Mark Harbison: Math Humor

Math Humor

One-line math jokes: best 2nd-best calculus trig. computers metric

Best
-There are 3 kinds of mathematicians: those who can count and those who can not count.
-Seven is odd. How do you make it even? Erase the “s”.
-97.3% of all statistics are just made up.
-Why did the geometry teacher leave early? To catch a plane.
-What is the math student’s favorite animal? The graph.
-What is the teacher’s favorite food? Math potatoes.
-What did the acorn say after it grew? “Gee-om-e-tree”.
-How many sides are there to a circle? Two: inside and outside.
-What is 5Q+5Q? 10Q, you’re welcome.
-How do you cook an average steak? Median rare.
-What did one math book say to the other? “I’ve got problems”.
-What do you call it when a leg is perpendicular to a foot? A right ankle.
-In math, fractions speak louder than words.
-The opposite of a stop sign is a cosine.
-Yesterday, I heard a joke about decimals, but I didn’t get the point.
-A mermaid’s undergarment is an algae bra.
-36 is not only a perfect square, but also the square of a perfect number.
-Why don’t people mention 288? It’s two gross.
-A parallelobiped is an animal with two parallel legs.
-What did the alien from planet Metric ask? “Take me to your liter”.

2nd-best
-What is the math teacher’s favorite part of the newspaper? The conic section.
-The checkbook balance during a long vacation is a monotonically decreasing function.
-What did the two angles say to each other? Who knows? But they were very complimentary.
-What is 2+2 ? An engineer says “four”, an economist says “between 3 and 5”, and a lawyer says “how much do you want it to be?
-Mosquitoes love math: they add to misery, take away from fun, divide attention & multiply rapidly.
-A multiplication problem etched into a slab of stone is thought to be the first concrete example.
-The first adding machines were so successful, they began to multiply.
-Some us statistics the way a drunk uses a lamppost--for support more than illumination.
-A failing student told his Mom “Don’t worry.I’m in the top 95% of the class”
-A daughter got home at 3 am, & her father said “It’s after a quarter to 12.” “But 1/4 of 12 is 3.”
-In “ax^2+bx+c”, why is “c” the constant term? Because it’s not x-rated.
-Why is simplifying a fraction like powdering your nose? It improves the appearance without changing the value.
-The car accident looked like a rectangle (wrecked tangle).
-An erratic unemployed teenager is a dependent variable.
-A skier in a miscalculated jump is in slope-intercept form.
-Protest marchers use radical signs.
-Conic sections are the funny papers.
-A sphere is a long, pointed weapon.
-What do you get when you cross a pigeon and a zero? A flying nun.
-What do you get when you cross an ape and a mathematician? A Harry Reasoner.
-What happens to criminal geometry teachers? They’re put in a prism.
-Arithmetic teachers really know how to make the little things count.
-Algebraic symbols are used when you don’t know what you’re talking about.
-An insect that’s not feeling well is a secant.
-What happens when you lose 52 cards? Decagon.
-A parrot that should go on a diet is “Poly, no meal”.
-If a parrot sees a cat, then “Poly, he’d ron”.
-A two-headed canary is a binary.

Calculus
-If a quote by Reagan is a “Reaganism”, then a quote by Al Gore is an “Algorism”.
-What math is discussed between seabirds? Intergull calculus.
-John Ori, a math teach also is a brewer. He makes Ori gin.
-Why did the topologist fail the kitchen inspector test?
He couldn’t tell the difference between a coffee cup and a doughnut.
-Mathematicians sleeps on matrices.
-It is true that 1+1=3 for sufficiently large values of 1.
-One person who was not often healthy was “I sick” Newton.
-“cross products” & “mean values” can eventually lead to “warring fractions”.
-Professor: “This term I offer topology”. Student: “OK, topology accepted”.
-What do you call a television without a picture tube? An empty set.

Trig.
-What happened to the trigonometry teacher with amnesia? He lost his identities.
-Why did the 30-60-90 triangle marry the 45-45-90 triangle? They were right for each other.
-A “high pot in use” is a teapot of boiling water located on Mt. Everest.
-What has two legs, but won’t walk? A right triangle.
-What are the coldest numbers? Polar coordinates.
-What is the sine of an angle? It depends on what month it was born in.

Computers
-How may computers does it take to change a light bulb? None. People do that.
-When were trigonometry tables used? “B. C.”, Before Calculators.
-A person who counts on their fingers is a digital computer.

Metric
-People opposed to metrification are De feet ists.
-The mathematician was jailed because he tried to kil o meter.
-The meter stick was a stubborn ruler because he wouldn’t give an inch.
-If an inchworm goes metric then it becomes a centipede.