    Let's keep adding a few puns here, but don't let them divide us.  The
    denominating factor that will determine if your pun is worthy or not will
    depend on if you can produce a good product or not.

    From: "Les Stewart" <lesstew1@mail.pernet.net>
    The mall was flooded, I tried to go by U-boat but I couldn't get any
    sub-traction.

    From: shelleyd@interport.net (Shelley Levine)

    I'm sure the puns will multiply, and a fraction of them might even be good.

    From: "J.A. McCulloch" <xxxxx@concentric.net>

    Why are mathematicians so negative?
    Because they are nonplussed.

    Why are there so many mathematicians?
    Because they let nothing subtract from their multiplying.

    From: Melanie Aultman <afn10453@afn.org>
    There was a girl who took her math book to the gym because she needed to
    reduce her fractions....

    From: "Les Stewart" <lesstew1@mail.pernet.net>
    I am a dark, well-dressed man who would like join the fun.
    				sined,

    From: Steve P. <stevep@interport.net>
    I heard you had to borrow a lot of money to buy those new clothes. Did you
    have a co-siner for your loan?
    				the tangent

    From: "Les Stewart" <lesstew1@mail.pernet.net>
    Fractaly my dear, I don't give a damn!

    From: Adnan <nldc@worldnet.att.net>
    Couldn't we try seeing this from a different angle?

    From: LoRdGoOsE <bear4876@capital.net>
    How could you be so obtuse?

    From: fc3a501@GEO.math.uni-hamburg.de (Hauke Reddmann)

    How can you factor a rhesus, when he belongs to the primates?

    From: Adnan (nldc@worldnet.att.net)

    PI the way who is keeping the log?

    From: LoRdGoOsE <bear4876@capital.net>
    I'm not sure, but this log is NOT natural at all, need i enumerate the
    probabilities?

    And by the way, in genetics, I think that the guys at the lab have to do
    their reporting per mutation, just to keep it straight

    From: "Pierre Abbat" <phma@trellis.net>
    Q: What fish commutes?
    A: An abelian grouper.

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    From: just kiddin (Elisabeth) <maelmill@EUnet.at>
    Q: What is 8 divided in two parts?
    A: Vertically it is 3,
       horizontally it is 0.

mathematics
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    From: "Mark Chatterton" <chatt000@mail.genmills.com>
    Q: Can an english major learn math?
    A: Cosecant!

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    From: mstueben@pen.k12.va.us (Michael A. Stueben)

    Q: What is a backwards written integral sign?
    A: an impropral integral.

    Q:What is a proof?
    A: One-half percent of alcohol.

    Q:Can you prove LaGranges's Identity?
    A: Are you kidding?  It's really hard to prove the identity of someone
    who's been dead for over 150 years!

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    From: markrot@Glue.umd.edu (Mark Peter Rothlisberger)

    Q: What is black and white ivory and fills space?
    A: A piano curve

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    Q: What's purple and commutes?
    A: An abelian grape.

    Q: What's purple, commutes, and is worshiped by a limited number
       of people?
    A: A finitely venerated abelian grape.

    From: bs@st-andrews.ac.uk (Ben Soares)

    Q: What's green, dangerous and commutative?
    A: An abelian grape with a machine gun.
    (and that one's just plain silly).

    From: Al Gerheim <gerheim@sonalysts.com>
    Q: What's an Abelian group under addition, is closed, associative,
    distributive, and bears a curse?
    A: The ring of the Nibelung.

    Q: Why did the mathematician name his dog "Cauchy"?
    A: Because he left a residue at every pole.

    Q: Why is it that the more accuracy you demand from an interpolation
       function, the more expensive it becomes to compute?
    A: That's the Law of Spline Demand.

    Q: What do a mathematician and a physicist [or engineer, or musician,
       or whatever the profession of the person addressed] have in common?
    A: They are both stupid, with the exception of the mathematician.

    Q: What do you call a teapot of boiling water on top of mount everest?
    A: A high-pot-in-use

    Q: What do you call a broken record?
    A: A Decca-gone

    Q: What do you get when you cross 50 female pigs and 50 male deer?
    A: One hundred sows-and-bucks

    Special Category: Why the chicken crossed the road according to scientists
    Q: Why did the chicken cross the Moebius strip?
    A: To get to the other ... er, um ...

    Q: What is the world's longest song?
    A: "Aleph-nought Bottles of Beer on the Wall."

    Q: What does a mathematician do when he's constipated?
    A1: He works it out with a pencil.
    From: jackson@dstc.edu.au (David Jackson)

    A2:(S)he tried to work it out with a pencil, but in the end
       (s)he had to use logs.
    From: saconn@iol.ie (Stephen Connolly)

    A3: He worked it out with a computer/calculator
    A4: he got one of his students to work it out for him
    From: Lynn Killingbeck <killbeck@phoenix.net>
    A5: Use to be "...with a slide rule."
    From: "John Charnock" <J.M.Charnock@dl.ac.uk>
    A6: How does a mathematician cure constipation?
        She works it out with a pencil and a piece of paper.
     So how does an elephant mathematician cure constipation?
        It works it out with logs.

    Q: What's yellow and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice.
    A: Zorn's Lemon.

    Q: What do you get if you cross an elephant with a zebra.
    A: Elephant zebra sin theta.

    Q: What do you get when you cross an elephant and a grape?
    A: Elephant-grape-sin(theta)

    Q: What do you get if you cross an elephant with a mountain climber.
    A: You can't do that.  A mountain climber is a scalar.

    Q: What do you get when you cross an elephant with a banana?
    A: Elephant banana sine theta in a direction mutually perpendicular to
       the two as determined by the right hand rule.

    Q: What do you get when you cross a tsetse with a mountain climber?
    A: Nothing, you can't cross a vector with a scalar.

    Q: What do you get when you cross a mountain goat and a mountain climber?
    A: Nothing.  You cant cross two scalars.

    Special Category: Norbert Wiener
    Q: To what question is the answer "9W."
    A: "Dr. Wiener, do you spell your name with a V?"

    Q: What's non-orientable and lives in the sea?
    A: Mobius Dick.

    Q: What do you get when you put a spinning flywheel in a casket and
       turn a corner?
    A: A funeral precession

    Q: What's big, grey, and proves the uncountability of the reals?
    A: Cantor's Diagonal Elephant!

    Q: What do you call a young eigensheep?
    A: A lamb, duh!!!

    Q: What goes "Pieces of seven! Pieces of seven!"?
    A: A parroty error!!

    Q: What did the circle say to the tangent line?
    A: "Stop touching me!"

    From: Jos van Kan <j.vankan@math.tudelft.nl>
    Q: What's yellow, linear, normed and complete?
    A: A Bananach space.

    From: dmc@sjfc.edu (Dan Cass)

    Q: What's polite and works for the phone company?
    A: A deferential operator.

    From: bs@st-andrews.ac.uk (Ben Soares)

    Q: What is linear and sounds a bit like a Nectar Race?
    A: A vector space.
    (it is irrelevant what a nectar race is)

    Q: How do you make one burn?
    A: Differentiate a log fire.
    (that one is subtle)

    From: Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com (Reef Fish)

    Q:  What is huge and white and has only one side?
    A:  Mobius Dick.

mathematics
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    From: Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com (Reef Fish)

    Inspired by a "mathematical joke" I came across on a web page:

    Q: Why did the mathematician name his dog "Cauchy"?
    A: Because he left a residue at every pole.

    which would require a rather deep knowledge of advanced mathematics
    (such as a graduate course in the theory of functions of a complex
    variable) to fully comprehend (and appreciate) the "joke", I hereby
    pose a couple of original (to the best of my knowledge) "Cauchy"
    jokes to see if there are mathematicians in this ng to answer any
    of it (you have to understand the math behind the intended "answers"
    first, before you can see anything funny about the answer(s) which
    may not be unique:

    Q1.  Why was Cauchy convicted in the USA for violating its constitution?

    Q2.  Why was Cauchy committed to an insane asylum?

    Q3.  Corollary Q2.  Why was Cauchy convicted for being a vagrant?

    Scroll down for suggested Answers and "explanations" to answers  ...
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    A1.  Because he conspired with Schwarz in advocating ineqality.

         (Well-known Cauchy Schwarz Inequalities in math and statistics.)

    A2.  Because he was an extreme non-normal deviate.

         (Cauchy Distribution is an extreme-long-tailed distribution
         in probability/statistics that looks "normal" (Gaussian)
         but extremely non-normal -- a T-distribution with 1
         degree-of-freedom whereas a normal distribution is a T-
         distribution with infinite degrees-of-freedom.)  Deepish. :-))
         Derivative of the gag that a "normal deviate" is an oxymoron.

    A3.  Because he can show no means of support.

         (The "mean" (Expected Value) of a Cauchy Distribution doesn't
         exist.)

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    From: Brian Cornell <BCornell@tascm.com>
    Q: What do you get when you cross a hot dog and a pair of jeans?
    A: The weiner-strauss theorum...

mathematics
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    From: jhd@radix.net (Joseph Davidson)

    Q:Mathematical Name for a Toilet Seat
    A:An ass-toroid

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    Q: What does an analytic number theoriest say when he is drowning?
    A: Log-log, log-log, log-log, . . .

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    From: v090nlb4@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Mark J. VanDerwater)

    halloween math
    Q: Wadaya get when you take the circumference of your jack-o-lantern and
       divide it by its diameter?
    A: Pumpkin Pi

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    From: Melanie Aultman <afn10453@afn.org>
    Q: What kind of insect is good at math?
    A: The account-ant

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    From: bwhite@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (Bill White)

    Q: What's a polar bear?
    A: A rectangular bear after a coordinate transform.

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    From: lmmill@ix.netcom.com(LOUIS MILLER)

    Q: What is 710 inverted?
    A: Think:  OILed up you brains

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        Q:  What quantity is represented by this ?

                     /\         /\         /\
                    /  \       /  \       /  \
                    /  \       /  \       /  \
                   /    \     /    \     /    \
                   /    \     /    \     /    \
                  /______\   /______\   /______\
                     ||         ||         ||
                     ||         ||         ||

        A:  9,  tree + tree + tree

        Q:  A dust storm blows through, now how much do you have ?

        A:  99,  dirty tree + dirty tree + dirty tree

        Q:  Some birds go flying by and leave their droppings,
            one per tree, how many is that ?

        A:  100,  dirty tree and a turd + dirty tree and a turd
                   + dirty tree and a turd

mathematics
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    Q:After a big meal together, ask someone: What is the square root of -1/64?
    A:I overate (or i/8)

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        Q:  What's the title of this picture ?

                  ..  .. ____ ..  ..
                   \\===/======\\==
                    ||  |    |  ||
                    ||  |____|  ||
                    || (      ) ||
                    ||  \____/  ||
                    ||          ||
                    ||          ||
                    ||          ||
                    ||          ||
                    ||          ||
                    ||          ||
                    ||          ||
                    ||          ||
                    ||          ||
                    ||    (\    ||
                    ||    ) )   ||
                    ||  //||\\  ||

        A:  Hypotenuse

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    From: S Aggarwal <saggarwa@direct.ca>
    What do you call...
    A Politically Correct angle?.............. Right.
    A stubborn angle?......................... Obtuse.
    A pretty angle?........................... Acute.

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    From: spog@jwgh.org (Jacob W. Haller)
    I always liked:

    Q: What's yellow and differentiable?

    A: A bananalytic function.

    "Bananalytic" is just fun to say.

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    From: kovarik@mcmail.cis.McMaster.CA (Zdislav V. Kovarik)

    Math charity: improving Lipschitz conditions in New York slums.
    Math injuries: Dedekind cuts and bruises
    Math politics: The radical is the intersection of all maximal left ideals.

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    Is the square root of ab absurd?

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    Algebra is x-sighting.
    Vectors can be 'arrowing.
    I'm partial to fractions.
    I like angles ... to a degree.
    I could go on and on about sequences.
    Translations are shifty.
    Complex numbers are unreal.
    I feel positive about integers.
    On average, people are mean.

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    From:mstueben@pen.k12.va.us (Michael A. Stueben)

                Puns on Theorems
    The Royal Chain Mail Factory had received a large order for battle
    uniforms. Each uniform consisted of a toga and a pair of short pants. Their
    only problem was how long to make the pants: too short and a soldier could
    be exposed; too long and a uniform would be excessively heavy. So they
    called in a mathematician. He had a uniform made and tested. The hem on the
    pants proved to be too short, so he increased it a little bit, then a little
    more, and then a little bit more, and so on until finally he was able to
    derive an exact trousers-length depending on the leg-length of the soldier.
    The chief tailor was curious. "How did you determine this ratio?" he asked?
    "Easy," said the mathematician. "I just used the Wire-trousers Hem Test of
    Uniform Convergence."

    This is a pun on the "Weierstrauss M-test of uniform convergence," where M[k]
    is a convergent series of positive real numbers. (It was sent to me by
    Andrius Tamulis.) I wonder why M and not, say, N (numeric) or S (sum).
    M stands for . . .?
    From: bdillon@admin.aurora.edu (Bob Dillon)

    The following is from the January 23, 1995 issue of Chemical and
    Engineering News.
    Story Problems Portray Gains in Teaching Math

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    From: mstueben@pen.k12.va.us (Michael A. Stueben)

                       THIRTEEN MISUNDERSTANDINGS
                                IN THE
                         HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS

      In the interest of historical accuracy let it be known that
    ...

    1) Fibonacci's daughter was not named "Bunny."
    2) Michael Rolle was not Danish, and did not call his
       daughter "Tootsie."
    3) William Horner was not called "Little-Jack" by his
       friends.
    4) The "G" in G. Peano does not stand for "grand."
    5) Rene Descartes' middle name is not "push."
    6) Isaac Barrow's middle name is not "wheel."
    7) There is no such place as the University of Wis-cosine,
       and if there was, the motto of their mathematics
       department would not be "Secant ye shall find."
    8) Although Euler is pronounced oil-er, it does not follow
       that Euclid is pronounced oi-clid.
    9) Franklin D. Roosevelt never said "The only thing we have
       to sphere is sphere itself."
    10) Fibonacci is not a shortened form of the Italian name that
        is actually spelled: F i bb ooo nnnnn aaaaaaaa
        ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc
        iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
    11) It is true that August Mobius was a difficult and
        opinionated man. But he was not so rigid that he could
        only see one side to every question.
    Special Category: Johannes Kepler
    12) It is true that Johannes Kepler had an uphill struggle
        in explaining his theory of elliptical orbits to the
        other astronomers of his time. And it is also true that
        his first attempt was a failure. But it is not true that
        after his lecture the first three questions he was asked
        were "What is elliptical?" What is an orbit?" and "What
        is a planet?
    13) It is true that primitive societies use only rough
        approximations for the known constants of mathematics.
        For example, the northern tribes of Alaska consider the
        ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle to
        be 3. But it is not true that the value of 3 is called
        Eskimo pi. Incidentally, the survival of these tribes is
        dependent upon government assistance, which is not always
        forthcoming. For example, the Canadian firm of Tait and
        Sons sold a stock of defective compasses to the government
        at half-price, and the government passed them onto the
        northern natives. Hence the saying among these peoples:
        "He who has a Tait's is lost."

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    From: immortal@wam.umd.edu (Immortal = Justin Wyss-Gallifent)

    Q: Why can't you grow wheat in Z/6Z ?
    A: Because it's not a field.

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    From: kovarik@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca (Zdislav V. Kovarik)

    A retired mathematician took up gardening, and is now growing carrots
    with square roots.
    *

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    From: G.P. <GPopper@Hotmail.Com>
    Q: What happens to plants that live in a math class room?
    A: They grow square roots

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    From:         brian@brisk.demon.co.uk (Brian Skinner)

    The retired mathematicians house was called aftermath.

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    From: wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz (Bill Taylor)

    Some say the pope is the greatest cardinal.
    But others insist this cannot be so, as every pope has a successor.

mathematics
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    From: you@somehost.somedomain (Your Name Here)

    Mathematician's Bakery:  House of Pi

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    Special Category: Isaac Newton
    Special Category: Niels Abel

    From: Ralph Craig <rrcraig>
    Q:  Why didn't Newton discover group theory?
    A:  Because he wasn't Abel.

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    From: fc3a501@math.uni-hamburg.de (Hauke Reddmann)

    Does a politician* exists who does nothing at all?
    Yes,because they form a Lie group.
    * optionally replace with your favorite hate group

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    In this branch of mathematics it is very difficult to be sure of water-
    proof tights.

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    From: centaur@nai.net (Dave Wright)

     Mermaid mathematicians wear algaebras.

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    From: centaur@nai.net (Dave Wright)

    Aftermath:  The horrible headache you have when you've finished the algebra
                 test.  --"Funky Winkerbean" strip by Tom Batiuk

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    From: Scot Nelson <napuumaia@flex.com>
    My math teacher baked cookies and asked if I would eat sum.  I said no,
    there were too many additives.

    From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>
    That's what you get for using a commercial product.
    I bet the class was divided about it.

    From: Guy Ritchie <whataguy@mail.utexas.edu>
    I don't think so. The roots of unity were deep in their minds.

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    From: Jan Hyde
    My math teacher had a strange plant in the school room.
    It had square roots.

mathematics
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    From: Larry Bavly <bavly@rci.rutgers.edu>
    Two mathematicians are looking at a convergent series.
    The first one says, "Do you realize that the series converges even when all
    the terms are made positive?"
    The second asks, "Are you sure about that?"
    The first replies "Absolutely!"

mathematics
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    From: Melanie Aultman <afn10453@afn.org>
    "It's a plane figure," Tom said flatly.
    "99 is almost 100," said Tom roughly.
    "1,3,5,7," Tom said oddly.
    "Space is an infinite set of points," Tom said distantly.
    "They are mirror images," reflected Tom.

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    From: Chantel Mijo <sesquipedelian@mindspring.com>

    "Consider a linear 2-dimensional universe", Tom's teacher said plainly.
    "Not I", Tom replied unimaginatively.
    "Why not?", she asked initially.
    "We haven't discussed the addition problems", Tom said nonplused.

mathematics
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    From: Clinton Rogers <CRogers@eGain.com>
    "I don't know what (b^2 - 4ac) equals and I don't care!" said Tom
    indiscriminately...

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       /
      |   1
      | -----  = log cabin
      | cabin
     /

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       /
      |   1
      | -----  = log cabin + C = houseboat
      | cabin
     /

mathematics
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    From: cfaerber@muc.de (Claus Faerber)

    Q: Why's 6 afraid of 7
    A: cos 789

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    "The world is everywhere dense with idiots."                - LFS

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    From: Richard Carr <carr@math.columbia.edu>
    Apologies in advance:

    A new PhD in algebra gets a temporary position at a university for a
    year.  He bumps into one of the faculty and, having the cockiness and
    arrogance of youth, says to him, "I have heard it said that all
    logicians go insane.  Why then did you decide to study Model Theory?"

    "My dear doctor, very few logicians go insane but the entire algebra
    faculty is seeing the psychiatrist," replied the logician.

    Thusly tempered, the young man replies uncertainly, "The entire faculty?"

    "Yes, they're all in group therapy."

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    From:   Scot Nelson <scot.nelson@gte.net>
    My math teacher has an negative arithmetic mean streak and a high
    coefficient of variation.  I think he's only a few numbers > [] whose days
    outside of a sanitarium are numbered.

mathematics
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    From: "<Bleek>" <Bad @math.com>
    get a slice of the proverbial PI
    without being an ODDball or a SQUARE.

    Get a COSINEer for my loan.

    get to the ROOT of the PROBLEM
    Maybe EVEN SOLVE it.

    ADD a small FRACTION of sanity
    to an otherwise IRRATIONAL NUMBER of insane days
    in a row.

    oh what's the DIFFERENCE.

    It's just a SINE of the TIMES.

    Nobody cares if I use sugar or EQUAL in my
    coffee.

    Oh heck, QUANTUM to care about something. . .
    Tell them SINEfield is quitting
    Then they can't FUNCTION CORRECTly.

    or start a discussion about the student
    that put a noose on a black kid's car at school
    I't's amazing how much media HYPOTENUSE will get!
    (Ouch that one hurt!!)
    there's already too much racial DIVISION in this
    world. created, to some MEASURE, by the peoples' SPHERE of the
    unknown. I MEAN. . . . . .
    Sorry I went off on a TANGENT.

    I'm sure there are a WHOLE NUMBER of people
    that are good but it just seem that
    the world is so NEGATIVE!
    always has been.
    even as an INFINATE bugged me.

    We need to CIRCLE the wagons
    and pull together as a team.
    otherwize we will end up like the cars
    that are RECTANGLEd up on the side of the
    highway.

    I better stop now!
    Besides . . . it's just THEOREM talking.

    By the way,
    MINUS bigger than yours is!
    want SUM?

    OH BLEEK
    TRIANGLE lightly on them
    There not used TWO you yet.

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    Q: How does a Mathematician support himself?
    A: With Brackets.

mathematics
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    From: fc3a501@math.uni-hamburg.de (Hauke Reddmann)

    Joe Average can get very mean.

    From: Drew Cohn <007NO00SPAM@planetarymotion.net.invalid>
    Especially when he crosses the median while eating pie a la mode.

    From: obnoxio@hotmail.com (Obnoxio The Clown)

    Going off at a bit of a tangent, didn't you mean pi a la mode? My local
    diner has such nice pi, you have to sine a disclaimer that you won't
    overeat. Anyone you bring with has to cosine the paper. Anyway, I'm going
    round in circles....

    From: Drew Cohn <007NO00SPAM@planetarymotion.net.invalid>
    Thanks for squaring me away. At 3.14, your diner's pi is too
    expensive. Unless we can come up with some kind of reciprocal
    arrangement, I'll just have a glass of root beer instead.

    From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>
    That's the variance-r I was looking for.

    From: "Richard Haxby" <rhaxby@cableinet.co.uk>
    If you dont divide the bill proportionately, one of you could get a real
    shock - with 2 root beers, you could find your friend has paid an imaginary
    number, and your credit card bill will have recurring decimals for months
    to come.

    From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>
    That's a standard error to make. Even in your prime you should know the
    odds were against leaving you with that many degrees of freedom so that
    should have been a factor in your getting to the root of the problem. If
    that rings a bell, curve around the arc. There is no need to gauss
    distribution.

    From: obnoxio@hotmail.com (Obnoxio The Clown)

    I'm sure it will only be a fraction of the price. Hey, if we went together,
    we could integrate the bill. I'm sure it wouldn't be too much effort to
    differentiate our contributions...

mathematics
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    From: Larry Bavly <bavly@rci.rutgers.edu>
    Q: What do you call someone who's afraid of abstract albegra?
    A: Homomorphicphobic

mathematics
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    From: fc3a501@math.uni-hamburg.de (Hauke Reddmann)

    Porno for mathematicians
    "Pumping Lemma"

mathematics
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    From: planb@newsreaders.com (J.B. Moreno)

    Moebius strippers only show you their back side.

mathematics
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    From: "Ted Smith" <tcsmith@calweb.com>
    As easy as 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841

mathematics
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    From: "Buffalo Chilkat" <mammal@watering.hole>
    Since I installed a large bear rug near my fireplace, my wife has become
    more amorous.  She pulls me onto the rug and starts kissing me.  It didn't
    add up until I thought about the bear rug.  I think the rug makes her
    horny.  This is Fur-mat's Lust Theorem.

mathematics
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    From: Cybe R. Wizard <cybe@cyberwizardztower.com>

    I know a crazy anesthesiologist who calls himself "The Square Root of
    Minus One."  It seems that he is an irrational number.

    From: Joachim
    I don't believe it. That guy is clearly imaginary.

    From: Virgil <vmhjr2@home.com>:
    What is irrational about the square root of minus 1?
    It is a Gaussian integer!

    Now the square root of 2, that's irrational!

mathematics
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    From: "Peter The Great" <peter_the_great@24ghz.co.za>

    What kind of math did the monster student do best?
    Scare root.

mathematics
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    From: "Tushir Malik" <tushir_malik@hotmail.com>
    How will a mathematician will win a war easily ...
    By putting the enemy in close brackets ...

mathematics
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    From: Hauke Reddmann <fc3a501@uni-hamburg.de>
    Other name for Math Wizard

    Legendre-main

    (But when he dies, will only a legend remain?)

mathematics
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    From: whEeeler@tns.net (mike whEeeler)
    Laguerre, fellow, where do you come up with this crap?
    Gauss I'll never know...

mathematics
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    From: Sam Wormley <swormley1@mchsi.com>
    Without geometry, life is pointless.

    From: "Boris Mohar" <borism-notrequired-@sympatico.ca>
    Without a point there is no geometry.

mathematics
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    From: Hauke Reddmann
    What is the difference between numbers and people?
    For numbers, they are rational if they have a period.

mathematics
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    From: "Dr. Richard L. Hall" <hall@xari2.com>

At Heathrow Airport today, an individual (later discovered to be a public school teacher) was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a compass, a protractor and a graphical calculator.

Authorities believe he is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction. From: "Chuck" <chuck_dinsmore@hotmail.com> At a morning press conference, Attorney general John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction. "Al-gebra is a fearsome cult," Ashcroft said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like "x"and"y" and refer to themselves as "unknowns", but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. "As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, there are 3 sides to every triangle," Ashcroft declared. When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes. "I am gratified that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. Murky statisticians love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence," the President said, adding: "Under the circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our point,and draw the line." President Bush warned, "These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex." Attorney General Ashcroft said, "As our Great Leader would say,read my ellipse. Here is one principle he is uncertainty of: though they continue to multiply,their days are numbered as the hypotenuse tightens around their necks."

mathematics
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    From: "PAUL ROBERT VARLEY" <VAR14084@gorseinon.ac.uk>

    What did Pythagoras say when he was confronted by the square root
    of 2?
    "Now there has to be a rational explanation for this..."

mathematics
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    From: "CY13E12 TE121201215T"

    A math problem had the student going in circles until he decided to walk
    around the block a few times. That's when he found the square route.

mathematics
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    From: adomplayer@yahoo.com (dreamvigile)
    Q: What's the highest number in group theory
    A: a belian

mathematics
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    From:  From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>
    	I took my two sons, ages seven and five to the playground at our local
    park. My seven year old was very proud as he was able to read the sign with
    all the rules to his brother. "Do not jump on the merry-go-round when in
    motion." "Go down the slide while sitting only." "Only one child on a swing
    at a time." There were about twenty rules and the boys promised to obey
    them all, if I would trust them and let them play without Daddy standing
    by. They said that they were too old to be watched and their friends would
    tease them calling them babies if Dad stayed. I made them promise to be
    good and obey the rules, and rejoined my wife preparing our picnic lunch.
    When it was time to get the children, I decided to watch them at a distance
    for a while to see how reliable they were in following my instructions. I
    found that they obeyed most of the printed instructions. That is, all but
    one. They would get on the tall semicircular slide and go down head first
    or backward. Angerly, I picked up the children and took them over to the
    posted regulations and made my seven year old read it aloud again. Then I
    asked the boys what they had to say for themselves. My five year old
    answered immediately, "Don’t be silly, Dad. ... There’s no need for a slide
    rule anymore."  (By Stan Kegel)

mathematics
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    From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>, puns of the weak
    Q: Why did the student wear glasses in math class?
    A: Because it helps to improve division.  (Daily Groaner)

mathematics
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    From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>, Puns of the Weak
    Why was the math book sad?
    Because it had so many problems! (Liana, 11)

mathematics
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    From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>, Puns of the Weak
    What was the acorn’s favorite subject in school?
    	Geometry (Gee, I’m a tree) (Tamrin, 8)

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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