Stats/Math Jokes — most commented jokes

Two statisticians were travelling in an airplane from LA to New York. About an hour into the flight, the pilot announced that they had lost an engine, but don't worry, there are three left.

However, instead of 5 hours it would take 7 hours to get to New York. A little later, he announced that a second engine failed, and they still had two left, but it would take 10 hours to get to New York.

Somewhat later, the pilot again came on the intercom and announced that a third engine had died. Never fear, he announced, because the plane could fly on a single engine.

However, it would now take 18 hours to get to New York. At this point, one statistician turned to the other and said, "Gee, I hope we don't lose that last engine, or we'll be up here forever!"

1. Ten percent of all car thieves are left-handed
2. All polar bears are left-handed
3. If your car is stolen, there's a 10 percent chance it was taken by a Polar bear

1. 39 percent of unemployed men wear spectacles
2. 80 percent of employed men wear spectacles
3. Work stuffs up your eyesight

1. All dogs are animals
2. All cats are animals
3. Therefore, all dogs are cats

1. A total of 4000 cans are opened around the world every second
2. Ten babies are conceived around the world every second
3. Each time you open a can, you stand a 1 in 400 chance of becoming pregnant

Hello, this is probably 438-9012, yes, the house of the famous statistician. I'm probably not at home, or not wanting to answer the phone, most probably the latter, according to my latest calculations. Supposing that the universe doesn't end in the next 30 seconds, the odds of which I'm still trying to calculate, you can leave your name, phone number, and message, and I'll probably phone you back. So far the probability of that is about 0.645. Have a nice day.

It is proven that the celebration of birthdays is healthy. Statistics show that those people who celebrate the most birthdays become the oldest. -- S. den Hartog, Ph D. Thesis Universtity of Groningen.

Math problems? Call 1-800-[(10x)(13i)^2]-[sin(xy)/2.362x]. If parallel lines meet at infinity - infinity must be a very noisy place with all those lines crashing together!

- Maths Teacher: Now suppose the number of sheep is x...

- Student: Yes sir, but what happens if the number of sheep is not x?

Zenophobia: the irrational fear of convergent sequences.

Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.

If I had only one day left to live, I would live it in my statistics class: it would seem so much longer.

A very large mathematical convention was held in Las Vegas. The conventioneers filled two hotels, each with an infinite number of rooms. The hotels were across the street from each other and were owned by brothers. One evening, while everyone was out at a bar-b-que, one of the hotels burned to the ground. The brothers got together and worked out a plan. In the remaining hotel, they moved all guests to twice their room number -- room 101 moved to 202, room 1234 moved to room 2468, etc. Then all the odd number rooms were empty, and there were an infinite number of odd rooms. So the guests from the other hotel moved into them

An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are trying to set up a fenced-in area for some sheep, but they have a limited amount of building material. The engineer gets up first and makes a square fence with the material, reasoning that it's a pretty good working solution. "No no," says the physicist, "there's a better way." He takes the fence and makes a circular pen, showing how it encompasses the maximum possible space with the given material.

Then the mathematician speaks up: "No, no, there's an even better way." To the others' amusement he proceeds to construct a little tiny fence around himself, then declares: "I define myself to be on the outside."

Analysis:

1. Differentiate it and put into the refrig. Then integrate it in the refrig.
2. Redefine the measure on the referigerator (or the elephant).
3. Apply the Banach-Tarsky theorem.

Number theory:

1. First factorize, second multiply.
2. Use induction. You can always squeeze a bit more in.

Algebra:

1. Step 1. Show that the parts of it can be put into the refrig. Step 2. Show that the refrig. is closed under the addition.
2. Take the appropriate universal refrigerator and get a surjection from refrigerator to elephant.

Topology:

1. Have it swallow the refrig. and turn inside out.
2. Make a refrig. with the Klein bottle.
3. The elephant is homeomorphic to a smaller elephant.
4. The elephant is compact, so it can be put into a finite collection of refrigerators. That's usually good enough.
5. The property of being inside the referigerator is hereditary. So, take the elephant's mother, cremate it, and show that the ashes fit inside the refrigerator.
6. For those who object to method 3 because it's cruel to animals. Put the elephant's BABY in the refrigerator.

Algebraic topology:
Replace the interior of the refrigerator by its universal cover, R^3.

Linear algebra:

1. Put just its basis and span it in the refrig.
2. Show that 1% of the elephant will fit inside the refrigerator. By linearity, x% will fit for any x.

Affine geometry:
There is an affine transformation putting the elephant into the refrigerator.

Set theory:

1. It's very easy! Refrigerator = { elephant }
2. The elephant and the interior of the refrigerator both have cardinality c.

Geometry:
Declare the following:
Axiom 1. An elephant can be put into a refrigerator.

Complex analysis:
Put the refrig. at the origin and the elephant outside the unit circle. Then get the image under the inversion.

Numerical analysis:

1. Put just its trunk and refer the rest to the error term.
2. Work it out using the Pentium.

Statistics:

1. Bright statistician. Put its tail as a sample and say "Done."
2. Dull statistician. Repeat the experiment pushing the elephant to the refrig.
3. Our NEW study shows that you CAN'T put the elephant in the refrigerator.

"Psst, c'mere," said the shifty-eyed man wearing a long black trenchcoat, as he beckoned me off the rainy street into a damp dark alley. I followed.

- What are you selling?

- Geometrical algebra drugs.

- Huh!?

- Geometry drugs. Ya got your uppers, your downers, your sidewaysers, your inside-outers...

"Stop right there," I interrupted. "I've never heard of inside-outers."

- Oh, man, you'll love 'em. Makes you feel like M.C. ever-lovin' Escher on a particularly weird day.

- Go on...

"OK, your inside-outers, your arbitrary bilinear mappers, and here, heh, here are the best ones," he said, pulling out a large clear bottle of orange pills.

- What are those, then?

- Givens transformers. They'll rotate you about more planes than you even knew existed.

- Sounds gross. What about those bilinear mappers?

- There's a whole variety of them. Here's one you'll love -- they call it 'One Over Z' on the street. Take one of these little bad boys and you'll be on speaking terms with the Point at Infinity.

Prove that the crocodile is longer than it is wide.

Lemma 1. The crocodile is longer than it is green: Let's look at the crocodile. It is long on the top and on the bottom, but it is green only on the top. Therefore, the crocodile is longer than it is green.

Lemma 2. The crocodile is greener than it is wide: Let's look at the crocodile. It is green along its length and width, but it is wide only along its width. Therefore, the crocodile is greener than it is wide.

From Lemma 1 and Lemma 2 we conclude that the crocodile is longer than it is wide.