Math humor

  1. Q. What's sticky and commutative? A. Abelian goop.
  2. Did you hear about the dog in the Complex Plane? He left a residue at every pole.
  3. I went to a math conference, and they had booths set up for several different branches of mathematics so students could learn about them. Unfortunately, the topology booth was closed, the algebra booth was way out in a field, and although I could get arbitrarily close to the analysis booth, I couldn't touch it. The noneuclidean geometry booth wasn't in the shape I expected. Probably 8.4% of the booths were about statistics, but I didn't test that hypothesis because I was busy counting the combinatorics booths in three different ways. I was disappointed that the logic booth wasn't constructed, and the applied math booth just blew up!
  4. So they solved the four-color problem, but there's still an important open question. We know now that four colors suffice to color any map in the plane, but it was not shown in their paper WHICH FOUR COLORS! It's a non-constructive proof. I'm applying for a grant from Crayola on this one.
  5. Next I'd like to perform a simple song, which, of course, means that it has no proper normal sub-songs.
  6. Mom always told me, "You either believe in the Law of the Excluded Middle, or you don't."
  7. Today I'm going to teach you how to factor polynomials. I'm going to teach you the one right way, the only way, to factor polynomials. If anybody wants to factor polynomials by another way, they're wrong. The method I'm going to teach you is called, of course, The Fundamentalist Theorem of Algebra.
  8. I have a compact car, which means it has only finitely many open windows.
  9. I handed back some papers in class. One student says, "How come I got no points for this?" I answered, "The correct answer is pi, but you got 179,643." The student looked me straight in the eye and said "Well, I'm only off by a constant!"
  10. Polly: Epsilon, delta, epsilon, epsilon, delta, epsilon, delta, delta. Ma: Polly Nomial, what are you doing? Polly: Making small talk.
  11. Always remember: No man is an island, except in the discrete topology.
  12. int year = new Date(year); while (year < 2000) { DontDestroy('Civilization'); }
  13. Given the appropriate coordinate transformation, is it possible to turn a polar bear into a rectangular bear?
  14. Klein bottle for sale. Inquire within.
  15. That last joke left me kind of empty inside.
  16. Did you hear how the mathematician solved his constipation problem? He worked it out with a pencil.
  17. In Canada, where people quarrel over language: "Moebius strip for sale, with instructions. Francais au verso."
  18. I recently proved that there are exactly 3 types of people in the world... those who can count and those who can't.
  19. While I was trying to call a friend, the operator came on the line and said, "You have reached an imaginary number. Turn your phone pi/2 and try again".
  20. A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist were sitting outside a cafe watching people coming and going at the house across the road. First they see two people go into the house. A while later they see three people come out. Physicist: "Our original measurement must have been in error." Biologist: "They must have reproduced." Mathematician: "Now if exactly one person enters the house it will be empty again."