Favorite math jokes

[skullturf]

Did you intend to make a roman-numeral Christ pun? Because you did.

... I hesitate to ask, but... I did?

XX days before Xmas.

[Talith]

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a group that re-told the joke in original, binary format, just in case we'd forgotten?

Yeh I can see that working, who's up for going carolling after lectures?

In the spirit of Christmas, maybe we should write our own maths parody of the 12 days of Christmas in a new thread.

[SlyReaper]

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a textbook on number theory.

(it rhymes and is the right number of syllables at least)

Next.

[phlip]

The ω days of Christmas?

[Monika]

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a textbook on number theory.

I am so going to steal this.

[nehpest]

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

• two calculators
• and a textbook on number theory.

[SlyReaper]

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
12 ODEs
11 Chiral knots
10 Marsenne primes
9 Vector fields
8 Eigenvectors
7 Spirolaterals
6 Tensors tensing
5 Golden ratios
4 Peano curves
3 French Metro metrics
2 Riemann spheres
And a textbook on number theory.

[TheChewanater]

In the spirit of Christmas, maybe we should write our own maths parody of the 12 days of Christmas in a new thread.

On the nth day of Christmas my true love gave to me f(n), where:
f(n) = item_n * n + f(n - 1) if n > 0
f(n) = 0 if n <= 0

[Monika]

In the spirit of Christmas, maybe we should write our own maths parody of the 12 days of Christmas in a new thread.

On the nth day of Christmas my true love gave to me f(n), where:
f(n) = item_n * n + f(n - 1) if n > 0
f(n) = 0 if n <= 0

That doesn't rhyme.

[Eebster the Great]

In the spirit of Christmas, maybe we should write our own maths parody of the 12 days of Christmas in a new thread.

On the nth day of Christmas my true love gave to me f(n), where:
f(n) = item_n * n + f(n - 1) if n > 0
f(n) = 0 if n <= 0

See, without a general formula form item_n, this isn't really helpful.

[undecim]

Heisenberg's wife: "I can't find my keys!"
Heisenberg: "You must know too much about their momentum."

[Yakk]

Actually, X is used to replace the word Christ pretty often. And X is the roman numeral for 10.

So your Christ at the start of your post could be read as a reference to your list of ten things.

As a poor reflection on me, I found that wordplay funny.

On the first day of Christmas, Conway gave to me
1
On the second day of Christmas, Conway gave to me
2->2
On the third day of Christmas, Conway gave to me
3->3->3
On the forth day of Christmas, Conway gave to me
4->4->4->4
please wait... calculating

[letterX]

Actually, X is used to replace the word Christ pretty often.

Huh. Well I guess I'll file that under 'more random facts involving the Letter X.'

[Eebster the Great]

Actually, X is used to replace the word Christ pretty often. And X is the roman numeral for 10.

So your Christ at the start of your post could be read as a reference to your list of ten things.

As a poor reflection on me, I found that wordplay funny.

On the first day of Christmas, Conway gave to me
1
On the second day of Christmas, Conway gave to me
2->2
On the third day of Christmas, Conway gave to me
3->3->3
On the forth day of Christmas, Conway gave to me
4->4->4->4
please wait... calculating

3→3→3 is already ^{7625597484987}3 = \underbrace{3^{3^{3^{.^{.^{.}}}}}}_{7625597484987}. So you might have some difficulty calculating that one, too.

[martin878]

Best dirty math joke ever:

What's the square root of sixty-nine?

Eight someting.

Meh

I know this is from ages ago, but I couldn't help pointing out that there's a new Rihanna song with these lyrics:

I heard you good with them soft lips
Yeah you know word of mouth
the square root of 69 is 8 something
cuz I’ve been tryna work it out, oooow

Meh.

[Monika]

Rihanna's songwriter reads the xkcd forum

[Yakk]

3→3→3 is already ^{7625597484987}3 = \underbrace{3^{3^{3^{.^{.^{.}}}}}}_{7625597484987}. So you might have some difficulty calculating that one, too.

Bah, that isn't that big in log* scales.

Not log, log*. log* is the number of times you have to recursively call log for the value to fall below 0. There was a reasonably funny case where they had an algorithm that seemed to behave linearly with regards to size of input, but nobody could prove it -- eventually, someone proved it was O(n log*n)...

I laughed out loud when I ran into that anecdote in Papadimitriou. So that's my joke contribution for this post.

[Eebster the Great]

3→3→3 is already ^{7625597484987}3 = \underbrace{3^{3^{3^{.^{.^{.}}}}}}_{7625597484987}. So you might have some difficulty calculating that one, too.

Bah, that isn't that big in log* scales.

Not log, log*. log* is the number of times you have to recursively call log for the value to fall below 0. There was a reasonably funny case where they had an algorithm that seemed to behave linearly with regards to size of input, but nobody could prove it -- eventually, someone proved it was O(n log*n)...

I laughed out loud when I ran into that anecdote in Papadimitriou. So that's my joke contribution for this post.

Its trinary super-logarithm is still over seven trillion, so I would indeed consider it large on that scale. But at least 7625597484987 can be fully written out, I guess.

[martin878]

Off topic much?

[Yakk]

No.

[t1mm01994]

Lol^

[hnooch]

I searched for this and don't think it was posted. I think it's pretty humorous.

Theorem: The nth root of 2 is irrational for n >= 3.

Proof: Suppose not. Then there exist relatively prime integers p and q so that pⁿ / qⁿ = 2, and hence pⁿ = qⁿ + qⁿ. By Fermat's Last Theorem, however, there can be no such integers. This is a contradiction, hence the nth root of 2 is irrational.

[Eebster the Great]

I searched for this and don't think it was posted. I think it's pretty humorous.

Theorem: The nth root of 2 is irrational for n >= 3.

Proof: Suppose not. Then there exist relatively prime integers p and q so that pⁿ / qⁿ = 2, and hence pⁿ = qⁿ + qⁿ. By Fermat's Last Theorem, however, there can be no such integers. This is a contradiction, hence the nth root of 2 is irrational.

Good one. In some sense that proof does seem valid.

Though it does beg the question . . . a lot.

[++$_]

The best part is that Fermat's Last Theorem is not powerful enough to prove that \sqrt{2} is irrational.

[thorgold]

Q: Who was the fattest knight at the Round Table?
A: Sir Cumference

Q: What was his favorite food?
A: Pie!

I deserve punishment for puns that bad

[Monika]

I like it.

Why do English-speaking people always apologize for puns?

[Eebster the Great]

Why do English-speaking people always apologize for puns?

I think it's because they're not really funny, just annoyingly clever.

And some people have to apologize because they overuse them.

[Yakk]

A riff on it:

Theorem: The nth root of 2 is irrational for n >= 3.

Proof: Suppose not. Then there exist relatively prime integers p and q so that pⁿ / qⁿ = 2, and hence pⁿ = qⁿ + qⁿ. The remainder of this proof is too long to be written in this margin.

[Eastwinn]

Hopefully not a repost:

The Flood is over and the ark has landed. Noah lets all the animals out and says, "Go forth and multiply."

A few months later, Noah decides to take a stroll and see how the animals are doing. Everywhere he looks he finds baby animals. Everyone is doing fine except for one pair of little snakes. "What's the problem?" says Noah.
"Cut down some trees and let us live there", say the snakes.

Noah follows their advice. Several more weeks pass. Noah checks on the snakes again. Lots of little snakes, everybody is happy. Noah asks, "Want to tell me how the trees helped?"

"Certainly", say the snakes. "We're adders, so we need logs to multiply."

[Monika]

Aaaw, this is cute

[cyanyoshi]

Why was six afraid of seven?...Because seven "eight" nine!

Why was seven afraid of eight?...Mathematical induction.

Oh. You already heard that one...

[BlackSails]

I searched for this and don't think it was posted. I think it's pretty humorous.

Theorem: The nth root of 2 is irrational for n >= 3.

Proof: Suppose not. Then there exist relatively prime integers p and q so that pⁿ / qⁿ = 2, and hence pⁿ = qⁿ + qⁿ. By Fermat's Last Theorem, however, there can be no such integers. This is a contradiction, hence the nth root of 2 is irrational.

Shouldnt it really be called the Wiles' theorem?

[Mindworm]

Shouldnt it really be called the Wiles' theorem?

So you doubt that Fermat had a proof?

[joshz]

I searched for this and don't think it was posted. I think it's pretty humorous.

Theorem: The nth root of 2 is irrational for n >= 3.

Proof: Suppose not. Then there exist relatively prime integers p and q so that pⁿ / qⁿ = 2, and hence pⁿ = qⁿ + qⁿ. By Fermat's Last Theorem, however, there can be no such integers. This is a contradiction, hence the nth root of 2 is irrational.

Good one. In some sense that proof does seem valid.

Though it does beg the question . . . a lot.

I don't see how this begs the question. Fermat's Last Theorem has been proven, and I see no invalid algebraic steps in this proof.

[Mindworm]

I don't see how this begs the question. Fermat's Last Theorem has been proven, and I see no invalid algebraic steps in this proof.

One would need to find out whether the statement he proved is used somewhere in the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. I'm no expert on this
(or on any math, at this point), but I heard that Wiles used many results of higher math (things that have only been proven recently), and you would have to check every single one of them for this trivial lemma.

[joshz]

Ah, OK. That makes sense.

[Diadem]

Shouldnt it really be called the Wiles' theorem?

So you doubt that Fermat had a proof?

Ehm, yes. I doubt so very much. Fermat may have been brilliant, but he is nothing compared to 4 centuries of exhaustive research by hundreds of thousands of mathematicians. If we still haven't found his proof, he didn't have one. And the proof Wiles gave couldn't possible have been the one Fermat had.

It's Wiles' Theorem.

[Kirby]

For the final question on an oral exam, a student was asked to find the limit to infinity of the following sequence: I know, I know that you know, I know that you know that I know, I know that you know that I know that you know, ...

Dazzled, all the student could come up with was, "I don't know."

The professor, equally baffled, replied, "Seriously? Come on. It's common knowledge!"

[B.Good]

I searched for this and don't think it was posted. I think it's pretty humorous.

Theorem: The nth root of 2 is irrational for n >= 3.

Proof: Suppose not. Then there exist relatively prime integers p and q so that pⁿ / qⁿ = 2, and hence pⁿ = qⁿ + qⁿ. By Fermat's Last Theorem, however, there can be no such integers. This is a contradiction, hence the nth root of 2 is irrational.

Shouldnt it really be called the Wiles' theorem?

I'm glad that I'm not the only person who thinks this.

[++$_]

Why should it be called "Wiles's Theorem"? If you ask me, it should be called Serre's Theorem. After all, Serre didn't prove it OR formulate it, which makes him an appropriate person to name it after.

Alternatively, we could call it "Gauss's Theorem," because someday we are going to find out that Gauss proved it at age 10.