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From Devin:
A mathematician ate N pizzas (where N is some highly composite number greater than 6). After eating the pizzas, he/she proceeded to write the following on a napkin:
After writing this note, the mathematician dropped dead. What was the meaning of this mysterious note?
The answer is in the comments!
Overheard in my office: A) "The Beatles were so derivative!" B) "Yes, but so many more bands derived from them!" A) "So I guess that would make The Beatles.... integral?"
During the War, a mathematician, a chemist, and a mechanical engineer are captured by the enemy. They're thrown into three jail cells in a remote part of the enemy base, and quickly forgotten. A month later the jailer remembers that these three prisoners haven't been fed in a month, and goes to check on them.
In the first jail cell, he finds a rudimentary lever and wedge on the floor. The mechanical engineer had pried the cheap cell bars apart, and escaped handily.
In the second jail cell, he finds a puddle of acid: acid that the chemist had poured on the cell bars to free himself.
In the third jail cell, he finds the mathematician's rotting corpse. Next to the body, there's a piece of paper. He reads it. It says: "Assume that I have the key to the cell..."
From a colleague: Two statisticians are at a shooting range.
The first statistician misses the target by 10 feet to the left.
The second statistician misses the target by 10 feet to the right.
They cheer.
Another popular statistician joke recently appeared in this article on Slate. Jordan Ellenberg tells it so well that I'll just quote him verbatim: 10 statisticians in a bar. Ted Turner walks in. The statisticians start to whoop and holler. "What's going on?" asks Turner. One statistician explains, "On average, we just got a whole lot richer!"
Statisticians are to math what dentists are to the medical profession. Everyone knows that statisticians aren't real mathematicians, but we treat them like it to boost their self-esteem. And statisticians—like blondes—are great targets for jokes. Two statisticians are on an airplane. Suddenly, they hear a huge crash. They hear the pilot over the loudspeaker:
"Attention all passengers, we have lost an engine. Fortunately, we should be able to make it to our destination with our three remaining engines. Estimated flying time is now at about 4 hours."
The staticians hear this and are put at ease. They continue to talk together when they're interrupted by second crash, and the sound of the loudspeaker again.
"Attention all passengers, we have just lost a second engine. We should still be okay on 2 engines, but we probably won't reach our destination for at least 6 hours."
Well, the staticians have time to burn and books to read, so they don't bother worrying about this new development. Suddenly, there's another crash, and the pilot's anxious voice comes over the loudspeaker:
"Attention all passengers, we're now flying with only one engine left. It will take us at least 8 hours to reach our destination now."
One statistician turns to the other and says,
"Gee, if we lose one more engine, we'll be flying all night!"
A ways back, I was hanging out with some chemistry grad students at a Yale bar, so of course I had to tell them my favorite chemistry joke: Heisenberg is carelessly speeding down the highway when he gets pulled over by a cop.
The cop walks up to the driver side window and asks him, "Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"
Heisenberg responds: "No, but I know exactly where I was!" Well, the grad students liked that one, and returned the favor with one of their own: A guy walks into a bar. He asks the bartender, "I lost an electron here last night, have you seen it?"
The bartender shakes his head and says, "Nope. Are you sure you lost it?"
The guy responds, "Dude, I'm positive!"
I've heard this joke a few times. But my colleague Adam re-told it to me recently, and he has the best delivery I've heard yet. Bertrand Russell once taught a class in logic. He was trying to teach his students why inconsistency was important: because you can prove that anything is true if you start from false assumptions.
One of his students interpreted that as a challenge. "Given that one equals two, prove that you're the pope," he shouted.
Russell immediately replied, "Nothing could be simpler. The pope and I are two, and two equals one, so the pope and I are one. Therefore, I am the pope."
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