Entertainment

Entertainment for the Class
This page is designed to provide those little tidbits and icebreakers that help ease the flow of the lesson and keep students at attention within the classroom.

Jokes
An infinite crowd of mathematicians enters a bar. The first one orders a pint, the second one a half pint, the third one a quarter pint... "I understand", says the bartender - and pours two pints.

Q: What do you get if you divide the cirucmference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter? A: Pumpkin Pi!

Q: Why do you rarely find mathematicians spending time at the beach in the sun? A: Because to get a tan they only need sine and cosine!

There are 10 kinds of mathematicians. Those who can think binarily and those who can't...

Q: How does a mathematician scold her children? A: `I've told you //n// times, I've told you //n//+1 times...'

Q: How does a mathematician develop an intuition for thirteen-dimensional space? A: They visualize the situation in arbitrary //N//-dimensional space and then set //N// = 13.

Statistics Canada is hiring mathematicians. Three recent graduates are invited for an interview: one has a degree in pure mathematics, another one in applied math, and the third one obtained his B.Sc. in statistics. All three are asked the same question: "What is one third plus two thirds?" The pure mathematician: "It's one." The applied mathematician takes out his pocket calculator, punches in the numbers, and replies: "It's 0.999999999." The statistician: "What do you want it to be?"

Three statisticians go hunting. When they see a rabbit, the first one shoots, missing it on the left. The second one shoots and misses it on the right. The third one shouts: "We've hit it!"

"What is Pi?" A mathematician: "Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter." A computer programmer: "Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision." A physicist: "Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005." An engineer: "Pi is about 22/7." A nutritionist: "Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert!"

Some engineers are trying to measure the height of a flag pole. They only have a measuring tape and are quite frustrated trying to keep the tape along the pole: It falls down all the time. A mathematician comes along and asks what they are doing. They explain it to him. "Well, that's easy..." He pulls the pole out of the ground, lays it down, and measures it easily. After he has left, one of the engineers says: "That's so typical of these mathematicians! What we need is the height - and he gives us the length!"

Reference: http://www.math.ualberta.ca/~runde/jokes.html