Bad Math Jokes

  • Thread starter Thread starter benorin
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Jokes
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
447 replies · 50K views
1743463627252.png
 
Reply
  • Haha
  • Like
  • Love
Likes   Reactions: BillTre, collinsmark, nuuskur and 2 others
Physics news on Phys.org
Two mathematicians are eating lunch on a bench in a park. Across from them is a men's washroom.

Over several minutes as they eat, two men enter the washoom and three men leave.

One mathematician nudges his buddy and says: "Now, if one more man enters, there will be zero men in there again."
 
Reply
  • Haha
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: KingGambit, jack action and nuuskur
I'm running errands for a friend's party in Owen Sound.

I'm at 16th Ave and 16th St, where they cross.

Do I tell her I'm at 1/8th Or 1/256th?
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: WWGD
DaveC426913 said:
I'm running errands for a friend's party in Owen Sound.

I'm at 16th Ave and 16th St, where they cross.

Do I tell her I'm at 1/8th Or 1/256th?

The cross product of perpendicular streets is their simple product, assuming the streets are truly perpendicular. But the cross product is also a vector that is perpendicular to both streets. So I guess that would make it 256th in the up/down direction. Like an elevator. 256th floor or somesuch.
 
This isn't bad; this is danged clever.

1752864806723.webp
 
Reply
  • Like
  • Love
Likes   Reactions: Carrock, berkeman, jrmichler and 1 other person
1752973006828.webp
 
Reply
  • Agree
  • Haha
Likes   Reactions: BillTre and phinds
Borg said:
4! and 5! were both correct.
But the sentences are missing a period at the end. Or may be an exclamation mark!
 
Reply
  • Agree
Likes   Reactions: Borg
pines-demon said:
You ran a code for this?
:oldconfused:
 
martinbn said:
But the sentences are missing a period at the end. Or may be an exclamation mark!
This is the math thread, not the english punctuation thread. :wink:
 
Reply
  • Agree
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: WWGD, AlexB23 and phinds
martinbn said:
But the sentences are missing a period at the end. Or may be an exclamation mark!
DaveC426913 said:
:oldconfused:
I was wondering if we could find more examples of ##n-m/k = p!## for ##n,m,k,p\in\mathbb{N}##.
 
pines-demon said:
Are you telling me that it can be read in two ways?! (sarcasm)
Momentary humour detector failure, sorry.

I think "I was wondering if we could find more examples of ##n,m,k,p\in\mathbb{N}## that satisfy ##n-m/k = p!##" would work better, though. <Waits for DaveC to remind that it's not the punctuation thread.>
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: pines-demon
I wrote some simple code:
Code:
import math


def find_joke_solutions(max_d, max_val):
    solutions = []
    for d in range(3, max_d + 1):
      fact=math.factorial(d)
      for c in range(2, fact//d):  # ensure c != 1
          for bi in range(1,max_val//c+1):
            b=bi*c
            # first equation: a = c*d + b
            a = c * d + b
                # second equation: a - (b/c) == fact
            if a - (b / c) == fact:
              solutions.append((a, b, c, d))
    return solutions

I got
$$a-b/c=d!$$
with ##(a,b,c,d!)##:
  • 25,5,5,4! (original case)
  • 230, 220, 2, 5! (second case posted above)
  • 721, 103, 103, 6!
  • 5752, 5696, 8, 7!
  • 45351, 45279, 9, 8!
  • 362894, 220892, 15778, 9!
  • 3629032, 3479072, 14996, 10!
I skipped those that had the same factorial result. You can prove that there is no solution for ##d<4## and ##c>1##. Also it is interesting that for it to work ##a,b## have to be of the order of ##d!##.
 
Last edited:
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Ibix
WWGD said:
I met a girl named Shirly, which is almost surely Shirley.
Shirley, that must be from the move Airplane.
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: symbolipoint