Some people tell lawyer jokes, some people tell viola jokes, and some people tell mathematician jokes. Here are some mathematician jokes.
A Mathematician, a Biologist and a Physicist are sitting in a street
cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side
of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time
passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house.
The Physicist: “The measurement wasn’t accurate.”
The Biologist: “They have reproduced.”
The Mathematician: “If now exactly one person enters the house then it will
be empty again.”
A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, pulled out his CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, he threw down his pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. He threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep.
The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep.
The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, “I have ‘proven’ that I ‘can’ put the fire out!” He then went back to sleep.
When considering the behavior of a howitzer:
A mathematician will be able to calculate where the shell will land.
A physicist will be able to explain how the shell gets there.
An engineer will stand there and try to catch it.
Einstein dies and goes to heaven only to be informed that his room is not yet ready. “I hope you will not mind waiting in a dormitory. We are very sorry, but it’s the best we can do, and you will have to share the room with others.” He is told by the doorman (say his name is Pete). Einstein says that this is no problem at all and that there is no need to make such a great fuss. So Pete leads him to the dorm. They enter and Albert is introduced to all of the present inhabitants.
“See, here is your first room mate. He has an IQ of 180!”
“Why that’s wonderful!” says Albert. “We can discuss literature!”
“And here is your second room mate. His IQ is 150!”
“Why that’s wonderful!” says Albert. “We can discuss mathematics!”
“And here is your third room mate. His IQ is 100!”
“That’s Wonderful! We can discuss the latest plays at the theater!”
Just then another man moves out to capture Albert’s hand and shake it.
“I’m your last room mate and I’m sorry, but my IQ is only 80.”
Albert smiles back at him and says, “so, where do you think interest rates are headed?”
This page was last updated July 3, 1996.