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Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
From: gallegos@u.arizona.edu (Ranma Saotome)
Subject: But what's the limit of the elevator?
While on my way up to the 7th (top) floor of the Math building here at
the University of Arizona to turn in my paper, I started reading the
little scribblings people would write on the wall such as "Love makes
the world go round", followed by "With a little help from intrinsic
angular momentum" and such.
Then I looked up at the lighted numbers above the door that indicate
which floor I was on and read the following (floor numbers in parentheses):
-- --
(1) \/ 2 (2) e (3) pi (4) \/17 (5) 2e (6) 2pi (7) infinity
And underneath all that, was written (in red pen, no less):
"Incomplete proof. Resubmit."
[For the non-math people... e is the natural logarithm 2.71828, pi is 3.1415,
the square root of 17 is 4.12310, 2e is 5.43656, and so forth.]
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This comes from a quote by Cambridge mathematician Tom Korner.
Q: How do you tell that you are in the hands of the Mathematical Mafia?
A: They make you an offer that you can't understand.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: James Renken
What do you call a cross-section of a cartoon hedgehog?
A Sonic section.
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Subject: Life 5.6
Then there was the rope that fell into a vat of chocolate and came up singing:
"Sometimes I feel like a knot, sometimes I don't". . . . .
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And then there was this barge floating along at sea.
Ahead of it was this cruise ship. The cruise ship, asked the barge,
"Hey, are you the Love Boat?" To which the barge replied,
"No, I'm a freight yacht!"
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A young private lived in a barracks infested with fleas and ticks, and
though he complained often to the sergeant of his platoon, nothing was
ever done about the problem. However, one weekend he received a weekend
pass, and went to the nearby town to party it up with his friends.
Unbeknownst to him, the barracks was disinfected and fumigated while
he was away.
Upon his return, he looked at his bed and said, "Oh, well, another
night of bug-bites and itching ahead..."
And the bed replied, "No, I'm a sprayed cot."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A young executive was working at her desk late one night, when she
accidentally knocked over a bottle of ink. The ink began running
toward the project she was working on, and she hastily wiped at it
with a Kleenex. Assuming she had eradicated the offensive substance,
she finished up what she was doing and left for the night.
When she arrived in the morning, she began leafing through her papers,
and discovered one sheet had a large ink stain on it. She turned to
the ink bottle and said, "Ooh, I thought I wiped you up last night!"
The spot on the page looked at her and said, "No, I'm a strayed blot."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So there was this guy in the old ages in shining armor, in Camelot.
He had been set-up by a nemesis, and was doing some time in the
dungeon for a crime he didn't commit. Another inmate asked,
You must have done something horrible to get in here."
And our hero said "No, I'm a framed knight."
He was able to prove his innocence, and was let go.
He ran into his nemesis who was surprised to see him loose.
"I thought you were locked up for good?"
"No," said our hero, "I'm a freed knight."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These three Australian Pecans went into a bar that only served
Peanuts. As the first Pecan approached the bar, the bartender
asked, 'Hey, what are you? A Pecan? We don't serve Pecans here,
only Peanuts.' So the poor Pecan left.
As you may guess, the second Pecan attempted the same thing and was
also turned away.
The third Australian Pecan got a good idea. He went outside and
threw himself on a barbie and rolled around in the coals for a bit.
He returned to the bar and approached the bartender who asked,
'Hey, aren't you one of them Pecans?'
To which our hero replied: 'No, I'm a fried nut.'
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An old, arthritic, and exceptionally stupid dog was snoozing in the
middle of the road. Alluva sudden a big street cleaning vehicle comes
by and maims the dogster, tossing him to the side of the road. Some
time later, a yuppie couple stop in their BMW 535i and pull over to
see how the dog is. "Oh my," sez the guy, "Are you all right?"
To which the dog replies, "No, I'm a flayed mutt."
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Sally's pen explodes and a large splat of black ink drops onto her
lapel. After many bleachings and washings, the stain had faded but
showed no sign of coming out altogether. She exclaimed one day, "You
are a pain!"
To which the stain replied: "No, I'm a greyed blot."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The local newspaper reporter was covering the catastrophic fire at the
psychiatric ward of the hospital. Wanting to get his story straight
about who and how many were injured he question many of the people at
the scene. So far everyone of the injured was a member of the staff.
Coming to a man who had been seriously burned when the oil furnace
exploded he asked, "Are you a doctor or a nurse, too?"
"No," came the reply, "I'm a fried nut."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There once was a magical kingdom where the princess of the castle was
turned into a small amphibian by an evil witch. She was held prisoner
by the witch for many years, until one day a handsome prince rescued
her from the witch's cottage in the woods. The prince asked, "Excuse
me, but are you a princess that was turned into a salamander and that
I have now released?"
"No," she replied, "I'm a freed newt."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Actually, this musician was melting butter in a pan on the stove not
far from where he had been composing music at his workbench. With
much punk, an ink blot jumps off the staff paper and leaps into the
frying pan, dancing and singing around. The musician asks:
"Hey, dotted quarter! Are you nuts, or what?" "No!" replies the dot.
"I'm a fried note."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After Alexander (the Great) applied his famous solution to the Gordian
knot, he and his soldiers continued on their merry way leaving the
severed knot to lie on the ground in two tangled piles. One soldier,
who was quite far back in the column and had not seen the action
earlier, had this to say:
"Look at the size of those two piles of worms!!!"
To which the knot replied, as all good knots will,
"No, I'm a filleted knot."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A logic inverter got overloaded, causing it to go up in a puff of smoke:
"Are you OK?"
"No, I'm a fried NOT!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was the late 1950's, and actor Don Knotts was temporarily out of
work. He happened to hear that Hanna-Barbera was looking for voices
for the characters in its new animated series, "The Flintstones".
After his first audition, he was told that he had a good shot at the
voice of Barney Rubble, but in the meantime he should go out into the
front lounge to wait for further news. The lounge turned out to be
filled with actors and actresses who were there to audition for the
voices of Fred, Barney, Wilma and Betty. Don noticed an old friend of
his across the room, a Mr. Chisteviejo. Don walked up to his friend,
slapped him on the back, and said, "Say, Chisteviejo, are you a 'Fred'
or a 'Barney'?" Without hesitation, Chisteviejo replied:
"I'm a 'Fred', Knotts ... "
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So these two acorns were dangling side-by-side on a branch of their
mighty oak, when a starling landed. The larger of the acorns dropped
to the ground below. The fallen acorn surveyed the situation, and
excitedly reported back to its once-neighbor, "What a feeling of
freedom down here! With each rustle of wind, I can roll, the ground
is cool and damp, and when a dog or person strolls by, the whole earth
seems to vibrate. This is great. Do you want'a come down?"
To which the still suspended acorn just HAD to reply,
"No, I'm a treed nut."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A massive lightning strike hit a pond near my house one day, and
boiled all the water out. The next day, I went back to the blasted
mudhole (nee pond) and noticed a large number of amphibian bodies
strewn in the area. I picked up one charred specimen, wondering aloud
if it had been a frog, when I heard it reply...
"No, I'm a fried newt!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A cargo train hits a rough spot and a nut flies out of one of the
cars. It lands in a parts box in an electronics firm, right next to a
shiny bolt. The bolt says "Hey, gorgeous! Are you from around here?
I was made for guys who look like you."
Our hero turns despondently to her and says "No, I'm a freight nut."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A jungle explorer was sitting in the woods when a bizarre insect landed
on his arm. The tiny beast sported a goatee and a little bitty pipe
which blue little bitty smoke rings. It began to tell the neighboring
insects as to the analysis of dreams. "Wow!" exclaimed the explorer.
"What are you, a new species?" To which the creature replied,
"No, I'm a Freud gnat."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A dog is sleeping outside one night, and sleeps well into the next
day. By the time she awakes, the sun is already high in the sky.
Naturally, the dog develops is very hot and is looking for a drink.
Another dog sees her, and asks, "Are you okay?"
Our heroine responds, "No, I'm a fried mutt."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A fishing vessel is dragging its net through an area rich with fish.
Unexpectedly, a rat chews the main line through and the net goes
sinking into the deep, much to the dismay of the crew. At the ocean
floor, an octopus and a squid look at the strange thing that has
fallen upon them. The octopus, irritated, looks at it and asks,
"What are you, some kind of strange fish?
It replies, "No, I'm a freed net."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A group of planters peanuts were out for a stroll one day in the kitchen.
'Unsalted' thought that it might be fun to go for a stroll on the big
deep-fryer that was sitting on the counter. They climbed up a wooden
spoon that was leaning against the vat, and began to walk around the edge.
'Honey-roasted' lost her balance and fell in. 'Unsalted', quite alarmed,
looked down into the vat and shouted, "Are you alright, 'Honey'?"
'Honey' surfaced, looked at him, and replied, "No, I'm a fried nut."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I was in boot camp at Parris Island, one young marine was extremely
clumsy, dropping his rifle several times during the daily drills. A rather
excitable drill sergeant soon became angry and asked the recruit "Son, are
you as clumsy with your rifle on the shooting range as you are on the field?"
To which was replied, "No sir, I'm a great shot."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ginger" MacTavish had lived Down South (London), away from his family
and friends, for many years. One day, a boyhood chum of his happened
to be passing through town, and called him up for a chat. In the
course of the conversation, his friend asked Ginger if his hair was
still bright red, as it had been when they were boys.
"Och, ye maun weel know", Ginger replied, "... I'm a grayed Scot ..."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two zeros are walking down the street. One zero is coughing very
badly. The coughing is getting severe, so his buddy asks him:
"Are you all right?"
The second zero responds: "No, I'm a phlegmed naught."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These three zeroes were travelling through some cold weather and
became thirsty, so they stopped in at a local bar for some warmth &
refreshments. When the first zero approached the bar, the bartender
(whose mathematical skill didn't quite reach the level of familiarity
with single-digit numbers, asked, "Say, aren't you a zero? We don't
serve zeros here."
The second zero tried to order and the bartender said "You're a zero
too, aren't you? I already told your friend, no zeros allowed!"
The last zero, before approaching the bar, stepped outside & rolled in
the snow for several minutes until he was quite cold. When he
re-entered the building and walked up to the bar, the bartender said
"Not again! You'd better not be another zero!"
To which the cold number replied, "No, I'm a frigid naught!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The president of the Flintstones Fan Club walked into a bar, and the
bartender, recognizing the man but not quite remembering from where,
asked, "Say, aren't you the guy that's so crazy about watching the
Jetsons?"
The Flintstone fan's reply was, "No, I'm a Fred nut."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A small lizard was minding its own business when a knight rode up, and
thinking the lizard to be a dragon, attacked it and bashed it over its
head with a heavy ball-and-chain.
Not much later, another knight (a former bartender) spotted the hurt
lizard and asked, "Say, are you a wounded dragon?"
The lizard, still dizzy from the blow, replied, "No, I'm a flailed newt."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There once was a Leprechaun fascinated by insects, which he caged and
kept as pets. There were hundreds of the cages throughout his home,
each containing a single insect. As it happened one day, he had
forgotten to close his window while cleaning the cage of one of the
smaller insects, and it escaped.
The little bug was enjoying its new found capability of unhindered
flight when it chanced upon a gnome, who recognized it as his friend's
pet. "Are you on your way home, little one?" the gnome asked.
And the insect replied "No, I'm a freed gnat."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
from: Yucks Digest V7 #7 (shorts)
Date: Fri, 16 May 97 00:04:28 -0700
From: Peter Langston
Subject: One Day at the MatheMexican Drive-In...
From: "pardo@cs.washington.edu"
From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry G. Baker)
Customer: "How much is a large order of Fibonaccos?"
Cashier: "It's the price of a small order plus the price of a medium order."
[Extra credit question: Which Fibonaccos size is the worst rip-off?
Extra credit answer: The smallest; it costs as much as the next larger
size... -psl]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following humor is from Joachim Verhagen's collection of science and math
humor, with permission. -- MLC
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The people at my lab heard [a prime number] joke and told me 1 was the
first prime. So we went to check. In the van Dale dictionary (the
Dutch version of Websters) we found: "A prime number is a number that is
only divisible by itself."
Apparently we only have one prime number in the Netherlands...
It must be intentional; an older version had the usual definition.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Melanie Aultman
Q: What kind of insect is good at math?
A: The account-ant.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Melanie Aultman
4 3
a a
Will you do me a favor? If it's within my power....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jan-Eric Nystrom
Did you hear about the politician who promised that, if he was elected,
he'd make certain that _everybody_ would get an above average income?
(And nobody laughed...)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Knut Lorenzen
The following story is true, I was a personal witness. A math-prof (his
nickname was "Lord Number") was talking quite a while on "n-dimensional
manifolds". He was *far* off comprehension of most of the listeners and
finally addressed his audience: "So what do you think is the volume of an
infinite-dimensional unit-sphere?"
Silence. After a while a voice from the backrows: "42!" That did it.
P.S.: Actually, this volume is zero (!).
It is inversely proportional to a Gamma function depending on n.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ian Ellis
Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules.
Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael A. Stueben (mstueben@pen.k12.va.us)
Michael is a high school Math/C.S. teacher, so he should know.
Q: What do you get when you add 2 apples to 3 apples?
A: An American senior high school math problem.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Pierre Abbat
Q: If you have two cats and each is holding one end of a string, which
is suspended between them, what is the shape of the string?
A: A catenary.
Q: After a big meal together, ask someone: What is the square root of -1/64?
A: I overate (or i/8)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: pfc@math.ufl.edu (P. Fritz Cronheim)
This one is from Jerry King's _Art of Mathematics_
16/64 = 1/4 by cancelling the 6's. Here the result is true, but the
method is not. Do the ends justify the means? :)
From: ejones@hooked.net (Earle Jones)
Try 19 / 95 -- just cancel the nines!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Andreas Jung
Theorem: e=1
Proof:
1
2 pi i ------ 1
------ 2 pi i ------
1 2 pi i [ 2 pi i] 2 pi i
e = e = e = [e ] = 1 = 1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Theorem: It is possible to square the circle.
Proof: No mathematician has squared the circle.
Therefore: No one who has squared the circle is a mathematician.
Therefore: All who have squared the circle are nonmathematicians.
Therefore: Some nonmathematician has squared the circle.
Therefore: It is possible to square to circle. [QED]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ian Ellis
Chemistry is physics without thought;
Mathematics is physics without purpose.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: mini-air
1997-01-08 Food for Thought: Elegant Gooeyness
Investigator Laura Fuller writes:
I am a high school senior. Here are the results of a three year mathematics
experiment. Once each year I take my math homework, wrap it in plastic,
and scrunch the whole thing up and put it in into a cup of chocolate
pudding. I take the cup of pudding to math class, and when the teacher
asks for our homework I hand her the cup and say, "The proof is in the
pudding." Three different teachers in three years.
It gets 'em every time.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mark David Biesiada
Never say "N factorial", simply scream "N" at the top of your lungs.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Volker Moell
A funny, but true story:
A friend of mine (2.5 years hasn't heard anything about mathematics)
saw in his first semester at university the following equation (taylor):
f(0) f'(0)
f(x) = ---- + ----- x + ...
0! 1!
After reading the first ("0") he thought: "What's that about the
exclamation mark? Oh, I see: You can't divide by zero. Attention!"
But after reading the second term ("1!") he wonders: "Hey-oh, you *can*
divide by one!! What's this?!"
And after thinking a long time about the problem he comes to the real
meaning... ;-)
Really, it's true!!!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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: ptwahl@aol.com (Patrick T. Wahl)
More recently, I learned another useful term: "modulo errors."
This is used, for example, as "Q.E.D., modulo errors." One fellow often
applied this to his blackboard proofs, meaning: "This is a representative
of an equivalence class of proofs, one of which is correct and all of which
look sort of like this one. At least one such proof is correct, but it
might not be the one I wrote down."
I don't mean to be critical here; the lectures were quite good. The
point is, a proof "modulo errors" presents the important ideas, and we
have better things to do today than criticize the details.
For example, many of us who have lectured know the sinking feeling, "ten
or fifteen minutes ago and two blackboards back, I should have called
that variable something besides 'm', because now I'm stuck calling two
things by the same name." One can rewrite the whole thing, or insert
hokey primes or subscripts. Or, one can take pity on the students, who
after all are paying $20 an hour to see the show. In the latter case,
just say "modulo errors," and move on.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: mstueben@pen.k12.va.us (Michael A. Stueben)
Q: What is a backwards written integral sign?
A: An improper 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!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: lmmill@ix.netcom.com(LOUIS MILLER)
Q: What is 710 inverted?
A: Think: OIL your brains!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: hcheng@gpu5.srv.ualberta.ca (Howard Cheng)
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
-- J. H. Poincare
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ian Ellis
Did you know that Rene Descartes met the Hunchback of Notre Dame?
They were both visiting Paris, and met on a ferry crossing the famous
river. Somehow Quasimodo fell overboard. He disappeared under the
water because of the weight of handbells he was carrying on his belt.
As Descartes began a rescue, he shouted, "Quasimodo, I see where you
are," and plopped on his coordinates.
He found Quasimodo was already headed toward shore. He seemed to be
running across the bottom, but then Descartes saw he was dancing!
Descartes signed to him: "What are you doing that for?" Quasimodo
signed back, "Save yourself! I'm happy. I'm just Ringing In The Seine!!"
So Rene reached the shore by bobbing up and down.
An onlooker asked, "How did you do that?"
"I'm a Cartesian diver," replied Descartes. "I realize, 'I sink.'
Therefore I swam."
---- This story pasted together by Ian Ellis.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: mini-air
1997-03-07 More Smartypants
Here are further observations gleaned from the Project Smartypants
survey (which field has the smartest, or believes it has the smartest,
people?), the results of which were summarized in last month's
mini-AIR.
Geographer Wolf Roder:
Back when my daughter was studying at Caltech it was *known* that
astronomers (future) were those who could not make it in physics.
Biochemist Lex Kwee:
Engineering ranks itself pretty high and could beat Physics in a
man-to-man contest, because they would bring more appropriate weaponry.
Pam Sexton, who did not identify her field:
I can't say who is smarter, but I did have a physicist boss once who
described chemists as the "lowest form of scientific life".
Astronomer Duncan Steele:
I was once at a seminar about some obscure branch of mathematics.
(Actually I wasn't: I heard about this from someone who may, or may
not, have been there. If it ever actually occurred). The lecturer drew
some bizarre diagram on the board, whereupon a puzzled member of the
audience put up his hand and said that he couldn't understand which way
was up, and which down. The lecturer replied: "I am from Cambridge:
hence all other directions are down." This proves beyond all reasonable
doubt that mathematicians - at least those from Cambridge - think of
themselves as being on the top of the heap.
(A note from Alice Myerson helps clarify this one:
My mathematian friend and I feel we should offer some insight into the
Lecturer's comment, if you didn't know the reason all ready.
In Cambridge, going back to one's home at the end of each academic term
is referred to as "going down", even if you live further north in England
and are really going geographically "up"! Therefore, the lecturer is
referring to that, in Cambridge, everywhere else is described as "down",
rather than meaning that he is academically better. At the start of each
new term, you "come up" to Cambridge.)
Mathematician Fredrik Mansfeld:
I'm a mathematician working as a computer scientist. Since I am of the
purest academic discipline of them all I can assure you that my opinions
are completely objective and unbiased.
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