A sphere walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender says, "I'm sorry, but we don't serve spheres here."
The disgruntled sphere walks outside, but then gets an idea and performs Dahn surgery upon himself. He walks into the bar, and the bartender, who does not recognize him since he is now a different manifold, serves him a drink. However, the bartender thinks he looks familiar, or at least locally similar, and asks, "Aren't you that sphere that just came in here?"
"No, I'm a frayed knot."
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When a pure mathematician is asked, say, to calculate the stability of an ordinary four-legged table, he rapidly enough arrives at preliminary results which pertain to a one-legged table or a table with an infinite number of legs. He will spend the rest of his life unsuccessfully solving the ordinary problem of the table with an arbitrary, finite, number of legs.
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A husband is beginning to worry that the passion has gone out of his marriage. He starts going secretly to a marriage counselor in order to find ways to spice up his marriage and satisfy his wife. The counselor listens, and instructs him to get a bear-skin rug for his living room.
The husband goes right our and buys the biggest bear-skin rug that he can find. He takes it home and drapes it across the hardwood floor. As soon as his wife came home from work, she spied the rug and suddenly grabbed her husband's hand, took him upstairs, and treated him to the wildest night of passion they'd had since they were both teenagers.
The next day, the husband, truly greatful, returned to the counselor to say thanks. "By the way, how did you know that the bear-skin rug would do the trick?"
"Simple mathematics," replied the counselor. "It's 'Fur Mats Lust Theorem'."
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A physics professor has been conducting experiments and has worked out a set of equations which seem to explain his data. Nevertheless, he is unsure if his equations are really correct and therefore asks a colleague from the math department to check them.
A week later, the math professor calls him: "I'm sorry, but your equations are complete nonsense."
The physics professor is, of course, disappointed. Strangely, however, his incorrect equations turn out to be surprisingly accurate in predicting the results of further experiements. So, he asks the mathematician if he was sure about the equations being completely wrong.
"Well", the mathematician replies, "they are not actually complete nonsense. But the only case in which they are true is the trivial one where the field is Archimedean..."
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A mathematician and a physicist were walking along during their lunch break when at a two-day convention when they realized they are going to be late for the afternoon session. "We're going to be late," says the physicist.
So the two begin to scramble back to their seats. However, no sooner do they start then they spy the engineering building on fire. Immediately, the physicist springs into action. He finds a nearby length of hose, jerry-rigs it to a nearby fire hydrant, and quickly puts the fire out. He then rushes into the building to make sure everyone is okay (they are). He then grabs the mathematician's arm and rushes back to their seats. Amazingly, they make it on time.
The next day, the pair are again out walking about on their lunch break when they realize they are going to be late for the afternoon session.
Immediately the mathematician springs into action. He sets the nearby engineering building on fire, thus reducing the problem to one previously solved.
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Several professionals were asked the following question: What is 2 x 2 ? Here were the responses.
* A trained mathematician:
"4."
* A poorly trained mathematician:
"I don't what the answer is, but I can tell you, an answer exists."
* A physicist, after consulting technical references, and setting up the problem on his computer:
"It lies between 3.98 and 4.02."
* An engineer, after consulting his slide rule:
"3.99."
* A philosopher:
"But what do you mean by 2 x 2 ?"
* An accountant, after closing all the doors and windows, in a whisper:
"What do you want the answer to be?"
* A computer hacker, after 2 hours of breaking into the NSA super-computer:
"4."
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A mathematician, physicist, and engineer are walking through a parking lot at night when they meet an old woman standing by a Volkswagen in tears. They ask her what's wrong, and she replies: "I was trying to get into my car to drive home, but I dropped my keys. My eyes are too old to see them in the dark... my legs are to old to bend down and search for them. What am I to do?"
The three professionals offer to help. Immediately, the engineer drops to all fours, crawling around the car in the dark, reaching and feeling for the keys. But he does not find them.
The physicist reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small magnet and cigarette lighter. He uses the lighter to dimly illuminate the area around the car; he uses the magnet to try and attract the keys to him. But he does not find the keys.
Finally, the mathematician surveys the problem. He then goes to the other end of the parking lot, where the light is better, and looks for the keys over there.
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A doctor, a lawyer and a mathematician were discussing the relative merits of having a wife or a mistress.
"For sure a mistress is better," says the lawyer. "If you have a wife and want a divorce, it causes all sorts of legal problems."
"No, no, it's better to have a wife," says the doctor, "because the sense of security lowers your stress and is good for your health.
"No, no, you're both wrong," replies the mathmatician. "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 slip away and do some mathematics."
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A math convention and an engineering convention were being held in the same city. Consequently, a bunch of mathematicians and a bunch of engineers were on the same train headed for the city. Each of the engineers had his/her train ticket. The group of mathematicians had only ONE ticket for all of them. The engineers started laughing and snickering.
Then, one of the mathematicians said "here comes the conductor" and then all of the math majors went into the bathroom. The engineers were puzzled. The conductor came aboard and said "tickets please" and got tickets from all the engineers. He then went to the bathroom and knocked on the door and said "ticket please" and the mathematicians stuck the ticket under the door. The conductor took it and then the mathematicians came out of the bathroom a few minutes later. The engineers were dumbfounded.
So, on the way back from the convention, the group of engineers had one ticket for the group. They started snickering at the mathematicians, for the whole group had no tickets amongst them. Then, the mathematicians' lookout said "Conductor coming!". All the mathematicians went to the bathroom. All the engineers went to another bathroom. Then, before the conductor came on board, one of the mathematicians left the bathroom, knocked on the other bathroom, and said "ticket please."
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Proof:
It is known in universities that knowledge is power, hence
Knowledge=Power
Similarly, it is known in business that time is money, whence
Time=Money
From physics, we have by definition that power is the ratio of work to time, so that
Power=\frac{Work}{Time}
Making the substitutions above, we have
Knowledge=\frac{Work}{Money}
Solving for money, we get:
Money=\frac{Work}{Knowledge}
Thus, as knowledge approaches zero, money approaches infinity, regardless of the amount of work done. Q.E.D.
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Evolution of Math teaching:
1960s:
A logger cuts and sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is four-fifths of that amount. What is his profit?
1970s:
A logger cuts and sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is four-fifths of that amount, i.e. $80. What is his profit?
1970s (new math):
A logger exchanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinality of set M is 100. The set C of production costs contains 20 fewer points. What is the cardinality of Set P of profits?
1980s:
A logger cuts and sells a truckload of lumber for $100. Her cost is $80 and her profit is $20. Find and circle the number 20.
1990s:
An unenlightened logger cuts down a beautiful stand of 100 trees in order to make a $20 profit. Write an essay explaining how you feel about this as a way to make money. Topic for discussion: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel?
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Phew...I think that's enough from me lol.
]: type 'polly nomial' into google, it's the first thing that appears.
