Mathematical jokes

Heisenberg is driving along the Autobahn and gets pulled over. The policeman asks, "Excuse me, sir, do you know how fast you were going?" Heisenberg responds, "Not at all, but I know precisely where I am." Two scientists are sitting in a bar. A blonde walks by them and one of the scientists sighs "Why are blondes so attractive?" To this, the friend replies "because they are so dense." A neutron walks into a bar and orders a drink. "How much do I owe you," he asks the bartender. "For you," responds the bartender, "no charge." An atom is walking down the street when he meets a friend of his, who is evidently distraught. "What's the matter...is everything OK?" the atom asks his friend. "Well, I think I might have lost an electron," responds the other atom. "Are you sure?" asks the first. "I'm positive!" replies his friend. A physicist, a mathematician, and an engineer are sitting around and one of them says "It says here that Professor X has come up with a new theorem that all odd numbers greater than 2 are prime". Each person present thinks to himself: Mathematician: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, the rest follows by Mathematical induction. Physicist: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is prime... Engineer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is approximately prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime ... Mechanical engineer: 3 is prime, 4 is prime, 5 is prime, 6 is prime... Computer engineer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 7 is prime, 7 is prime... Biologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- results have not arrived yet,... A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafι 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 says, "The measurement wasn't accurate." The biologist says, "They must have reproduced." The mathematician says, "If one more person enters the house then it will be empty." Why do mathematicians like national parks? Because of the natural logs. Person 1: What's the integral of 1/cabin? Person 2: Log cabin. Person 1: No, a houseboat – you forgot to add the c! There are only 10 types of people in the world — those who understand binary, and those who don't. If only DEAD people understand hexadecimal, how many people understand hexadecimal? Why do mathematicians think Halloween and Christmas are the same? Because 31 Oct = 25 Dec. A physicist, a mathematician, and a mystic were asked to name the greatest invention of all time. The physicist chose the fire, which gave humanity the power over matter. The mathematician chose the alphabet, which gave humanity power over symbols. The mystic chose the thermos bottle. "Why a thermos bottle?" the others asked. "Because the thermos keeps hot liquids hot in winter and cold liquids cold in summer." "Yes -- so what?" "Think about it." said the mystic reverently. That little bottle -- how does it *know*?" 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." A mathematician is asked to design a table. He first designs a table with no legs. Then he designs a table with infinitely many legs. He spend the rest of his life generalizing the results for the table with N legs (where N is not necessarily a natural number). A mathematician, scientist, and engineer are each asked: "Suppose we define a horse's tail to be a leg. How many legs does a horse have?" The mathematician answers "5"; the scientist "1"; and the engineer says "But you can't do that! A team of engineers were required to measure the height of a flag pole. They only had a measuring tape, and were getting quite frustrated trying to keep the tape along the pole. It kept falling down, etc. A mathematician comes along, finds out their problem, and proceeds to remove the pole from the ground and measure it easily. When he leaves, one engineer says to the other: "Just like a mathematician! We need to know the height, and he gives us the length!" 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." Dean, to the physics department. "Why do I always have to give you guys so much money, for laboratories and expensive equipment and stuff. Why couldn't you be like the math. department - all they need is money for pencils, paper and waste-paper baskets. Or even better, like the philosophy department. All they need are pencils and paper." A mathematician organizes a lottery in which the prize is an infinite amount of money. When the winning ticket is drawn, and the jubilant winner comes to claim his prize, the mathematician explains the mode of payment: "1 dollar now, 1/2 dollar next week, 1/3 dollar the week after that..." When a statistician passes the airport security check, they discover a bomb in his bag. He explains. "Statistics shows that the probability of a bomb being on an airplane is 1/1000. However, the chance that there are two bombs at one plane is 1/1000000. So, I am much safer..." "Algebraic symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about." This poem was written by Jon Saxton (an author of maths textbooks). ((12 + 144 + 20 + (3 * 4^(1/2))) / 7) + (5 * 11) = 9^2 + 0 Or for those who have trouble with the poem: A Dozen, a Gross and a Score, plus three times the square root of four, divided by seven, plus five times eleven, equals nine squared and not a bit more. Why was six afraid of seven? Because 7 8 9. Computer Science student: "My computer ate my data, it's trying to get me in trouble." CS Instructor: "Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it." A mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer and a Windows Software engineer were out riding, when their car broke down,and they couldn't get it started. The mechanical engineer suggested that it might be out of gas, but after checking it out he found that it had plenty of gas.  The electrical engineer thought it might be the ignition system; lifted the hood and decided that everything was OK. The Software engineer said, "Why don't we all  roll the windows up, get out of the car, get back in the car and roll the windows down again then see if it starts?" Q: What is the definition of a polar bear? A: A rectangular bear after a coordinate transformation Q: Why do you rarely find mathematicians spending time at the beach? A: Because they have sine and cosine to get a tan and don't need the sun! Q: Why do mathematicians, after a dinner at a Chinese restaurant, always insist on taking the leftovers home? A: Because they know the Chinese remainder theorem! "That math prof's marriage is falling apart!" "No wonder! He's into scientific computing - and she's incalculable!" Q: What is the difference between a Ph.D. in mathematics and a large pizza? A: A large pizza can feed a family of four... Math problems? Call 1-800-[(10x)(13i)2]-[sin(xy)/2.362x].     A guy decided to go to the brain transplant clinic to refreshen his supply of brains. The secretary informed him that they had three kinds of brains available at that time. Doctors' brains were going for $20 per ounce and lawyers' brains were getting $30 per ounce. And then there were mathematicians' brains which were currently fetching $1000 per ounce. "1000 dollars an ounce!" he cried. "Why are they so expensive?" It takes more mathematicians to get an ounce of brains," she explained. An experimental physicist, a theoretical physicist and a mathematician are discussing what is better: a wife or a girlfriend. The experimental physicist: "A girlfriend, because you still have freedom to experiment." The theoretical physicist: "A wife, because of security." The mathematician: "Both. When I'm not with my wife, she thinks I'm with my girlfriend. With my girlfriend it's vice versa. And I can be at the library without anyone disturbing me..." What is the fundamental principle of engineering mathematics? Every function has a Taylor series which converges to the function and breaks off after the linear term. A math professor is talking to her little brother who just started his first year of graduate school in mathematics. "What's your favorite thing about mathematics?" the brother wants to know. "Knot theory." "Yeah, me neither." "What happened to your girlfriend, that really cute math student?" – "She no longer is my girlfriend – I have left her. A couple of nights ago I called her on the phone, and she told me that she was in bed wrestling with three unknowns..."  π equals three, for sufficiently small π and sufficiently  large 3... 2 is the oddest prime. The Programmers' Cheer -- Shift to the left, shift to the right! Pop up, push down, byte, byte, byte!