Continuing the discussion from Not Feminism 101:
There are 10 types of people who contribute this thread those who do and those who don’t.
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that seems a very digital way of looking at things.
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This is what sort of thing goes here, I take it? I mean, they say there are two sorts of people; first, those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
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This was pretty horrible and arguably not really math, but…
For a (marginally) better one:
There is a set of people in the world, [those that have closure, those that do not)
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To succeed, jokes require at least one of:
an inductive step
an absurdity
a misunderstanding
a symbol with two or more meanings
the discomfiture of a pompous or arrogant person.
None of these form part of mathematics, since induction is not susceptible of mathematical proof, reductio ad absurdum means something is not part of mathematics, a misunderstanding would invalidate a proof, a symbol with two or more meanings is ambiguous and would prevent consistent usage, and emotional states have nothing to do with mathematics.
Ergo, there is no such thing as a mathematical joke.
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Infinitely many mathematicians walk into a bar. The first says, “I’ll have a beer.” The second says, “I’ll have half a beer.” The third says, “I’ll have a quarter of a beer.” The barman pulls out just two beers. The mathematicians are all like, “That’s all you’re giving us? How drunk do you expect us to get on that?” The bartender says, “Come on guys. Know your limits.”
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An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician were asked to hammer a nail into a wall.
The engineer went to build a Universal Automatic Nailer – a device able to hammer every possible nail into every possible wall.
The physicist conducted series of experiments on strength of hammers, nails, and walls and developed a revolutionary technology of ultra-sonic nail hammering at super-low temperature.
The mathematician generalized the problem to a N dimensional problem of penetration of a knotted one dimensional nail into a N-1 dimensional hyper-wall. Several fundamental theorems are proved. Of course, the problem is too rich to suggest a possibility of a simple solution, even the existence of a solution is far from obvious.
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I hate you!!!
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At my old alma mater there’s simple aptitude test to determine whether a candidate should pursue mathematics or engineering.
Each candidate is placed in a room in which there is a sink, a gas stove, a box of matches, and a kettle sitting on the floor. The problem given is to boil a kettle of water. The solution, of course, is to fill the kettle at the sink, place it on the stove, and light the stove with a match. Almost everyone solves this successfully.
In the second part of the test, each candidate is shown into the same room and given the same problem, but this time the kettle is filled with water and sitting on the stove.
The candidates with an aptitude for engineering strike a match and light the stove.
Those more suited to mathematics pour the water out of the kettle and set it on the floor. This reduces the problem to its previous case, which has already been solved.
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The bad thing is*, since that joke hits on couple of different levels, it ends up being difficult to tell what part of it the "boo"s are for.
*The bad thing for the joke teller, that is. 
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There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary, those who don’t, and those who understand that this joke is in ternary.
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A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer are each locked in a closed room with a can of food, and will only be let out when the can is opened. The engineer is first out, having beaten his can into submission, and having eaten whatever of the food didn’t spray all over the walls in the process. The physicist took a little longer. He analyzed the pressure points of the can, then applied gentle pressure. The can was open and all the food intact.
A couple days passed, and the mathematician is still rocking in a corner of the room, repeating “assume the can is open, assume the can is open…”
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There are (n+1) types of people in this world.
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…meaning there are at least (n+1) people in this world. (Pigeonhole principle)
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5 posts were split to a new topic: Science Questions (spun from Mathematical Jokes)
Sorry to interrupt. Your regular scheduled program will now continue.
Sorry, Did I jump the gun…
Although, I don’t have many more good mathematical jokes. You see, the problem is is that the calculus jokes are all derivative, trigonometry jokes are too graphic, algebra jokes are usually formulaic, and arithmetic jokes are pretty basic. But I guess the occasional statistics joke is an outlier.
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One for the younger set:
Mean Dad: What’s 5Q plus 5Q?
Trusting offspring, proud of her new algebra skills: 10Q
Mean Dad: You’re welcome!
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How do you spot the topologist? They can’t tell the difference between their donut and their coffee mug.
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Not strictly a joke, but…
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