Math Jokes Category

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." Read more

Top ten excuses for not doing homework: o I accidentally divided by zero and my paper burst into flames. o Isaac Newton`s birthday. o I could only get arbitrarily close to my textbook. I couldn`t actually reach it. o I have the proof, but there isn`t room to write it in this margin. o I was watching the World Series and got tied up trying to prove that it converged. o I have a solar powered calculator and it was cloudy. o I locked the paper in my trunk but a four-dimensional dog got in and ate it. o I couldn`t figure out whether i am the square of negative one or i is the square root of negative one. o I took time out to snack on a doughnut and a cup of coffee. o I spent the rest of the night trying to figure which one to dunk. o I could have sworn I put the homework inside a Klein bottle, but this morning I couldn`t find it. Warning! It is against the rule to use these excuses in my classes! A. Ch. Read more

A mathematician has spent ten years trying to prove the Riemann hypothesis. Finally, he decides to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for a proof. The devil promises to deliver a proof in the four weeks. Half a year later, the devil shows up again - in a rather gloomy mood. "I`m sorry", he says. "I couldn`t prove the hypothesis either. But" - and his face lightens up - "I think I found a really interesting lemma..." Read more

The Evolution of Math Teaching o 1960s: A peasant sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His costs amount to 4/5 of his selling price. What is his profit? o 1970s: A farmer sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His costs amount to 4/5 of his selling price, that is, $8. What is his profit? o 1970s (new math): A farmer exchanges a set P of potatoes with set M of money. The cardinality of the set M is equal to 10, and each element of M is worth $1. Draw ten big dots representing the elements of M. The set C of production costs is composed of two big dots less than the set M. Represent C as a subset of M and give the answer to the question: What is the cardinality of the set of profits? o 1980s: A farmer sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His production costs are $8, and his profit is $2. Underline the word "potatoes" and discuss with your classmates. o 1990s: A farmer sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His or her production costs are 0.80 of his or her revenue. On your calculator, graph revenue vs. costs. Run the POTATO program to determine the profit. Discuss the result with students in your group. Write a brief essay that analyzes this example in the real world of economics. Read more

To mathematicians, solutions mean finding the answers. But to chemists, solutions are things that are still all mixed up. Read more

An engineer and a topologist were locked in the rooms for a day with a can of food but without an opener. At the end of the day, the engineer is sitting on the floor of his room and eating from the open can: He threw it against the walls until it cracked open. In the mathematician`s room, the can is still closed but the mathematician has disappeared. There are strange noises coming from inside the can... When it is opened and the mathematician crawls out. "Damn! I got a sign wrong..." Read more

A mathematician belives nothing until it is proven A physicist believes everything until it is proven wrong A chemist doesn`t care biologist doesn`t understand the question. Read more

The physicist and the engineer are in a hot-air balloon. Soon, they find themselves lost in a canyon somewhere. They yell out for help: "Helllloooooo! Where are we?" 15 minutes later, they hear an echoing voice: "Helllloooooo! You`re in a hot-air balloon!!" The physicist says, "That must have been a mathematician." The engineer asks, "Why do you say that?" The physicist replied: "The answer was absolutely correct, and it was utterly useless." Read more

Several scientists were asked to prove that all odd integers higher than 2 are prime. Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, and by induction - every odd integer higher than 2 is a prime. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime. Just to be sure, try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an approximation to a prime, 11 is a prime,... Programmer (reading the output on the screen): 3 is a prime, 3 is a prime, 3 a is prime, 3 is a prime.... Biologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- results have not arrived yet,... Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it,... Chemist (or Dan Quayle): What`s a prime? Politician: "Some numbers are prime.. but the goal is to create a kinder, gentler society where all numbers are prime... " Programmer: "Wait a minute, I think I have an algorithm from Knuth on finding prime numbers... just a little bit longer, I`ve found the last bug... no, that`s not it... ya know, I think there may be a compiler bug here - oh, did you want IEEE-998.0334 rounding or not? - was that in the spec? - hold on, I`ve almost got it - I was up all night working on this program, ya know... now if management would just get me that new workstation that just came out, I`d be done by now... etc., etc. ..." (Two is the oddest prime of all, because it`s the only one that`s even!) Read more

One day a farmer called up an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician and asked them to fence of the largest possible area with the least amount of fence. The engineer made the fence in a circle and proclaimed that he had the most efficient design. The physicist made a long, straight line and proclaimed "We can assume the length is infinite..." and pointed out that fencing off half of the Earth was certainly a more efficient way to do it. The Mathematician just laughed at them. He built a tiny fence around himself and said "I declare myself to be on the outside." Read more