Department of Mathematics
Room 339 Robert Scott Small Building, 843-953-5730
Room 339 Robert Scott Small Building, 843-953-5730
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Department of Mathematics
Room 339 Robert Scott Small Building, 843-953-5730 |
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There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand
binary and those who don't.
One professor of mathematics noticed that his kitchen sink at his home broke down. He called a plumber. The plumber came on the next day, sealed a few screws and everything was working as before The professor was delighted. However, when the plumber gave him the bill a minute later, he was shocked. "This is one third of my monthly salary!" he yelled. Well, all the same he paid it and then the plumber said to him: "I understand your position as a professor. Why don't you come to our company and apply for a plumber position? You will earn three times as much as a professor. But remember, when you apply, tell them that you completed only seven elementary classes. They don't like educated people." So it happened. The professor got a plumber job and his life significantly improved. He just had to seal a screw or two occasionally, and his salary went up significantly. One day, the board of the plumbing company decided that every plumber has to go to evening classes to complete the eight grade. So, our professor had to go there too. It just happened that the first class was math. The evening teacher, to check students' knowledge, asked for a formula for the area of the circle. The person asked was the professor. He jumped to the board, and then he realized that he had forgotten the formula. He started to reason it, he filled the white board with integrals, differentials and other advanced formulas to conclude the result he forgot. As a result he got "minus pi r squared". He didn't like the minus, so he started all over again. He got the minus again. No matter how many times he tried, he always got a minus. He was frustrated. He looked a bit scared at the class and saw all the plumbers whisper: "Switch the limits of the integral!!" A sphere walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender says, "I'm sorry, but we don't serve spheres here." The disgruntled sphere walks outside, but then gets an idea and performs Dahn surgery upon himself. He walks into the bar, and the bartender, who does not recognize him since he is now a different manifold, serves him a drink. However, the bartender thinks he looks familiar, or at least locally similar, and asks, "Aren't you that sphere that just came in here?" "No, I'm a frayed knot." Four friends have been doing really well in their calculus class: they have been getting top grades for their homework and on the midterm. So, when it's time for the final, they decide not to study on the weekend before, but to drive to another friend's birthday in another city -- even though the exam is scheduled for Monday morning. As it happens, they drink too much at the party, and on Monday morning, they are all hung over and oversleep. When they finally arrive on campus, the exam is already over. They go to the professor's office and offer him an explanation: "We went to our friend's birthday party, and when we were driving back home very early on Monday morning, we suddenly had a flat tire. We had no spare one, and since we were driving on backroads, it took hours until we got help." The professor nods sympathetically and says: "I see that it was not your fault. I will allow you to make up for the missed exam tomorrow morning." When they arrive early on Tuesday morning, the students are put by the professor in a large lecture hall and are seated so far apart from each other that, even if they tried, they had no chance to cheat. The exam booklets are already in place, and confidently, the students start writing. The first question -- five points out of one hundred -- is a simple exercise in integration, and all four finish it within ten minutes. When the first of them has completed the problem, he turns over the page of the exam booklet and reads on the next one: Problem 2 (95 points out of 100): Which tire went flat? Consider the set of all sets that have never been considered before... Oh wait, they're all gone! Oh, well. 1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of this price. What is his profit? 1970 (traditional math): A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of this price, in other words $80. What is his profit? 1970 (new math): A logger exchanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinatliy of set M is 100 and each element is worth $1. Make one hundred dots representing the elements of the set M. The set C is a subset of M and its complement is the set P. Circle the elements of the set P of profit. 1980: A logger sells a truckload of wood for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: underline the number 20. 1990 (outcome based education): By cutting down beautiful forest trees, a logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? (Topic for class participation: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel?) 2002: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $120. How does Arthur Andersen determine that his profit margin is $60? Metric Conversion Chart 10^12 Microphones = 1 Megaphone 500 millinaries = 1 seminary 2000 mockingbirds = two kilomockingbirds 10 cards = 1 decacards 10^21 picolos = 1 gigolo 10 rations = 1 decoration 3 1/3 tridents = 1 decadent 1 millihelen = amount of beauty required to launch one ship Ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter= Eskimo Pi 1 millionth of a mouthwash= 1 microscope Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement = 1 Weight an evangelist carries with God = 1 billigram Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour = Knot-furlong 365.25 days of drinking low-calorie beer because it's less filling = 1 lite year 16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone = 1 Rod Serling Shortest distance between two jokes = A straight line (think about it for a moment)
A mathematician and her husband were driving along a country road and he said to her, "Look dear, those sheep have been shorn." She replies, " At least on this side." If a ham sandwich is better than nothing and nothing is better than life itself, does that mean that a ham sandwich is better than life itself? Q: What is the value of the contour integral around Western Europe? A: Zero, all the Poles are in Eastern Europe. Three statisticians went duck hunting. A duck was approaching and the first statistician shot, and missed the duck by being a foot too high. The second shot and was a foot too low. The third cried, "We hit it!" A mathematician, statistician and accountant were finalist for a position as VP in a large corporation. The hiring committee asked them all the same last question: The mathematician was first. "How much is 500 plus 500 ?" , they asked "1000" he replied without hesitation. "Thank you", they dismissed him. Next the statistician. "How much is 500 plus 500?" "On the average, 1000 with 95 % confidence" replied the statistician "Thank you", they dismissed him. Next the accountant. "How much is 500 plus 500?" "What would you like it to be?" responded the accountant. They hired the accountant. There was this magnificent mathematical horse. You could teach it arithmetic, which it learned with no difficulty, algebra was a breeze, it could even prove theorems in euclidean geometry, but when you tried to teach it analytic geometry, it would rear back on its hind legs, kick ferociously neigh loudly and make violent head motions in resistance. The moral of this story is that you can't put Descartes before the horse. Two mathematicians were eating lunch at a restaurant. Throughout the meal, they had been arguing about the state of math education in the US; the first thought that nobody was learning anything, while the second thought that things weren't quite as bad as all that. Finally, the first mathematician said, "OK, why don't you put your money where your mouth is? When the waitress comes with the check, I'll ask her a simple algebra question. If she gets it right, I'll pay for both our lunches; if not, you shall." To this the second mathematician readily assented. Finally, the meal was over, and the waitress brought over the check. The first mathematician said to her, "Would you mind settling a bet for us? Could you tell us what a plus b quantity squared is?" "Hmm...(a+b)^2...that's an algebra question, right...let's see...it's a squared plus b squared!" As the second mathematician reached for the check, she continued, "That would be in a field of characteristic two, of course." A discouraged graduate student in pure math sees an announcement for a lecture on "The Theory of Gears." "Aha", he thinks, "gears - something down to earth, practical, concrete - just what I need now." The day of the lecture arrives and he eagerly goes to hear it. The speaker is introduced and begins: "The theory of gears having a real number of teeth is well known .." There are 3 kinds of mathematician: those that can count and those that cannot. A famous mathematician was presenting his research to the math department at the College of Charleston. The speaker offhandedly mentions a remarkable fact, claiming that it is obvious. Some of the people in the audience are surprised (and skeptical) and so someone interupts the speaker. "Is that really obvious?" asks someone from the audience. The speaker thinks about this a moment, in silence. Then, he goes out into the hall and paces back and forth thinking about it some more. After an hour and ten minutes of this, he comes back and says "Yes, it is obvious." During a large scientific meeting, hundreds of mathematicians, physicists and engineers were staying in a hotel downtown. During the night, a fire broke out in the hotel. A physicist wakes up, seeing fire in her room, and immediately fills the room's trash can with water from the bathtub and dumps it on the fire, successfully putting it out. An engineer also wakes up, seeing fire in his room. The engineer does a quick calculation, runs into the hall to get the fire hose and sprays over the fire exactly the right amount of water to be certain to put it out. Finally, a mathematician also wakes up to see the fire. Noticing a fire extinguisher on the wall in the room, the mathematician declares "Aha! A solution exists!" and, satisfied with this, goes back to sleep. Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: None. It's left to the reader as an exercise.
Q: How many statisticians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Six engineers and six mathematicians are attending a conference and are traveling by train. One by one, each of the engineers goes up to the ticket counter and buys a ticket to the conference. But only one of the mathematicians does. The engineers look puzzled and one of the mathematicians says, "Optimization." The twelve get on the same car and one mathematician stands at each end of the car. Now the engineers are really puzzled. After a while, the mathematician at one end, yells, "Conductor!" On that cue, all the mathematicians pile into the rest room and lock the door. The conductor enters the car and announces, "Tickets, please. Tickets!" He passes the engineers and punches each of their tickets. At the end of the car, he notices the restroom is occupied and knocks on the door, "Ticket, please." The ticket slides out from under the door, he punches it and slides it back, then leaves the car and continues to the next car. The engineers look at each other and decide how clever the mathematicians have been, and then wink at each other. They all attend the conference and have a good time. Upon arriving at the train station, one engineer buys a ticket and they giggle at each other. The mathematicians do not buy any. This time again, the engineers look puzzled, and the same mathematician says, "Optimization." This time all the mathematicians sit down and the engineers have the lookouts. One engineer, peers down a couple of cars and shouts, "Conductor!" Immediately all the engineers pile into the rest room, while the mathematicians just sit there. Once the engineers are in the rest room, one of the mathematicians knocks on the door and says, "Ticket, please." The ticket slides out under the door, the mathematician grabs it and along with the other mathematicians, runs to the other rest room and they lock themselves in. Biologists think they're biochemists. Biochemists think they're chemists. Chemists think the're physical chemists. Physical Chemists think they're physicists. Physicists think they're God. God thinks he is a mathematician. Pie are not square. Pie are round. Cornbread are square. The limit as n goes to infinity of sin(x)/n is 6. Proof: cancel the n in the numerator and denominator. Two riddles for students in our Math 221 class: Q: What do you get when you cross an elephant and a banana? A: |elephant|*|banana|*sin(theta)
Q: What do you get when you cross an elephant and a mountain climber? Question: "How many seconds are there in a year?" Answer: "Twelve. January second, February second, March second, ..." Q: Why did the chicken cross the Mobius strip? A: To get to the other ... er, um ... How many mathematical logicians does it take to replace a lightbulb? None: They can't do it, but they can prove that it can be done.
How many numerical analysts does it take to replace a lightbulb?
How many classical geometers does it take to replace a lightbulb? Here are a few Mathematical Equivoques. For more, visit Ken Sumon's site:
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