Bad Math Jokes

[jedishrfu]

Many many years ago, I needed to order a computer for a contractor working on our project. I asked the contracting company to make sure he had a PC with one 10 megabyte hard drive. The next day they called back and said they couldn’t find a PC with a 110 megabyte hard drive would 20 do?

I just had to laugh quietly and said sure that’ll work.

 

[Ibix]

Starring Mr. Mostel as Captain Jack Sparrow.
View attachment 302860

Had to look that one up (somewhat belatedly). An interesting given name, appropriate for $d\pi/dt$.

 

[Bandersnatch]

Teacher: what's 110+10

Student (yelling loudly): FIVE

Shouldn't that be six?

 

[fresh_42]

\begin{align*}
&\phantom{+}110\\
&+10\\
&---\\
& 1000
\end{align*}

I get $8.$

 

[Bandersnatch]

There you go, eight. Thought I could do sums.

 

[Ibix]

There you go, eight. Thought I could do sums.

We proved 6=8 upthread, so you were right anyway.

 

[jbriggs444]

Shouldn't that be six?

Yes, I agree that the correct answer ("xix") is pronounced as "six".

 

[member 428835]

This is all too similar...you'll love this

 

[MevsEinstein]

I saw this one on a shirt:

I am a math teacher. I know, I have many problems

 

[jedishrfu]

This one’s about sorting algorithms of course lol

View attachment 289366

This joke seriously reminds me of the recent Veritaseum prison excape riddle where a group of N prisoners go into a room of N boxes one at a time and are tasked with finding their cell number with the caveat that they can only look in half the boxes. If all prisoners find their respective cell number they will all be freed if not they go back to prison. What is the best strategy to follow?



I guess for the prisoners the jokes on them.

 

[BillTre]

 

[TeethWhitener]

A mathematician, a chemist, and an engineer were attending a conference. The mathematician’s hotel room happened to overlook those of the other two. One evening, the mathematician noticed to his horror that a fire had broken out in the engineer’s room. The engineer said “what’s the most efficient way to solve this problem?,” grabbed a fire extinguisher, and put out the blaze. A little while later, the mathematician noticed that the chemist’s room was now on fire. The chemist said “fire needs oxygen to propagate,” grabbed a blanket, and smothered the flames. Later that night, the mathematician awoke to find that his room had caught fire. Confidently, he declared “this problem has multiple trivial solutions” and went back to sleep.

 

[malawi_glenn]

A friend of mine is a knot theorist and I told him a joke that wasn’t about knot theory.

He said he’s too old for not-knot jokes.

This is the best knot-theory joke imo:

A mathematician walks into a bar accompanied by a dog and a cow.
The bartender says, “Hey, no animals are allowed in here!”
The mathematician replies, “These are very special animals.”
“How so?”
“They’re knot theorists.”
The bartender raises his eyebrows and says, “I’ve met a number of knot theorists who I thought were animals, but never an animal that was a knot theorist.”
“Well, I’ll prove it to you. Ask them them anything you like.”
So the bartender asks the dog, “Name a knot invariant.”
“Arf!” barks the dog.
The bartender scowls and turns to the cow asking, “Name a topological invariant.”
“Mu!” says the cow.
At this point the bartender turns to the mathematician and says, “Very funny.” With that, he throws the three out of the bar.
Outside, sitting on the curb, the dog turns to the mathematician and asks, “Do you think I should have said the Jones polynomial instead?”

 

[fresh_42]

This is the best knot-theory joke imo:

I have another one. However, this isn't a joke. It really happened (to me).

They have a dress code in German casinos, means: a tie is mandatory.
I had an appointment with three fellow students for a nice evening in a casino nearby. All three specialized in knot theory at the time. We met at the parking area and besides mine, only one other dude had his tie tied. He asked a homeless drinking beer at a kiosk to tie his knot. The other two were standing there having their ties in hand asking me to tie them.

 

[malawi_glenn]

Was the homeless man a former knot theory mathematician who could not find a tenure?

 

[DrGreg]

All three specialized in knot theory at the time. We met at the parking area and besides mine, only one other dude had his tie tied. He asked a homeless drinking beer at a kiosk to tie his knot. The other two were standing there having their ties in hand asking me to tie them.

The difference between theorists and practitioners!

 

[BillTre]

 

[fresh_42]

View attachment 305628

They are actually from India. We only received them from the Arabs. But they found their way via India > Persia > Arabia > Italy into our culture. And Indians are actually Aryans. So be careful with what you claim. Not that you bring on ideas.

 

[BWV]

This one is subtly good

 

[Wrichik Basu]

 

[Ibix]

This one is subtly good

View attachment 312588

If, like me, you didn't get that one, see this thread and the Quora post linked therein. "95% of people" is something of an underestimate. 95% of maths professors may be an underestimate.

 

[Borg]

I would like to know what is "subtly good" about a solution with 80 digit numbers.

 

[Ibix]

I would like to know what is "subtly good" about a solution with 80 digit numbers.

I suspect it's a bit of a number theorist in-joke. The Quora post has a link that purports to explain the history, but just seems to link back to the same Quora post. Anyway, it has the form of one of those click-bait-y "95% of MIT grads can't solve +3=5! If you're smart enough to work out what is then you'll love to watch the adverts on our YouTube channel!" But this one is actually a very hard problem.

 

[Borg]

I tried the problem for a while and attempted to trim it down in several ways with the thought that the numbers would possibly be less than 100 but I kept getting solutions that required progressively larger numbers. Fortunately, I didn't have the desire to start exploring into the 1000 range that wouldn't have come any closer to working out either.

 

[fresh_42]

I can solve it for $\sqrt[3]{2}$ instead of $4.$

 

[Ibix]

Yeah, I tried it for a bit before giving up and Googling it, which took me to mfb's post.

 

[Borg]

I can solve it for $\sqrt[3]{2}$ instead of $4.$

If you change 4 to 3.75, it can be solved with numbers less than 10.

1, 1, & 7

 

[fresh_42]

If you change 4 to 3.75, it can be solved with numbers less than 10.

1, 1, & 7

If you change to a number less than 1.5 then it cannot be solved at all (with positive numbers).

Nesbitt's inequality.

 

[Borg]

The whole apples, oranges and bananas being equal to 4 reminds me of a previous post of mine.

 

[Ibix]

The whole apples, oranges and bananas being equal to 4 reminds me of a previous post of mine.

Tree is a number in some Irish accents...