How did the mathematician cure his constipation?
He worked it out with pencil and sliderule.
The gigantic computer took up a whole wall, dwarfing the
two mathematicians standing before it. After much flashing
and humming a sliver of paper emerged from the vitals of
the machine.
One mathematician, after studying it gravely, turned to
the other and said with awe, "Do you realize that it would
take four hundred ordinary mathematicians a hundred years
of calculations to make a mistake this big?"
A mathematician is a person who says that, when 3 people are
supposed to be in a room but 5 came out, 2 have to go in so
the room gets empty...
Did you hear about the statistician who invented a device to
measure the weight of trees?
It's referred to as the log scale.
Did you hear about the statistician who took the Dale Carnegie course?
He improved his confidence from .95 to .99.
Why don't statisticians like to model new clothes?
Lack of fit.
Did you hear about the statistician who was thrown in jail?
He now has zero degrees of freedom.
Statisticians must stay away from children's toys because they
regress so easily.
The only time a pie chart is appropriate is at a baker's convention.
Never show a bar chart at an AA meeting.
The last few available graves in a cemetary are called residual plots.
Old statisticians never die, they just undergo a transformation.
How do you tell one bathroom full of statisticians from another?
Check the p-value.
Did you hear about the statistician who made a career change and
became an surgeon specializing in ob/gyn?
His specialty was histerectograms.
The most important statistic for car manufacturers
is autocorrelation.
Some statisticians don't drink because they are t-test totalers.
Others drink the hard stuff as evidenced by the proliferation of
box-and-whiskey plots.
An engineer thinks that his equations are an approximation to
reality. A physicist thinks reality is an approximation to his
equations. A mathematician doesn't care.
Why is the number 10 afraid of seven?
because seven ate nine.
We use epsilons and deltas in mathematics because mathematicians
tend to make errors.
What's big, grey, and proves the uncountability of the reals?
Cantor's Diagonal Elephant!
How can you tell that Harvard was layed out by a mathematician?
The div school [divinity school] is right next to the grad school.
The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center was known as SLAC,
until the big earthquake, when it became known as SPLAC.
SPLAC? Stanford Piecewise Linear Accelerator.
How many topologists does it take to change a light bulb?
It really doesn't matter, since they'd rather knot.
Problem: To Catch a Deer in the woods
1. Mathematical Methods
------------------------
1.1 The Hilbert (axiomatic) method
----------------------------------
We place a locked cage onto a given point in the woods.
After that we introduce the following logical system:
Axiom 1: The set of deers in the woods is not empty.
Axiom 2: If there exists a deer in the woods, then there
exists a deer in the cage.
Procedure: If P is a theorem, and if the following is holds:
"P implies Q", then Q is a theorem.
Theorem 1: There exists a deer in the cage.
1.2 The geometrical inversion method
------------------------------------
We place a spherical cage in the woods, enter it and lock it
from inside. We then perform an inversion with respect to the
cage. Then the deer is inside the cage, and we are outside.
1.3 The projective geometry method
----------------------------------
Without loss of generality we can view the woods as a plane
surface. We project the surface onto a line and afterwards the
line onto an interior point of the cage. Thereby the deer is
mapped onto that same point.
1.4 The Bolzano-Weierstrass method
----------------------------------
Divide the woods by a line running from north to south. The
deer is then either in the eastern or in the western part. Lets
assume it is in the eastern part. Divide this part by a line
running from east to west. The deer is either in the northern
or in the southern part. Lets assume it is in the northern part.
We can continue this process arbitrarily and thereby constructing
with each step an increasingly narrow fence around the selected
area. The diameter of the chosen partitions converges to zero so
that the deer is caged into a fence of arbitrarily small diameter.
1.5 The set theoretical method
------------------------------
We observe that the woods is a separable space. It therefore
contains an enumerable dense set of points which constitutes a
sequence with the deer as its limit. We silently approach the
deer in this sequence, carrying the proper equipment with us.
1.6 The Peano method
--------------------
In the usual way construct a curve containing every point in
the woods. It has been proven [1] that such a curve can be
traversed in arbitrarily short time. Now we traverse the curve,
carrying a rifle, in a time less than what it takes the deer to
move a distance equal to its own length.
1.7 A topological method
------------------------
We observe that the deer possesses the topological gender of
a torus. We embed the woods in a four dimensional space. Then
it is possible to apply a deformation [2] of such a kind that
the deer when returning to the three dimensional space is all
tied up in itself. It is then completely helpless.
1.8 The Cauchy method
---------------------
We examine a deer-valued function f(z). Be \zeta the cage.
Consider the integral
1 [ f(z)
------- I --------- dz
2 \pi i ] z - \zeta
C
where C represents the boundary of the woods. Its value is
f(zeta), i.e. there is a deer in the cage [3].
1.9 The Wiener-Tauber method
----------------------------
We obtain a tame deer, D_0, from the class D(-\infinity,\infinity),
whose fourier transform vanishes nowhere. We put this deer somewhere
in the woods. D_0 then converges toward our cage. According to the
general Wiener-Tauber theorem [4] every other deer D will converge
toward the same cage. (Alternatively we can approximate D arbitrarily
close by translating D_0 through the woods [5].)
2 Theoretical Physics Methods
-----------------------------
2.1 The Dirac method
--------------------
We assert that wild deers can ipso facto not be observed in
the woods.
Therefore, if there are any deers at all in the woods, they
are tame. We leave catching a tame deer as an exercise to the
reader.
2.2 The Schroedinger method
---------------------------
At every instant there is a non-zero probability of the deer
being in the cage. Sit and wait.
2.3 The nuclear physics method
------------------------------
Insert a tame deer into the cage and apply a Majorana exchange
operator [6] on it and a wild deer.
As a variant let us assume that we would like to catch (for
argument's sake) a male deer. We insert a tame female deer
into the cage and apply the Heisenberg exchange operator [7],
exchanging spins.
2.4 A relativistic method
-------------------------
All over the woods we distribute deer bait containing large
amounts of the companion star of Sirius. After enough of the
bait has been eaten we send a beam of light through the woods.
This will curl around the deer so it gets all confused and can
be approached without being alerted to our presence.
2.5 The Newton method
---------------------
Neglect friction and the deer and the cage will attract each other.
3 Experimental Physics Methods
------------------------------
3.1 The thermodynamics method
-----------------------------
We construct a semi-permeable membrane which lets everything but
deers pass through. This we drag through the woods.
3.2 The atomic fission method
-----------------------------
We irradiate the woods with slow neutrons. The deer becomes
radioactive and starts to disintegrate. Once the disintegration
process is progressed far enough the deer will be unable to resist.
[1] After Hilbert, cf. E. W. Hobson, "The Theory of Functions
of a Real Variable and the Theory of Fourier's Series" (1927),
vol. 1, pp 456-457
[2] H. Seifert and W. Threlfall, "Lehrbuch der Topologie"
(1934), pp 2-3
[3] According to the Picard theorem (W. F. Osgood, Lehrbuch
derFunktionentheorie, vol 1 (1928), p 178) it is possible to catch
every deer except for at most one.
[4] N. Wiener, "The Fourier Integral and Certain of itsl
Applications" (1933), pp 73-74
[5] N. Wiener, ibid, p 89
[6] cf e.g. H. A. Bethe and R. F. Bacher, "Reviews of Modern
Physics", 8 (1936), pp 82-229, esp. pp 106-107
[7] ibid "
The Saga of Polly Nomial
Once upon a time, pretty Polly Nomial was skipping through a
field of vectors when she came to the edge of a singularly large
matrix. Now Polly was convergent, and her mother had made it an
absolute condition that she never entered such an array without
her brackets on. But Polly had changed her variables that morning
and had been feeling particularly badly behaved, she ignored her
mothers's condition on the grounds that it was insufficient, and
made her way in among the complex elements.
Rows and columns enveloped her on all sides. Tangents approached
her surface. She grew tensor and tensor. Quite suddenly, three
branches of a hyperbola touched her at a single point, she
oscillated wildly and lost all sense of directrix. She tripped
over a square root protruding from the erf, and tumbled headlong
down a steep gradient. When she was once again in possesion of
her variables, she found herself apparently in a non-euclidean
space. She was being watched, however: that smooth operator,
Curly Pi, was lurking inner product. As his eyes devoured her
curvilinear coordinates, a singular expression crossed his face.
Was she convergent? He wondered. He decided to integrate
improperly at once. Hearing an improper fraction behind her,
Polly rotated and saw Curly approaching with his power series
extrapolated. She could tell at once from his degenerate conic
and his dissipative terms that he was bent to no good.
"Eureka!" she gasped.
"Ho, ho," said our operator. "What a symetric little asymptote
you have. I bet your angles are just dripping with secs."
"Stay away from me!" she said. "I haven't got my brackets on."
"Calm yourself, my dear," he said. "Your fears are purely
imaginary."
"I, I," she thought, "Maybe he's not normal..Maybe he's even a
homomorphism."
"What order are you?" the brute demanded.
"Seventeen," she replied.
Curly leered. "Enough of this idle chatter. Lets go to a
decimal place I know, and I'll take you to the limit."
"Never!" she gasped.
"Arcsinh!!!" He swore the vilest oath he knew. Coshing her
over the coefficient with a log until she was powerless, Curly
removed her discontinuities. He stared at her significant places
and began smoothing out her points of inflection. Poor Polly.
She could feel his hand tending towards her asymptotic limit.
The algorithmic method was now her only hope. Her convergence
would soon be gone forever.
Curly's radius squared itself. Polly's loci quivered. He
intergrated by parts. He intergrated by partial fractions. The
complex beast even went all the way around and did a contour
intergration. Curly went on operating until he was completely
and totally exhausted of all his primitive roots.
When Polly arrived home that night, her mother noticed that
she had been truncated in several places. But it was too late
to differentiate now. Nine transformations later, she went to
L'Hopital and generated a small but pathological function which
left zeros and residues all over the place and drove poor Polly
to deviation.
The moral of this story is: If you want to keep your expressions
convergent, keep them well differentiated from complex operators.
A mathematician is showing a new proof he came up with to a
large group of peers.
After he's gone through most of it, one of the mathematicians
says "Wait! That's not true. I have a counter-example!"
He replies, "That's okay. I have two proofs."
Pythagoras. Now there's a guy you don't hear mentioned very
much outside of a triangle context. Most people don't realize
there was a lot more to this ancient Greek mathematician than
just his famous theorem. Let's have a look at his achievements.
Pythagoras' Theorem:
The sum of the squares of the two legs of a right triangle
is equal to the square of its hypotenuse.
Pythagoras' Disclaimer:
I know about hypotenuses, not hippopotamuses. Please, direct
your hippo questions elsewhere.
Pythagoras' Pick-Up Line:
Hi, my name's Pythagoras. Perhaps you've heard of my theorem?
Pythagoras' Secret Fear:
Women don't dig triangle men.
Pythagoras' Call To His Agent:
I know, I know, the money's running a little thin. But I'm
working on something that'll make us a fortune.
Pythagoras' Witty Observation:
Ever notice how, when you're heading out for a night of
Dionysian theatre, you always end up wearing the same toga
as your buddy? Ha ha! Ain't _that_ the truth!
Pythagoras' Other Call To His Agent:
What do you mean it tanked? OK, OK, keep your sandals on,
I've got a sure thing coming down the pike.
Pythagoras' Theorem II: The Revenge:
If you square one leg of a right triangle only days before its
retirement, the other leg will go on a one-leg quest for vengeance.
Pythagoras' Third Call To His Agent:
Oh, sure, they liked that, they love the triangle stuff, bunch
of cretins. They want triangles, I'll give 'em triangles.
Pythagoras' Theorem, Live Version:
What does the sum of the squares of the two legs of a right
triangle equal? I can't hear you? Yeah! The square of the
hypotenuse! Thank you, goodnight!
Pythagoras' Final Call To His Agent:
No, Jerry, I'm through with the triangle stuff. You hear me?
Uh huh? Go ahead and quit then, I don't _need_ an agent!
Pythagoras' Not-Very Useful Rectangle Theorem:
The sides of a rectangle are the part which you can find out
the outside of the rectangle, whereas the middle part is the
inside part of the rectangle.
Pythagoras' Corollary to his Rectangle Theorem:
That also goes for squares and other shapes.
Pythagoras' Lame Statement of the Obvious:
Um, sometimes it's nice to lie down and have a little nap.
Pythagoras' Helpful Mnemonic Spelling Aid:
When two vowels go walkin', the first one does the talkin'!
Pythagoras' Complaint:
Pi! Pi! it's all pi these days. Who cares?! Why compute the
area of a circle?! Triangles are what count! Call me a has-been,
will they! Hey, Uzo boy, bring us another round!
Pythagoras' Theorem Revisited
The Triangle Master's Great Theorem, Digitally Remastered So
You Can Enjoy It Again and Again: The sum of the squares of
the two legs of a triangle _still_ equals the square of its
hypotenuse. Hey hey!
Pythagoras' Touching Farewell Speech:
In my life I may have had some bad breaks, but I consider myself
the luckiest man in the world. Geometry has been very good to me.
God bless, goodnight, and may all your hypotenuses be equal to the
square root of the sums of the squares of the legs of your right
triangles.
A group of scientists were doing an investigation into
problem-solving techniques, and constructed an experiment
involving a physicist, an engineer, and a mathematician.
The experimental apparatus consisted of a water spigot
and two identical pails, one of which was fastened to the
ground ten feet from the spigot.
Each of the subjects was given the second pail, empty,
and told to fill the pail on the ground.
The physicist was the first subject: he carried his
pail to the spigot, filled it there, carried it full of
water to the pail on the ground, and poured the water
into it. Standing back, he declared, "There: I have
solved the problem."
The engineer and the mathematician each approached the
problem similarly. Upon finishing, the engineer noted that
the solution was exact, since the volumes of the pails
were equal. The mathematician merely noted that he had
proven that a solution exists.
Now, the experimenters altered the parameters of the
task a bit: the pail on the ground was still empty, but
the subjects were presented with a pail that was already
half-filled with water.
The physicist immediately carried his pail over to the
one on the ground, emptied the water into it, went back
to the spigot, *filled* the pail, and finally emptied the
entire contents into the pail on the ground, overflowing
it and spilling some of the water. Upon finishing, he
commented that the problem should have been better stated.
The engineer, in turn, thought for some time before
going into action. He then took his half-filled pail to
the spigot, filled it to the brim, and filled the pail on
the ground from it. Again he noted that the problem had
an exact solution, which of course he had found.
The mathematician thought for a long time before stirring.
At last he stood up, emptied his pail onto the ground, and
declared, "The problem has been reduced to one already solved."
First of all let me make it clear that I have nothing against
contravariant functors. Some of my best friends are cohomology
theories! But now you aren't supposed to call them contravariant
anymore. It's Algebraically Correct to call them 'differently
arrowed'!!
In the same way that transcendental numbers are polynomially
challenged?
Manifolds are personifolds (humanifolds).
Neighborhoods are neighbor victims of society.
It's the Asian Remainder Theorem.
It isn't PC to use "singularity" - the function is "convergently
challenged" there.
Here are some phrases used to remember SIN, COS, and TAN.
(SIN = Opposite/Hypotenuse, COS = Adjacent/H, TAN = O/A).
units and dimensions
2 monograms = 1 diagram
8 nickles = 2 paradigms
2 wharves = 1 paradox
10E5 bicycles = 2 megacycles
1 unit of suspense in an Agatha Christie novel = 1 whod unit
Three Laws of Thermodynamics (paraphrased):
First Law: You can't get anything without working for it.
Second Law: The most you can accomplish by work is to break even.
Third Law: You can't break even.
A husband and wife, both statisticians, had the misfortune
of passing away within a day of one another. They had always
planned to be buried side by side. Unfortunately, the funeral
home got them mixed up with another husband and wife with
similar wishes.
This became known as the first case of split-plot confounding.
An engineer, a physicist and a mathematicians have to build
a fence around a flock of sheep, using as little material as
possible.
The engineer forms the flock into a circular shape and
constructs a fence around it.
The physicist builds a fence with an infinite diameter and
pulls it together until it fits around the flock.
The mathematicians thinks for a while, then builds a fence
around himself and defines himself as being outside.
Mad Mathematicians
News Item (June 23)-Mathematicians worldwide were excited and pleased
today by the announcement that Princeton University professor Andrew
Wiles had finally proved Fermat's Last Theorem, a 356-year-old problem
said to be the most famous in the field.
Yes, admittedly, there was rioting and vandalism last week during the
celebration. A few bookstores had windows smashed and shelves stripped,
and vacant lots glowed with burning piles of old dissertations. But
overall we can feel relief that it was nothing- nothing- compared to the
outbreak of exuberant thuggery that occurred in 1984 after Louis
deBranges finally proved the Bieberbach Conjecture.
"Math hooligans are the worst," said a Chicago Police Department
spokesman. "But the city learned from the Bieberbach riots. We were
ready for them this time."
When word hit Wednesday that Fermat's Last Theorem had fallen, a massive
show of force from law enforcement at universities all around the
country headed off a repeat of the festive looting sprees that have
become the traditional accompaniment to triumphant breakthroughs in
higher mathematics.
Mounted police throughout Hyde Park kept crowds of delirious wizards at
the University of Chicago from tipping cars over on the midway as they
first did in 1976 when Wolfgang Hakel and Kenneth Appel cracked the
long-vexing Four-Color Problem. Incidents of textbook-throwing and
citizens being pulled from their cars and humiliated with difficult
story problems last week were described by the university's math
department chairman Bob Zimmer as "isolated."
Zimmer said, "Most of the celebrations were orderly and peaceful, But
there will always be a few-usually graduate students-who use any excuse
to cause trouble and steal. These are not true fans of Andrew Wiles."
Wiles himself pleaded for calm even as he offered up the long elusive
proof that there is no solution to the equation x^n + y^n = z^n when n
is a whole number greater than two, as Pierre de Fermat first proposed
in the 17th Century. "Party hard but party safe," he said, echoing the
phrase he had repeated often in interviews with scholarly journals as he
came closer and closer to completing his proof.
Some authorities tried to blame the disorder on the provocative taunting
of Japanese mathematician Yoichi Miyaoka. Miyaoka thought he had proved
Fermat's Last Theorem in 1988, but his claims did not bear up under
scrutiny of professional referees, leading some to suspect that the fix
was in. And ever since, as Wiles chipped away steadily at the Fermat
problem, Miyaoka scoffed that there would be no reason to board up
windows near universities any time soon; that God wanted Miyaoka to
prove it.
In a peculiar sidelight, Miyaoka recently took the trouble to secure a
U.S. trademark on the equation "x^n + y^n = z^n" as well as on the
now-ubiquitous expression, "Take that, Fermat!" Ironically, in defeat,
he stands to make a good deal of money on cap and T-shirt sales.
This was no walk-in-the-park proof for Wiles. He was dogged, in the
early going, by sniping publicity that claimed he was seen puttering
late one night doing set theory in a New Jersey library when he either
should have been sleeping, critics said, or focusing on arithmetic
algebraic geometry for the proving work ahead.
"Set theory is my hobby, it helps me relax," was his angry explanation.
The next night, he channeled his fury and came up with five critical
steps in his proof. Not a record, but close.
There was talk that he thought he could do it all by himself, especially
when he candidly referred to University of California mathematician
Kenneth Ribet as part of his "supporting cast," when most people in the
field knew that without Ribet's 1986 proof definitively linking the
Taniyama Conjecture to Fermat's Last Theorem, Wiles would be just
another frustrated guy in a tweed jacket teaching calculus to freshmen.
His travails made the ultimate victory that much more explosive for math
buffs. When the news arrived, many were already wired from caffeine
comsumed at daily colloquial teas, and they took to the streets en masse
shouting, "Obvious! Yessss! It was obvious!"
The law cannot hope to stop such enthusiasm, only to control it. Still,
one has to wonder what the connection is between wanton pillaging and a
mathematical proof, no matter how long-awaited and subtle.
The Victory Over Fermat rally, held on a cloudless day in front of a
crowd of 30,000 (police estimate: 150,000) was pleasantly peaceful.
Signs unfurled in the audience proclaimed Wiles the greatest
mathematician of all time, though partisans of Euclid, Descartes, Newton
and C.F. Gauss and others argued the point vehemently.
A warmup act, The Supertheorists, delighted the crowd with a ragged
song, "It Was Never Less Than Probable, My Friend," which included such
gloating, barbed verses as- "I had my proof all ready/But then I did a
choke-a/Made liberal assumptions/Hi! I'm Yoichi Miyaoka."
In the speeches from the stage, there was talk of a dynasty,
specifically that next year Wiles will crack the great unproven Riemann
Hypothesis ("Rie-peat! Rie-peat!" the crowd cried), and after that the
Prime-Pair Problem, the Goldbach Conjecture (Minimum Goldbach," said one
T-shirt) and so on.
They couldn't just let him enjoy his proof. Not even for one day. Math
people. Go figure 'em.
When people talk statistics, they always talk about averages.
Average this, and average that. The thing to remember is that the
average is exactly halfway between the best and the worst. It is
the best of the worst and the worst of the best.
So a mathematician, an engineer, and a physicist are out hunting
together. They spy a deer in the woods. The physicist calculates
the velocity of the deer and the effect of gravity on the bullet,
aims his rifle and fires. Alas, he misses; the bullet passes three
feet behind the deer. The deer bolts some yards, but comes to a
halt, still within sight of the trio.
"Shame you missed," comments the engineer, "but of course with
an ordinary gun, one would expect that." He then levels his special
deer-hunting gun, which he rigged together from an ordinary rifle, a
sextant, a compass, a barometer, and a bunch of flashing lights which
don't do anything but impress onlookers, and fires. Alas, his bullet
passes three feet in front of the deer, who by this time wises up and
vanishes for good.
"Well," says the physicist, "your contraption didn't get it either."
"What do you mean?" pipes up the mathematician. "Between the two
of you, that was a perfect shot!"
The difference between an Engineer and a Mathematician:
The Engineer walks in her office and finds her trash can on fire.
She gets the fire extinguisher and puts out the fire.
The Mathematician walks in his office and finds his trash can on
fire. He gets the fire extinguisher and puts out the fire.
The following day:
The Engineer walks in her office and finds the trash can on fire on
top of her desk. She gets the fire extinguisher and put out the fire.
The Mathematician walks in his office and finds the trash can on fire
on top of his desk. He takes the trash can and puts it on the floor.
He has reduced the problem to a previously solved state. Too solve
it again would be redundant.
A businessman needed to employ a quantitative type person. He
wasn't sure if he should get a mathematician, an engineer, or an
applied mathematician. As it happened, all the applicants were
male. The businessman devised a test.
The mathematician came first. Miss How, the administrative
assistant took him into the hall. At the end of the hall, lounging
on a couch, was a beautiful woman. Miss How said, "You may only go
half the distance at a time. When you reach the end, you may kiss
our model."
The mathmatician explained how he would never get there in a
finite number of iterations and politely excused himself. Then came
the engineer. He quickly bounded halfway down the hall, then halfway
again, and so on. Soon he declared he was well within accepted error
tolerance and grabbed the beautiful woman and kissed her.
Finally it was the applied mathematician's turn. Miss How explained
the rules. The applied mathematician listened politely, then grabbed
Miss How and gave her a big smooch.
"What was that about?" she cried.
"Well, you see I'm an applied mathematician. If I can't solve the
problem, I change it!"
Engineers think that equations approximate the real world.
Physicists think that the real world approximates equations.
Mathematicians are unable to make the connection ...
If mathematicians are neutered, they can't multiply.
MATHEMATICS PURITY TEST
by Mike Bender and Sarah Herr
Count the number of yes's, subtract from 60, and divide by 0.6.
The Basics
1) Have you ever been excited about math?
2) Had an exciting dream about math?
3) Made a mathematical calculation?
4) Manipulated the numerator of an equation?
5) Manipulated the denominator of an equation?
6) On your first problem set?
7) Worked on a problem set past 3:00 a.m.?
8) Worked on a problem set all night?
9) Had a hard problem?
10) Worked on a problem continuously for more than 30 minutes?
11) Worked on a problem continuously for more than four hours?
12) Done more than one problem set on the same night (i.e. both
started and finished them)?
13) Done more than three problem sets on the same night?
14) Taken a math course for a full year?
15) Taken two different math courses at the same time?
16) Done at least one problem set a week for more than four months?
17) Done at least one problem set a night for more than one month
(weekends excluded)?
18) Done a problem set alone?
19) Done a problem set in a group of three or more?
20) Done a problem set in a group of 15 or more?
21) Was it mixed company?
22) Have you ever inadvertently walked in upon people doing a
problem set?
23) And joined in afterwards?
24) Have you ever used food doing a problem set?
25) Did you eat it all?
26) Have you ever had a domesticated pet or animal walk over you
while you were doing a problem set?
27) Done a problem set in a public place where you might be discovered?
28) Been discovered while doing a problem set?
Kinky Stuff
29) Have you ever applied your math to a hard science?
30) Applied your math to a soft science?
31) Done an integration by parts?
32) Done two integration by parts in a single problem?
33) Bounded the domain and range of your function?
34) Used the domination test for improper integrals?
35) Done Newton's Method?
36) Done the Method of Frobenius?
37) Used the Sandwich Theorem?
38) Used the Mean Value Theorem?
39) Used a Gaussian surface?
40) Used a foreign object on a math problem (eg: calculator)?
41) Used a program to improve your mathematical technique
(eg: MACSYMA)?
42) Not used brackets when you should have?
43) Integrated a function over its full period?
44) Done a calculation in three-dimensional space?
45) Done a calculation in n-dimensional space?
46) Done a change of bases?
47) Done a change of bases specifically in order to magnify
your vector?
48) Worked through four complete bases in a single night
(eg: using the Graham-Schmidt method)?
49) Inserted a number into an equation?
50) Calculated the residue of a pole?
51) Scored perfectly on a math test?
52) Swallowed everything your professor gave you?
53) Used explicit notation in your problem set?
54) Purposefully omitted important steps in your problem set?
55) Padded your own problem set?
56) Been blown away on a test?
57) Blown away your professor on a test?
58) Have you ever multiplied 23 by 3?
59) Have you ever bounded your Bessel function so that the membrane
did not shoot to infinity?
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. He 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."
MATHEMATICS POETRY
Eve Andersson.
There once was a number named pi
Who frequently liked to get high.
All he did every day
Was sit in his room and play
With his imaginary friend named i.
There once was a number named e
Who took way too much LSD.
She thought she was great.
But that fact we must debate;
We know she wasn't greater than 3.
There once was a log named Lynn
Whose life was devoted to sin.
She came from a tree
Whose base was shaped like an e.
She's the most natural log I've seen.
by Jon Saxton.
((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.
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