Q) What did the Zen Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
Ask HN: Any good math jokes?
131–139 of 139 posts
Re: Ask HN: Any good math jokes?
#132Q) What did the Zen Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
A) Make me One with everything.
Re: Ask HN: Any good math jokes?
#133xkcd comics are already licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 license. That's probably all you need for a math team t-shirt.
I saw that, but in the end some of the images are only about 700x400 px. At 200 ppi (which is what t shirts should be printed at, I guess), that just isn't a high enough resolution. And I'm not sure If I really want to make it larger since it will not look all that good.
You could always try contacting Randall and explain what you'd like to use the particular strip for to see if you could get a larger image.
Even if the current size was large enough, he would probably appreciate knowing about his work being printed like that as most people do.
Re: Ask HN: Any good math jokes?
#134Maybe you could fit just the punchline on a T-shirt:
A sociologist, a physicist, and a mathematician are given 100 ft of fence and asked to enclose the greatest area.
-The sociologist makes a square. -The physicist makes a circle and says he can PROVE it's the best answer. Take that, mathematician! -The mathematician knocks off all but a few fence-links, wraps the fence around himself, and says "Define the outside of the fence to be the ground which contains me..."
(Say the punchline in a smarmy, nasal voice.)
Re: Ask HN: Any good math jokes?
#135Q: What do you get when you cross a mosquito with a mountain climber? A: You can't cross a vector with a scalar!
I'm sorry, how is a mosquito a vector?
A better version I heard changed 'mosquito' to 'mountain goat'. Since both characters are from the same domain, people start thinking about (more) reasonable solutions and get blindsided harder by the math reference!
Re: Ask HN: Any good math jokes?
#136Let ε < 0.
Re: Ask HN: Any good math jokes?
#137xkcd comics are already licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 license. That's probably all you need for a math team t-shirt.
I saw that, but in the end some of the images are only about 700x400 px. At 200 ppi (which is what t shirts should be printed at, I guess), that just isn't a high enough resolution. And I'm not sure If I really want to make it larger since it will not look all that good.
You could load an xkcd comic into Inkscape or another vector graphics editor and trace it out by hand. It wouldn't take that long, and the end result would be a vector graphic that you could render to whatever size or resolution you need. (Creating a derivative work like this is allowed by the license.)
Re: Ask HN: Any good math jokes?
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
This joke might be funnier if the answer is: To get to the other side. (The mathematicians will know that the chicken's quest will fail. Then they'll feel sorry for the chicken...)
But the non-mathematicians will JUST give you a weird look, rather than laughing and then giving you a weird look.
I don't know. A cliche can seem funny if you add a little twist, even if the twist is incomprehensible.
Re: Ask HN: Any good math jokes?
#139Not short enough for a shirt probably, but still good: Three mathematicians and three accountants are traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three accountants each buy tickets and watch as the three mathematicians buy only a single ticket. "How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?" asks an accountant. "Watch and you'll see," answers an mathematician. They all board the train. The acco…
my wife laughed. This one passes.