PlanetMath (more info)
 Math for the people, by the people. Sponsor PlanetMath
Encyclopedia | Requests | Forums | Docs | Wiki | Random | RSS  
Login
create new user
name:
pass:
forget your password?
Main Menu
sections
Encyclopædia
Papers
Books
Expositions

meta
Requests (237)
Orphanage
Unclass'd
Unproven (550)
Corrections (54)
Classification

talkback
Polls
Forums
Feedback
Bug Reports

downloads
Snapshots
PM Book

information
News
Docs
Wiki
ChangeLog
TODO List
Copyright
About
Forum: Math Humor
Welcome to the Math Humor forum!
The zingiest of zingers...

[ back to forums top ]
Discussion
Style: Expand: Order:
forum policy

jump to page: << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 >> of 13 (65 items)

paint producer by mathforever on 2005-02-26 19:57:13
One day a man came to a paint producer and asked him a yellow paint for painting his appartment.

- For better results I need to know what is the present colour of the walls,- replied producer.
- It's brown.
- Light or dark brown?
- Somewhere in the middle ;) - with smile said the man.
- I need this for giving you the right brand of the yellow colour, such that you could easily paint without removing the old paint.
- Ah-ha, I see... well, it is more dark than light.
- Ok... then I'll give you the colour YC-290. How much do you need?
- Hm... I have 3 rooms, and in each room there are 3 walls... each wall is about... let's say 8 m^2... so together it will be... 72... plus say 10 for corridor... Ok, I have to paint 85 m^2 of the wall.

Producer started to murmur counting the needed amount of paint: "for 1 m^2 one needs **litres of YC-290, then for 85 one needs.... "
- So, you'll need 15 litres of paint,- he finally said aloud.

The man took that amount and went painting his appartment.
On the next day he came back to producer and said:

- As a paint producer you are good: the paint was perfectly laid on the wall; but as a mathematician you are bad: the paint was not enough for the whole 2 walls!
-------------------------------
knowledge can become a science
only with a help of mathematics
[ reply | up ]
Fermat Joke by mathforever on 2005-02-02 17:12:16
This story has happened long before 1994, the year in which Wiles has done his Job.

Quite influential mathematician was invited to give a talk on a conference. After giving his agreement he was asked by organizers about the title of the talk. He replied:

-Well, I have recently made an extremely great breakthrough in my research: I have proven Fermat's Last Theorem. So, I'll speak about the Proof. But I'd like to ask you to keep this in secret.

There was no problem with it, and intrigued organizers were waiting for the Event. However, when the time has came, the guy made a presentation on much more decent topic. Completely disappointed colleagues came to him for explanation:

-Oh, please don't be so upset,- said Professor - I do such things from time to time, just for the case I got killed on the way to the conference.

-----
this is a slight modification of the joke found on
"Math jokes collection by Andrej and Elena Cherkaev"
http://www.math.utah.edu/~cherk/mathjokes.html
it is beleived that this event really took place,
although it can't be checked ;)
-----------------------------------------------------

Some links about the Topic:

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Wiles.html
biography of Andrew John Wiles and the history about his Proof.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/proof/wiles.html
interview with him

I tried to find his homepage, and probably it is one of the biggest jokes, that apparently he doesn't have one :)))) According to the information in the first link, he got a position in Princeton University. At the homepage of math.department (which also can't be found so easy)
http://www.math.princeton.edu/menusa/index4.html
it is indeed indicated that "Wiles, Andrew" is Professor there. BUT there is no photo of him (while some others have), and the only link associated with him is his bibliography which is broken :)
[ reply | up ]
in math you don't understand things... by mathforever on 2005-01-16 09:14:16
von Neumann once said:

"Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things, you just get used to them."

-----
this joke was found on the cite "Math jokes collection by Andrej and Elena Cherkaev": http://www.math.utah.edu/~cherk/mathjokes.html
[ reply | up ]
tomfoolery by ratboy on 2004-12-27 17:00:34

http://www.ams.org/notices/200501/fea-dundes.pdf
[ reply | up ]
Financial Mathematics Joke by mathforever on 2004-10-05 11:45:21
A man was looking in a newspaper column devoted to the stock's prices. And there he saw that the stocks of some company were worth 1 cent for a stock. So, he thought "they can't go more down", called his friend, who was working as a broker, and asked him to buy the stocks for 1000 dollars.

Then, a day later, he saw that the price for a stock go up to 2 cents. He thought: "hm... not bad. I'll wait a little, may be they go up even more".

And then, on the next day, the price was 3 cent a stock. So, he thought "the time has come", called his friend and cried out:

- Immediately sell those stocks!

And tired broker replied:

- TO WHOM?!
[ reply | up ]

jump to page: << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 >> of 13 (65 items)

Interact
post