Wild About Math! Making Math fun and accessible

Bad pun

From the great Math humor blog, Patrick at Math Joke 4 Mathy Folks, writes:

Feeling a little hungry, f(x) = x^2 + 3 walks into a restaurant. “Got any sandwiches?” he asks.

“Sorry,” says the waiter, “we don’t do catering for functions.”

Math knowledge humor

Here's a joke I got a good chuckle out of. I'm not sure who to credit since there a number of web-sites with this joke so I'll credit the site where I first found it, Savage Research.

Two mathematicians were having dinner in a restaurant, arguing about the average mathematical knowledge of the American public. One mathematician claimed that this average was woefully inadequate, the other maintained that it was surprisingly high.

"I'll tell you what," said the cynic. "Ask that waitress a simple math question. If she gets it right, I'll pick up dinner. If not, you do." He then excused himself to visit the men's room, and the other called the waitress over.

"When my friend comes back," he told her, "I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to respond `one-third x cubed.' There's twenty bucks in it for you." She agreed.

The cynic returned from the bathroom and called the waitress over. "The food was wonderful, thank you," the mathematician started. "Incidentally, do you know what the integral of x squared is?"

The waitress looked pensive; almost pained. She looked around the room, at her feet, made gurgling noises, and finally said, "Um, one-third x cubed?"

So the cynic paid the check. The waitress wheeled around, walked a few paces away, looked back at the two men, and muttered under her breath, "...plus a constant."

Chuckle: Completely off topic

Driving in town the other day I saw this great sign on the back of a car:

Wedding Cake Onboard

Made my day.

Need an excuse for not having done your Math homework?

Computer Scientist, Ph.D. Mathematician, and International Math Olympics Gold Medalist Tanya Khovanova has a nice page of unique Math humor.

What caught my attention, in particular, was her list of 10 reasons her kids have given for not doing their Math homework. Even if you don't understand the higher Math behind some of the jokes you should still get a chuckle out of them.

1. I had a constant amount of homework. I tried to derive its purpose, but I got nothing.
2. I assumed that all the homework you assigned me was Abelian, so I thought that I could pass it in and then do it.
3. I could only get arbitrarily close to my textbook, but I could never reach it.
4. I am sure that I put it inside my Klein Bottle last night, but this morning I could not find it.
5. I locked it in my trunk, but a four-dimensional dog got in and ate it.
6. My little sister cut it into a finite number of pieces, and when I put it back together, I got a proof of the Banach-Tarski Paradox.
7. I did part of it; the part I have left to do, is 0.999999999...
8. My homework is a constructive demonstration of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. That is, it is possible to assign a homework that cannot be completed.
9. I wanted to, but I couldn't find its Godel Number.
10. I completed my homework, but then I beheld it and saw that it lacked character, personality - there was no "me" in it, so I multiplied it by i, and it became imaginary!

Slightly off topic, but also quite funny, is also a list of 7 reasons her kids have given for not having done their Physics homework.

“Math Girl” rocks

Surfing Youtube looking for entertaining Math videos I ran into the "Math Girl" series. They're absolutely hilarious. Even if you're not a Math geek you should enjoy these videos. There are two episodes so far, and a preview of a third.

From Wikipedia:

Math Girl is an animated movie superhero co-created by Lou Crockett, an artist, animator, and designer; Jesai Jayhmes, an actor and director; and Veselin Jungić, a working mathematician. The character made her first appearance in Differentials Attract (2004). In her civilian clothes Math Girl is an ordinary student, a smart girl that wears glasses. When she takes her superpower alter ego, thanks to her superb understanding of mathematics, Math Girl becomes a super heroine. Math Girl operates in Calculopolis, assisted by her sidekick Pat Thagoras a young man who admires Math Girl, and professorial Big Math, the mayor of Calculopolis. She fights a villain named Zero!, an evil character whose goal is to rule Calculopolis by exploiting people’s ignorance of mathematics.

Check out the videos at the Math Girl page for the mathematician who co-created the series, Dr. Veselin Jungic.