But seriously, ma oeyä eylan....

[Seze Mune]

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."

[Seze Mune]

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."

[Seze Mune]

Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams.

His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof." Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

"First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.


As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:

1. If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter
hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell
breaks loose.
2. If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell,
then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true... Thus, hell is exothermic."

The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.

[Seze Mune]

An urban legend: (there seem to be many versions of this one floating around)

The following concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the University of Copenhagen:

"Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer."

One student replied:

"You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building."

This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed immediately. He appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case.

The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics.

To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer which showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.

For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use.

On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:

"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H =0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer.

Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper.

"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2 pi sqrroot (l / g).

"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up.

"If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building.

But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on
the janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper'."

- The student was Niels Bohr, the only Dane to win the Nobel Prize for Physics

[Seze Mune]

An engineer, a mathematician, and a physicist went to the races one Saturday and laid their money down.  Commiserating in the bar after the race, the engineer says, "I don't understand why I lost all my money.  I measured all the horses and calculated their strength and mechanical advantage and figured out how fast they could run..."

The physicist interrupted him: "...but you didn't take individual variations into account.  I did a statistical analysis of their previous performances and bet on the horses with the highest probability of winning..."

"...so if you're so hot why are you broke?" asked the engineer.  But before the argument can grow, the mathematician takes out his pipe and they get a glimpse of his well-fattened wallet.  Obviously here was a man who knows something about horses.  They both demanded to know his secret.

"Well," he says, between puffs on the pipe, "first I approximated all the horses as identical spheres..."

[Seze Mune]

Too Much Linear Algebra

You know too much linear algebra when...

   You look at the long row of creamer pitchers at Peet's--soy, skim, low-fat, whole, and half-and-half--and think: "Why so many? Aren't soy, skim, and half-and-half a basis?"

[Seze Mune]

Several scientists were all posed the following question: "What is 2 * 2 ?"

The engineer whips out his slide rule (so it's old) and shuffles it back and forth, and finally announces "3.99".

The physicist consults his technical references, sets up the problem on his computer, and announces "it lies between 3.98 and 4.02".

The mathematician cogitates for a while, then announces: "I don't know what the answer is, but I can tell you, an answer exists!".

Philosopher smiles: "But what do you mean by 2 * 2 ?"

Logician replies: "Please define 2 * 2 more precisely."

The sociologist: "I don't know, but is was nice talking about it".

Behavioral Ecologist: "A polygamous mating system".

Medical Student: "4"

All others looking astonished: "How did you know ??"

Medical Student: "I memorized it."

[Seze Mune]

 A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers.

Engineer: What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!

Doctor: I don't know but I've never seen such ineptitude!

Priest: Hey, here comes the greenskeeper. Let's have a word with him.

Priest: Hi George. Say George, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow aren't they?

George: Oh yes. That's a group of blind fire fighters. They lost their sight while saving our club house last year. So we let them play here anytime free of charge!

(silence)

Priest: That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.

Doctor: Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them.

Engineer: Why can't these guys play at night?

[Seze Mune]

"A molecular biologist with a PhD at University of Birmingham, in the UK, quits his lab position to become a plumber, since a plumber apparently earns twice what he currently makes (~US$42K)." True story.

The following is a joke. One professor of mathematics noticed that his kitchen sink at his home broke down. He called a plumber. The plumber came on the next day, sealed a few screws and everything was working as before. The professor was delighted. However, when the plumber gave him the bill a minute later, he was shocked. "This is one third of my monthly salary!" he yelled. Well, he paid and then the plumber said to him:

"I understand your position as a professor. Why don't you come to our company and apply for a plumber position? You will earn three times as much as a professor. But remember, when you apply tell them that you completed only the seventh grade. They don't like educated people."

So it happened. The professor got a plumber job and his life significantly improved. He just had to seal a screw or two occasionally, and his salary went up significantly.

One day, the board of the plumbing company decided that every plumber has to go to evening classes to complete the eighth grade. So, our professor had to go there too. It just happened that the first class was math. The evening teacher, to check students' knowledge, asked for a formula for the area of the circle. The person who was asked was the professor. He jumped to the board, and then he realized that he forgot the formula.

He started to reason it and soon filled the board with integrals, differentials and other advanced formulas to conclude the result that he had forgotten. As a result he got "negative pi times r squared." He didn't like the negative, so he started all over again. He got the negative sign again.

No matter how many times he tried, he always got a negative. He was frustrated. He looked a bit scared at the class and saw all the plumbers whisper:

"Switch the limits of the integral!!"

[Seze Mune]

An engineer and  mathematician are both aimlessly wandering the infinite complex plane when lo and behold they both spy a buxom young lady Physicist draped around a pole at the origin.

On approaching her she shouts at them to stop and points to the unit circle just in front of them.

"Ok guys, here's the deal" she says, "starting on the unit circle, every minute each one of you can halve the distance between your position and mine".

"Whoever gets to me first can have me!"

The mathematician thinks for a moment, recognising that this is an asymptotic series and that it will take an infinite amount of time for him to get to the origin. He walks off in disgust -- besides he'd heard rumours that there's a pub at  15+7i.

The engineer thinks for a moment, recognising that this is an asymptotic series and that it will take an infinite amount of time for him to get to the origin. He walks on muttering -- "Stuff it, I can get close enough!".

[Seze Mune]

An engineer, mathematician and physicist are all seated in a car munching their lunch.  After sitting in awkward silence for twenty minutes with nothing happening they all spot a man enter a building next to the car. The engineer, quips "Ah a state change!".

A few minutes later a woman enters the same building and almost immediately after both her and the man hurriedly emerge, this time accompanied by another man.  The engineer again quips "Hey, they've been breeding." to which the physicist replies "And they've got a time machine!".

The mathematician, silent until this point, pipes up -- "None of you understand the deep significance of this,  now we need someone to go in to that building to make it empty again"!

[Seze Mune]

A mathematical biologist was out walking in the countryside and met a shepherd with a large flock of sheep. He says to the shepherd

"If I can tell you exactly how many sheep you have in this field will you give me one?"

The shepherd looks surprised but agrees. The mathematician looks around and by applying some clever methodology says

"273."

"That's exactly right" says the astonished shepherd "choose which ever you like."

The mathematician chooses his prize and picks it up. The shepherd then says

"If I can say exactly what you do for a living will you give me the animal back."

They agree on the bet and the shepherd says

"Mathematical biologist"

"How ever did you know that?" replies the dumbfounded academic.

"Well, you obviously had some clever method for counting sheep so I thought you were some kind of mathematician. But what really clinched it was when you picked up my sheep dog".

[Seze Mune]

An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician were stranded on a desert island and hadn't eaten for days.  They found a can of baked beans but had nothing with which to open it. 

The engineer took the can of baked beans and bashed it hard against a rock several times.  The can didn't open. 

The physicist took the can of baked beans, climbed up a coconut tree and dropped the can from a great height.  He tried this several times but still, the can didn't open. 

After their repeated failed attempts, the engineer and physicist looked over at the mathematician who was perfectly calm and not the slightest bit concerned.  "Aren't you going to do something??", they asked.

Eventually, the mathematician pulled out a pencil and a piece of paper and started writing, 'Suppose we have a can opener...

[Seze Mune]

I was an undergrad at Bristol University.

We had a third year lecture on mathematical logic in a lecture theatre which obviously served a number of departments.

The lecture before ours was obviously philosophical.

One day the lecturer turned up, looked at the blackboards and said

"I see the philosophers have been proving the existence of God. Our proofs today won't be quite so exciting."

He turned his back on us and started to clean the blackboards. A minute later he turned back to us and said

"But our proofs will at least be valid."

[Seze Mune]

Q: Why didn't Newton invent group theory
A: He wasn't Abel

Q: Why is the contour integral of western Europe equal to zero
A: All the Poles are in the east...

Q: What's purple and commutes
A: An abelian grape

And, a final thought...

Old mathematicians never die, they just lose some of their functions.

[Lance R. Casey]

An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician are staying in a hotel.
The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trash can from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed.
Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed.
Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. He goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. He thinks for a moment and then exclaims, "Ah, a solution exists!" and then goes back to bed.



During a lecture, the professor formulated a theorem on the board and said: "The proof is obvious". Then he looked up with a frown, abruptly left the lecture room, returned after 15 minutes and happily exclaimed: "Indeed, it is obvious!"



– Why do truncated Maclaurin series fit the original function so well?
– Because they are Taylor-made.



These also come to mind:

[Kekerusey]

"Well, you obviously had some clever method for counting sheep so I thought you were some kind of mathematician. But what really clinched it was when you picked up my sheep dog".

In the version I heard it was a brunette not a mathematician ... she's asked if he can say what her real hair colour was and obviously () she's a blonde. Since stupidity is involved I think the stereotype blonde version is funnier.

Keke