Math and Engineering Jokes

The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The
graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The
graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with
that?"

Engineers think that equations approximate the real world.
Scientists think that the real world approximates equations.
Mathematicians are unable to make the connection...

A Mathematician, a Biologist and a Physicist are sitting in a street
cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other
side of the street.

First they see two people going into the house. Time passes.
After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house.

The Physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate.".
The Biologists conclusion: "They have reproduced".
The Mathematician: "If now exactly 1 person enters the house then it
will be empty again."

An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with
a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible
amount of fence. The engineer is first.  He herds the sheep into a
circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will
use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution."
The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius
around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd,
declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the
herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little
thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I
define myself to be on the outside!"

There are four engineers travelling in a car; a mechanical engineer, a
chemical engineer, an electrical engineer and a computer engineer. The  car
breaks down.
 
"Sounds to me as if the pistons have seized. We'll have to strip down
the engine before we can get the car working again", says the mechanical
engineer.

"Well", says the chemical engineer, "it sounded to me as if the fuel
might be contaminated. I think we should clear out the fuel system."

"I thought it might be an grounding problem", says the electrical
engineer, "or maybe a faulty plug lead."

They all turn to the computer engineer who has said nothing and say:
"Well, what do you think?"

"Ummm - perhaps if we all get out of the car and get back in again?"

			    MATHEMATICS PURITY TEST

Count the number of yes's, subtract from 60, and divide by 0.6.

       The Basics

1) Have you ever been excited about math?
2) Had an exciting dream about math?
3) Made a mathematical calculation?
4) Manipulated the numerator of an equation?
5) Manipulated the denominator of an equation?
6) On your first problem set?
7) Worked on a problem set past 3:00 a.m.?
8) Worked on a problem set all night?
9) Had a hard problem?
10) Worked on a problem continuously for more than 30 minutes?
11) Worked on a problem continuously for more than four hours?
12) Done more than one problem set on the same night (i.e. both
started and finished them)?
13) Done more than three problem sets on the same night?
14) Taken a math course for a full year?
15) Taken two different math courses at the same time?
16) Done at least one problem set a week for more than four months?
17) Done at least one problem set a night for more than one month
(weekends excluded)?
18) Done a problem set alone?
19) Done a problem set in a group of three or more?
20) Done a problem set in a group of 15 or more?
21) Was it mixed company?
22) Have you ever inadvertently walked in upon people doing a problem set?
23) And joined in afterwards?
24) Have you ever used food doing a problem set?
25) Did you eat it all?
26) Have you ever had a domesticated pet or animal walk over you while you
were doing a problem set?
27) Done a problem set in a public place where you might be discovered?
28) Been discovered while doing a problem set?

      Kooky Stuff

29) Have you ever applied your math to a hard science?
30) Applied your math to a soft science?
31) Done an integration by parts?
32) Done two integration by parts in a single problem?
33) Bounded the domain and range of your function?
34) Used the domination test for improper integrals?
35) Done Newton's Method?
36) Done the Method of Frobenius?
37) Used the Sandwich Theorem?
38) Used the Mean Value Theorem?
39) Used a Gaussian surface?
40) Used a foreign object on a math problem (eg: calculator)?
41) Used a program to improve your mathematical technique (eg: MACSYMA)?
42) Not used brackets when you should have?
43) Integrated a function over its full period?
44) Done a calculation in three-dimensional space?
45) Done a calculation in n-dimensional space?
46) Done a change of bases?
47) Done a change of bases specifically in order to magnify your vector?
48) Worked through four complete bases in a single night (eg: using the
Graham-Schmidt method)?
49) Inserted a number into an equation?
50) Calculated the residue of a pole?
51) Scored perfectly on a math test?
52) Swallowed everything your professor gave you?
53) Used explicit notation in your problem set?
54) Puposefully omitted important steps in your problem set?
55) Padded your own problem set?
56) Been blown away on a test?
57) Blown away your professor on a test?
58) Have you ever multiplied 23 by 3?
59) Have you ever bounded your Bessel function so that the membrane
did not shoot to infinity?
69) Have you ever understood the following quote:
 "The relationship between Z^0 to C_0, B_0, and H_0
	is an example of a general principle which we have
	encountered: the kernel of the adjoint of a linear
	transformation is both the annihilator space of the
	image of the transformation and also the dual space
	of the quotient of the space of which the image is
	a subspace by the image subspace."
	(Shlomo & Bamberg's _A "Course" in Mathematics for
	Students of Physics_)
#0
         8                                      5
 If lim  - = oo (infinity),  then what does lim - = ?
   x->0  x                                 x->0 x
 
answer: (write 5 on it's side)
#1
 (   1
 ) ----- = log cabin
   cabin
#2
"The integral of e to the x is equal to f of the quantity u to the n."

 /  x     n
 | e = f(u )
 /
#3
97.3% of all statistics are made up.
#4
A Mathemetician (M) and an Engineer (E) attend a lecture by a Physicist. The
topic concerns Kulza-Klein theories involving physical processes that occur in
spaces with dimensions of 9, 12 and even higher. The M is sitting, clearly
enjoying the lecture, while the E is frowning and looking generally confused
and puzzled. By the end the E has a terrible headache. At the end, the M
comments about the wonderful lecture. The E says "How do you understand this
stuff?"
M: "I just visualize the process"
E: "How can you POSSIBLY visualize somrthing that occurs in 9-dimensional space?"
M: "Easy, first visualize it in N-dimensional space, then let N go to 9"
#5
A Physicist and a mathematician were sitting in a faculty lounge. Suddenly, the
coffee machine caught on fire. The physicist grabbed a bucket and leaped
towards the sink, filled the bucket with water and put out the fire. On the
next day, the same two sat in the same lounge. Again, the coffee machine caught
on fire. This time, the mathematician stood up, got a bucket, handed the bucket
to the physicist, thus reduce the problem to a previousely solved one.
#6
A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on a
photo-safari in africa. They drive out on the savannah in their jeep, stop and
scout the horizon with their binoculars.

The biologist: "Look! There's a herd of zebras! And there, in the middle: A
white zebra! It's fantastic! There are white zebra's! We'll be famous!"

The statistician: "It's not significant. We only know there's one white zebra."

The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is white
on one side."

The computer scientist: "Oh, no! A special case!"
#7
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."
#8
A doctor, a lawyer and a mathematician were discussing the relative merits
of having a wife or a mistress.

The lawyer says: "For sure a mistress is better. If you have a wife and
want a divorce, it causes all sorts of legal problems.

The doctor says: "It's better to have a wife because the sense of security
lowers your stress and is good for your health.

The mathematician says: " You're both wrong. It's best to have both so that
when the wife thinks you're with the mistress and the mistress thinks you're
with your wife --- you can do some mathematics.
#9
A group of Polish tourists is flying on a small airplane through the Grand
Canyon on a sightseeing tour. The tour guide anounces: "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.
#10
A guy decided to go to the brain transplant clinic to refreshen his
supply of brains. The secretary informed him that they had three kinds
of brains available at that time. Doctors' brains were going for $20
per ounce and lawyers' brains were getting $30 per ounce. And then there
were mathematicians' brains which were currently fetching $1000 per ounce.
"A thousand dollars an ounce!" he cried. "Why are they so expensive?"

"It takes more mathematicians to get an ounce of brains," she explained.
#11
A mathematician and a physicist agree to a psychological experiment. The
mathematician is put in a chair in a large empty room and a beautiful naked
woman is placed on a bed at the other end of the room. The psychologist
explains, "You are to remain in your chair. Every five minutes, I will move
your chair to a position halfway between its current location and the woman on
the bed." The mathematician looks at the psychologist in disgust. "What? I'm
not going to go through this. You know I'll never reach the bed!" And he gets
up and storms out. The psychologist makes a note on his clipboard and ushers
the physicist in. He explains the situation, and the physicist's eyes light up
and he starts drooling. The psychologist is a bit confused. "Don't you realize
that you'll never reach her?" The physicist smiles and replied, "Of course! But
I'll get close enough for all practical purposes!"
#12
A mathematician and a physicist were asked the following question:

Suppose you walked by a burning house and saw a hydrant and a hose not
connected to the hydrant. What would you do?

P: I would attach the hose to the hydrant, turn on the water, and put out the fire.

M: I would attach the hose to the hydrant, turn on the water, and put out the fire.

Then they were asked this question:

Suppose you walked by a house and saw a hose connected to a hydrant. What would
you do?

P: I would keep walking, as there is no problem to solve.

M: I would disconnect the hose from the hydrant and set the house on fire,
reducing the problem to a previously solved form.
#13
A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.
			-P. Erdos
#14
A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are given an identical problem:
Prove that all odd numbers greater than 2 are prime numbers. They proceed:

Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime,
    9 is not a prime - counterexample - claim is false.

Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime,
   9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime, ...

Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime,
   9 is a prime, 11 is a prime, ...
#15
A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were travelling through Scotland
when they saw a black sheep through the window of the train.

"Aha," says the engineer, "I see that Scottish sheep are black."

"Hmm," says the physicist, "You mean that some Scottish sheep are black."

"No," says the mathematician, "All we know is that there is at least one sheep
in Scotland, and that at least one side of that one sheep is black!"
#16
A somewhat advanced society has figured how to package basic knowledge in pill
form.

A student, needing some learning, goes to the pharmacy and asks what kind of
knowledge pills are available. The pharmacist says "Here's a pill for English
literature." The student takes the pill and swallows it and has new knowledge
about English literature!

"What else do you have?" asks the student.

"Well, I have pills for art history, biology, and world history," replies the
pharmacist.

The student asks for these, and swallows them and has new knowledge about those
subjects.

Then the student asks, "Do you have a pill for math?"

The pharmacist says "Wait just a moment", and goes back into the storeroom and
brings back a whopper of a pill and plunks it on the counter.

"I have to take that huge pill for math?" inquires the student.

The pharmacist replied "Well, you know math always was a little hard to swallow."
#17
A statistician can have his head in an oven and his feet in ice, and he will
say that on the average he feels fine.
#18
A topologist is a man who doesn't know the difference between a coffee cup and
a doughnut.
#19
Algebraic symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about.
			-Philippe Schnoebelen
#20
An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his very religious
colleague, "Do you believe in one God?"
"Yes, up to isomorphism!"
			-Peter Lax
#21
An engineer, a mathematician, and a physicist are staying in three adjoining
cabins at a decrepit old motel. First the engineer's coffee maker catches fire
on the bathroom vanity. He smells the smoke, wakes up, unplugs it, throws it
out the window, and goes back to sleep.

Later that night the physicist smells smoke too. He wakes up and sees that a
cigarette butt has set the trash can on fire. He says to himself, "Hmm. How
does one put out a fire? One can reduce the temperature of the fuel below the
flash point, isolate the burning material from oxygen, or both. This could be
accomplished by applying water." So he picks up the trash can, puts it in the
shower stall, turns on the water, and, when the fire is out, goes back to sleep.

The mathematician, of course, has been watching all this out the window. So
later, when he finds that his pipe ashes have set the bedsheet on fire, he is
not in the least taken aback. He immediately sees that the problem reduces to
one that has already been solved and goes back to sleep.
#22
Asked how his pet parrot died, the mathmatican answered
"Polynomial. polygon."
#23
C programmers do it with long pointers.

(Logicians do it) or [not (Logicians do it)].
#24
Dean, to the physics department. "Why do I always have to give you guys so
much money for laboratories and expensive equipment and stuff. Why couldn't
you be like the math department - all they need is money for pencils, paper and
waste-paper baskets. Or even better, like the philosophy department. All they
need are pencils and paper."
#25
Did you hear the one about the statistician?
Probably.
#26
During a class of calculus my lecturer suddenly checked himself and
stared intently at the table in front of him for a while. Then he
looked up at us and explained that he thought he had brought six piles
of papers with him, but "no matter how he counted" there was only five
on the table. Then he became silent for a while again and then told
the following story:

"When I was young in Poland I met the great mathematician Waclaw
Sierpinski. He was old already then and rather absent-minded. Once he
had to move to a new place for some reason. His wife wife didn't trust
him very much, so when they stood down on the street with all their
things, she said:
- Now, you stand here and watch our ten trunks, while I go and get a
taxi.

She left and left him there, eyes somewhat glazed and humming
absently. Some minutes later she returned, presumably having called
for a taxi. Says Mr Sierpinski (possibly with a glint in his eye):
- I thought you said there were ten trunks, but I've only counted to nine.
- No, they're TEN!
- No, count them: 0, 1, 2, ..."
#27
Energy equals milk chocolate square.
#28
Engineer, physicist and mathematican are asked to find the value of 2+2.

Engineer (after 3 minutes, with a slide rule): "The answer is precisely
3.9974."

Physicist (after 6 hours of experiments): "The value is approximately 4.002,
with an error of plus-or-minus 0.005."

Mathematician (after a week of calculation): "Well, I haven't found an answer
yet but I CAN prove that an answer exists."
#29
F U \{can\} \{read\} Ths U \{Mst\} \{use\} TeX
("If you can read this, you must use TeX")
#30
Heisenberg might have slept here.
			-Aaron Avery, University of Wisconsin
#31
Here's a limerick I picked up off the net a few years back - looks better on
paper.

   \/3
  /
  | 2   3 x 3.14   3_
  | z dz x cos( ----------) = ln (\/e )
  |     9
  /
  1

Which, of course, translates to:

Integral z-squared dz
from 1 to the square root of 3
times the cosine
of three pi over 9
equals log of the cube root of 'e'.

And it's correct, too.
#33
How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
One, who gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing it to the earlier
riddle.
#34
I saw the following scrawled on a math office blackboard in college:

	1 + 1 = 3, for large values of 1
#35
In the beginning there was only one kind of Mathematician, created by the
Great Mathamatical Spirit form the Book: the Topologist. And they grew to large
numbers and prospered.

One day they looked up in the heavens and desired to reach up as far as the
eye could see. So they set out in building a Mathematical edifice that was to
reach up as far as "up" went. Further and further up they went ... until one
night the edifice collapsed under the weight of paradox.

The following morning saw only rubble where there once was a huge structure
reaching to the heavens. One by one, the Mathematicians climbed out from under
the rubble. It was a miracle that nobody was killed; but when they began to
speak to one another, SUPRISE of all suprises! they could not understand each
other. They all spoke different languages. They all fought amongst themselves
and each went about their own way. To this day the Topologists remain the
original Mathematicians.

			 - adapted from an American Indian legend
			  of the Mound Of Babel
#36
Jogging girl scout = Brownian motion.
#37
Lemma: All horses are the same color.

Proof (by induction):

Case n=1: In a set with only one horse, it is obvious that all horses
in that set are the same color.

Case n=k: Suppose you have a set of k+1 horses. Pull one of these
horses out of the set, so that you have k horses. Suppose that all of
these horses are the same color. Now put back the horse that you took
out, and pull out a different one. Suppose that all of the k horses
now in the set are the same color. Then the set of k+1 horses are all
the same color. We have k true = k+1 true; therefore all horses are
the same color.
#38
Lumberjacks make good musicians because of their natural logarithms.
#39
Moebius always does it on the same side.
#40
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 fourth and multiply!"
#41
Mummy snake to baby snakes: "Well, you're old enough now to survive in the real
world. So here are the facts of life. Go forth and multiply."

Little snakes: "But we can't, we're adders."

Mummy snake: "You can do it in logs."
#42
My geometry teacher was sometimes acute, and sometimes
obtuse, but always, he was right.
#43
Old mathematicians never die; they just lose some of their functions.
			-John C. George, U.Illinois Urbana-Champaign
#44
Philosopher: "Resolution of the continuum hypothesis will have
   profound implications to all of science."

Physicist: "Not quite. Physics is well on its way without those
   mythical `foundations'. Just give us serviceable mathematics."

Computer Scientist:
   "Who cares? Everything in this Universe seems to be finite
   anyway. Besides, I'm too busy debugging my Pascal programs."

Mathematician:
   "Forget all that! Just make your formulae as aesthetically
   pleasing as possible!"
#45
Pie are not square. Pie are round. Cornbread are square.
#46
Russell to Whitehead: "My Godel is killing me!"
#47
Several students were asked the following problem:

Prove that all odd integers are prime.

Well, the first student to try to do this was a math student. Hey
says "hmmm... Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, and by
induction, we have that all the odd integers are prime."

Of course, there are some jeers from some of his friends. The
physics student then said, "I'm not sure of the validity of your proof,
but I think I'll try to prove it by experiment." He continues, "Well, 1
is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is ... uh, 9 is an
experimental error, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it seems that
you're right."

The third student to try it was the engineering student, who
responded, "Well, actually, I'm not sure of your answer either. Let's
see... 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is ..., 9 is
..., well if you approximate, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime...
Well, it does seem right."

Not to be outdone, the computer science student comes along
and says "Well, you two sort've got the right idea, but you'd end up
taking too long doing it. I've just whipped up a program to REALLY go
and prove it..." He goes over to his terminal and runs his program.
Reading the output on the screen he says, "1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1
is prime, 1 is prime...."
#48
So a mathematician, an engineer, and a physicist are out hunting together. They
spy a deer* in the woods. The physicist calculates the velocity of the deer and
the effect of gravity on the bullet, aims his rifle and fires. Alas, he misses;
the bullet passes three feet behind the deer. The deer bolts some yards, but
comes to a halt, still within sight of the trio. "Shame you missed," comments
the engineer, "but of course with an ordinary gun, one would expect that." He
then levels his special deer-hunting gun, which he rigged together from an
ordinary rifle, a sextant, a compass, a barometer, and a bunch of flashing
lights which don't do anything but impress onlookers, and fires. Alas, his
bullet passes three feet in front of the deer, who by this time wises up and
vanishes for good.  "Well," says the physicist, "your contraption didn't get it
either." "What do you mean?" pipes up the mathematician. "Between the two of
you, that was a perfect shot!"

*How they knew it was a deer:
The physicist observed that it behaved in a deer-like manner, so it must be a
deer.
The mathematician asked the physicist what it was, thereby reducing it to a
previously solved problem.
The engineer was in the woods to hunt deer, therefore it was a deer.
#49
The Method of Inversive Geometry: We place a spherical cage in the
desert, enter it, and lock it. We perform an inversion with respect to
the cage. The lion is then in the interior of the cage, and we are outside.

The Set Theoretic Method: We observe that the desert is a separable
space. It therefore contains an enumerable dense set of points, from
which can be extracted a sequence having the lion as limit. We then
approach the lion stealthily along this sequence, bearing with us
suitable equipment.

A Topological Method: We observe that a lion has at least the
connectivity of the torus. We transport the desert into four-space. It
is then possible to carry out such a deformation that the lion can be
returned to three-space in a knotted condition. He is then helpless.

The Dirac Method: We observe that wild lions are, ipso facto, not
observable in the Sahara Desert. Consequently, if there are any lions
in the Sahara, they are tame. The capture of a tame lion may be left as
an exercise for the reader.

The Thermodynamical Method: We construct a semi-permeable membrane,
permeable to everything except lions, and sweep it across the desert.

The Schrodinger Method: At any given moment there is a positive
probability that there is a lion in the cage. Sit down and wait.
#51
The USDA once wanted to make cows produce milk faster, to improve the dairy
industry.

So, they decided to consult the foremost biologists and
recombinant DNA technicians to build them a better cow.
They assembled this team of great scientists, and gave them
unlimited funding. They requested rare chemicals, weird
bacteria, tons of quarantine equipment, there was a
God-awful typhus epidemic they started by accident,
and, 2 years later, they came back with the "new, improved cow."
It had a milk production improvement of 2% over the
original.

They then tried with the greatest Nobel Prize winning chemists
around. They worked for six months, and, after requisitioning
tons of chemical equipment, and poisoning half the small town
in Colorado where they were working with a toxic cloud from
one of their experiments, they got a 5% improvement in milk output.

The physicists tried for a year, and, after ten thousand cows were
subjected to radiation therapy, they got a 1% improvement in output.

Finally, in desperation, they turned to the mathematicians. The
foremost mathematician of his time offered to help them with the problem.
Upon hearing the problem, he told the delegation that they could come back
in the morning and he would have solved the problem. In the morning,
they came back, and he handed them a piece of paper with the
computations for the new, 300% improved milk cow.

The plans began:

"A Proof of the Attainability of Increased Milk Output from Bovines:

Consider a spherical cow......"
#52
The ark lands after The Flood. Noah lets all the animals out. Says,
"Go and multiply." Several months pass. Noah decides to check up on the
animals. All are doing fine except a pair of 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, and we need logs to multiply."
#53
The great logician Betrand Russell once claimed that he could prove anything if
given that 1+1=1. So one day, some smarty-pants asked him, "Ok. Prove that
you're the Pope." He thought for a while and proclaimed, "I am one. The Pope is
one. Therefore, the Pope and I are one."
#54
The guy gets on a bus and starts threatening everybody: "I'll integrate you!
I'll differentiate you!!!" So everybody gets scared and runs away. Only one
person stays. The guy comes up to him and says, "Aren't you scared, I'll
integrate you, I'll differentiate you!!!" And the other guy says; "No, I am not
scared, I am e^x"
#55
The limit as n goes to infinity of sin(x)/n is 6.

Proof: cancel the n in the numerator and denominator.
#56
The responses below mention the following works (a few added):

A Random Walk in Science - R.L. Weber and E. Mendoza
More Random Walks In Science - R.L. Weber and E. Mendoza
In Mathematical Circles (2 volumes) - Howard Eves
Mathematical Circles Revisited - Howard Eves
Mathematical Circles Squared - Howard Eves
Fantasia Mathematica - Clifton Fadiman
The Mathematical Magpi - Clifton Fadiman
Seven Years of Manifold - Jaworski
The Best of the Journal of Irreproducible Results - George H. Scheer
Mathematics Made Difficult - Linderholm
A Stress-Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown - Robert Baker
The Worm-Runners Digest
Knuth's April 1984 CACM article on The Space Complexity of Songs
Stolfi and ?? Sigact article on Pessimal Algorithms and Simplexity Analysis
#57
Theorem: All horses have an infinite number of legs.

Proof (by intimidation):

Everyone would agree that all horses have an even number of legs. It
is also well-known that horses have forelegs in front and two legs in
back. 4 + 2 = 6 legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a
horse to have! Now the only number that is both even and odd is infinity;
therefore all horses have an infinite number of legs.

However, suppose that there is a horse somewhere that does not have an
infinite number of legs. Well, that would be a horse of a different
color; and by the Lemma, it doesn't exist.
#58
Theorem: All positive integers are equal.

Proof: Sufficient to show that for any two positive integers, A and B,
A = B. Further, it is sufficient to show that for all N 0, if A
and B (positive integers) satisfy (MAX(A, B) = N) then A = B.

Proceed by induction.

If N = 1, then A and B, being positive integers, must both be 1.
So A = B.

Assume that the theorem is true for some value k. Take A and B
with MAX(A, B) = k+1. Then MAX((A-1), (B-1)) = k. And hence
(A-1) = (B-1). Consequently, A = B.
#59
Theorem: a cat has nine tails.

Proof:

No cat has eight tails. A cat has one tail more than no cat. Therefore,
a cat has nine tails.
#60
There are three kinds of mathematicians: those who can count and those who cannot.
#61
There once was a breathy baboon
Who always breathed down a bassoon,
For he said, "It appears
That in billions of years
I shall certainly hit on a tune."
#62
There was a mad scientist ( a mad ...social... scientist ) who kidnapped
three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked
each of them in seperate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no
can opener.

A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and
found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket
trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive, and escaped.

The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin
cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm
and a new quantum theory.

The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to
the kissing problem; his dessicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall,
and this was inscribed on the floor in blood:

	Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die.

	Proof: assume the opposite...
#63
There was an Indian Chief, and he had three squaws, and kept them in three
teepees. When he would come home late from hunting, he would not know which
teepee contained which squaw, being dark and all. He went hunting one day, and
killed a hippopotamus, a bear, and a buffalo. He put the a hide from each
animal into a different teepee, so that when he came home late, he could feel
inside the teepee and he would know which squaw was inside.
  Well, after about a year, all three squaws had children. The squaw on the
bear had a baby boy, the squaw on the buffalo hide had a baby girl. But the
squaw on the hippopotamus had a girl and a boy. So what is the moral of the
story?

The squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other
two hides.
#64
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 rectanguar
coordinates and it couldn't understand them. All the horse's aquaintences 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!"
#65
There were once three academians, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician
visiting a small town for a conference. They found themselves forced to share a
room in one of the most dirty, dingy, and really low quality hotels that they
had ever seen. The room that they had was on the third floor, and the nearest
working bathroom was on the fourth.

Late that night, the engineer awoke, and decided to avail himself of the
lavatory facilities. Going up the stairs, he smelled smoke, and indeed, at
the end of the hall he saw a fire. Finding a hose on the wall, he turned it
on, ran down the hall, and extinguished the fire. He then visited the
bathroom, and returned to bed.

An hour later, the physicist awoke, and felt the call of nature. As he
went upstairs, he smelled smoke, and found that there was a fire. Finding
the hose, he whipped out his calculator, figured out the amount of water
needed to extinguish a fire of that size, calculated the flow rate of the
hose, turned it on for exactly 15.24 minutes, and extinguished the fire. He
then used the bathroom, and returned to bed.

Later still, the mathematician awoke and decided that he needed to use the
bathroom. Going upstairs, he too found the olbligatory smoke and fire.
ooking around in a panic, he found the fire hose. He then said, "Aha! A
solution exists!" And after using the bathroom, he returned to bed.
#66
There were two men trying to decide what to do for a living. They went to
see a counselor, and he decided that they had good problem solving skills.

He tried a test to narrow the area of specialty. He put each man in a room
with a stove, a table, and a pot of water on the table. He said "Boil the
water". Both men moved the pot from the table to the stove and turned on the
burner to boil the water. Next, he put them into a room with a stove, a table,
and a pot of water on the floor. Again, he said "Boil the water". The first
man put the pot on the stove and turned on the burner. The counselor told him
to be an Engineer, because he could solve each problem individually. The
second man moved the pot from the floor to the table, and then moved the
pot from the table to the stove and turned on the burner. The counselor
told him to be a mathematician because he reduced the problem to a previously
solved problem.
#67
Three men are in a hot-air balloon. Soon, they find themselves
lost in a canyon somewhere. One of the three men says, "I've got an
idea. We can call for help in this canyon and the echo will carry
our voices far."
 So he leans over the basket and yells out, "Helllloooooo!
Where are we?" (They hear the echo several times).
 15 minutes later, they hear this echoing voice: "Helllloooooo!
You're lost!!"
 One of the men says, "That must have been a mathematician."
 Puzzled, one of the other men asks, "Why do you say that?"
 The reply: "For three reasons. (1) he took a long time to
answer, (2) he was absolutely correct, and (3) his answer was
absolutely useless."
#68
To what question is the answer "9W."
"Dr. Wiener, do you spell your name with a V?"
#69
Top Ten Excuses For Not Doing Math Homework

10) I accidentally divided by zero and my paper burst into flames.
 9) Isaac Newton's birthday.
 8) I could only get arbitrarily close to my textbook. I couldn't actually
    reach it.
 7) I have the proof, but there isn't room to write it in this margin.
 6) I was watching the World Series and got tied up trying to prove that it
    converged.
 5) I have a solar powered calculator and it was cloudy.
 4) I locked the paper in my trunk but a four-dimensional dog got in and ate it. 
 3) I couldn't figure out whether i am the square of negative one or i is the
    square root of negative one.
 2) I took time out to snack on a doughnut and a cup of coffee. I spent the
    rest of the night trying to figure which one to dunk.
 1) I could have sworn I put the homework inside a Klein bottle, but this
    morning I couldn't find it.
#70
Two male mathematiciens are in a bar.

The first one says to the second that the average person knows very little
about basic mathematics.

The second one disagrees, and claims that most people can cope with a
reasonable amount of math.

The first mathematicien goes off to the washroom, and in his absence the
second calls over the waitress.

He tells her that in a few minutes, after his friend has returned, he
will call her over and ask her a question. All she has to do is answer
one third x cubed.

She repeats `one thir -- dex cue'? He repeats `one third x cubed'.

Her: `one thir dex cuebd'? Yes, that's right, he says. So she agrees,
and goes off mumbling to herself, `one thir dex cuebd...'.

The first guy returns and the second proposes a bet to prove his point,
that most people do know something about basic math.

He says he will ask the blonde waitress an integral, and the first
laughingly agrees.

The second man calls over the waitress and asks `what is the integral
of x squared?'.

The waitress says `one third x cubed' and while walking away, turns
back and says over her shoulder `plus a constant'!
#71
Von Neumann and Nobert Weiner were both the subject of many dotty
professor stories. Von Neumann supposedly had the habit of simply
writing answers to homework assignments on the board (the method
of solution being, of course, obvious) when he was asked how to solve
problems. One time one of his students tried to get more helpful
information by asking if there was another way to solve the problem.
Von Neumann looked blank for a moment, thought, and then answered, "Yes.".
#72
Weiner was in fact very absent minded. The following story is told
about him: When they moved from Cambridge to Newton his wife, knowing
that he would be absolutely useless on the move, packed him off to
MIT while she directed the move. Since she was certain that he would
forget that they had moved and where they had moved to, she wrote down
the new address on a piece of paper, and gave it to him. Naturally,
in the course of the day, an insight occurred to him. He reached in
his pocket, found a piece of paper on which he furiously scribbled
some notes, thought it over, decided there was a fallacy in his idea,
and threw the piece of paper away. At the end of the day he went
home (to the old address in Cambridge, of course). When he got there
he realized that they had moved, that he had no idea where they had
moved to, and that the piece of paper with the address was long gone.
Fortunately inspiration struck. There was a young girl on the street
and he conceived the idea of asking her where he had moved to, saying,
"Excuse me, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert Weiner and we've just
moved. Would you know where we've moved to?" To which the young
girl replied, "Yes daddy, mommy thought you would forget."

The capper to the story is that I asked his daughter (the girl in
the story) about the truth of the story, many years later. She
said that it wasn't quite true -- that he never forgot who his
children were! The rest of it, however, was pretty close to what
actually happened...
#73
What do a mathematician and a physiscist (or engineer, or musician, or whatever
the profession of the person adressed) have in common?
They are both stupid, with the exception of the mathematician.
#74
What do you call a teapot of boiling water on top of mount everest?
A hypotenuse.
#75
What do you get if you cross an elephant with a mountain climber.
You can't do that. A mountain climber is a scalar.
#76
What do you get when you cross an elephant with a banana?

Elephant banana sine theta in a direction mutually perpendicular to the two as
determined by the right hand rule.
#77
What follows is a "quiz" a student of mine once showed me (which she'd gotten
from a previous teacher, etc...)

The boy has a speech defect
ellipse
What you should do when it rains
coincide
How they schedule gym class
bisects
The tall kettle boiling on the stove
hypotenuse
What the acorn said when he grew up
geometry
What he did when his mother-in-law wanted to go home
center
The set of cards is missing
decagon
A guy who has been to the beach
tangent
Why the girl doesn't run a 4-minute mile
secant
A dead parrot
polygon
#78
What is "pi"?

Mathematician: Pi is thenumber expressing the relationship between the
	  circumference of a circle and its diameter.

Physicist: Pi is 3.1415927plus or minus 0.000000005

Engineer: Pi is about 3.
#79
What is a compact city?
It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted policemen!
			-Peter Lax
#80
What's nonorientable and lives in the sea?
Mobius Dick.
#81
What's purple and commutes?
An abelian grape.
#82
What's the contour integral around Western Europe?
Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe!
Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but they are removable!
			-Peter Lax
#83
What's yellow and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice.
Zorn's Lemon.
#84
When considering the behaviour of a howitzer:

A mathematician will be able to calculate where the shell will land
A physicist will be able to explain how the shell gets there
An engineer will stand there and try to catch it
#85
Why did the cat fall off the roof?

Because he lost his mu. (mew=sound cats make, mu=coeff of friction)
#86
Why did the mathematician name his dog "Cauchy"?
Because he left a residue at every pole.
#87
Why is it that the more accuracy you demand from an interpolation function, the
more expensive it becomes to compute?
That's the Law of Spline Demand.
			-Steve Friedl
#88
Words in {} should be interepreted as greek letters:

Q: I M A {pi}{rho}Maniac. R U 1,2?
        o   <- read as "U-not"
A: Y ?
 o

("I am a pyromaniac. Are you not one, too?" "Why not?")
#89
lim 3 = 8
   w->oo
#90