From: rec.humor.funny

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    What is the quotient of (sin x)/(n)?

    six!  The n's cancel.

         16
What's   --  ?
         64
                               1
Well, the 6's cancel leaving  ---
                               4

Strange how that works!
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The limit as n goes to infinity of sin(x)/n is 6.

Proof: cancel the n in the numerator and denominator.

Micah Fogel, UC-Berkeley
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Q. What does a mathematician do when he's constipated?

A. He works it out with a pencil.

Joseph Costa, NOSC 
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Three standard Peter Lax jokes (heard in his lectures) :

1. What's the contour integral around Western Europe?
     Answer: Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe!
     Addendum: Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but
               they are removable!

2. An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his very religious 
   colleague:
     Do you believe in one God?
     Answer: Yes, up to isomorphism!

3. What is a compact city?
     It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted policemen!

Abdolreza Tahvildarzadeh, NYU
Q: What's purple and commutes? 
A: An abelian grape.

Q: What's yellow, and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice? 
A: Zorn's Lemon.

James Currie
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What's nonorientable and lives in the sea?

Möbius Dick.

 Jeff Dalton, U. of Edinburgh, UK
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Q: Why did the mathematician name his dog "Cauchy"?
A: Because he left a residue at every pole.

Q: Why is it that the more accuracy you demand from an interpolation
   function, the more expensive it becomes to compute?
A: That's the Law of Spline Demand.

Steve Friedl, V-Systems, Inc.
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"Algebraic symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about."

Philippe Schnoebelen
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Moebius always does it on the same side.

Heisenberg might have slept here.

Aaron Avery, University of Wisconsin
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Here's a limerick I picked up off the net a few years back - looks better
on paper.

          3
          \/3
        /
       |  2            3 x 3.14           3_
       | z dz  x  cos( ----------) = ln (\/e )
       |                  9
      /
       1 

Which, of course, translates to:

Integral z-squared dz
from 1 to the cube root of 3
times the cosine
of three pi over 9
equals log of the cube root of 'e'.

And it's correct, too.

Doug Walker, SAS Institute
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What is "pi"?

Mathematician: Pi is the number expressing the relationship between the
               circumference of a circle and its diameter.

Physicist: Pi is 3.1415927 plus or minus 0.000000005

Engineer: Pi is about 3.

David Harr, Occidental College
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Lemma:  All horses are the same color.

Proof (by induction):

    Case n=1:  In a set with only one horse, it is obvious that all horses
    in that set are the same color.

    Case n=k:  Suppose you have a set of k+1 horses.  Pull one of these
    horses out of the set, so that you have k horses.  Suppose that all of
    these horses are the same color.  Now put back the horse that you took
    out, and pull out a different one.  Suppose that all of the k horses
    now in the set are the same color.  Then the set of k+1 horses are all
    the same color.  We have k true => k+1 true; therefore all horses are
    the same color.

Theorem:  All horses have an infinite number of legs.

Proof (by intimidation):

    Everyone would agree that all horses have an even number of legs.  It
    is also well-known that horses have forelegs in front and two legs in
    back.  4 + 2 = 6 legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a
    horse to have!  Now the only number that is both even and odd is infinity;
    therefore all horses have an infinite number of legs.

    However, suppose that there is a horse somewhere that does not have an
    infinite number of legs.  Well, that would be a horse of a different
    color; and by the Lemma, it doesn't exist.
                                                                      QED
Jerry Weldon, Livermore Labs
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I saw the following scrawled on a math office blackboard in college:

        1 + 1 = 3, for large values of 1

Rob Gardner, HP Ft. Collins, CO
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      lim      ----
     8-->9   \/ 8   = 3

Donald Chinn, UC-Berkeley
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    lim  3  =  8
   w->oo

(It is more obvious when handwritten...)

Jorge Stolfi, DEC Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA
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 Asked how his pet parrot died, the mathematican answered
    "Polynomial. Polygon."
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Lumberjacks make good musicians because of their natural logarithms.
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Pie are not square.  Pie are round.  Cornbread are square.
---
A physics joke:

    "Energy equals milk chocolate square"

Naoto Kimura, Cal State-Northridge
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Russell to Whitehead: "My Goedel is killing me!"

Dennis Healy, Dartmouth
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Statisticians probably do it.

Algebraists do it in groups.

Al Sethuraman, Calma Company, San Diego
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C programmers do it with long pointers. 

(Logicians do it) or [not (logicians do it)].

Scott Horne
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Theorem: a cat has nine tails.

Proof:

No cat has eight tails. A cat has one tail more than no cat. Therefore,
a cat has nine tails.

Arndt Jonasson
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Theorem : All positive integers are equal.

Proof : Sufficient to show that for any two positive integers, A and B,
   A = B.  Further, it is sufficient to show that for all N > 0, if A
   and B (positive integers) satisfy (MAX(A, B) = N) then A = B. 

   Proceed by induction.

   If N = 1, then A and B, being positive integers, must both be 1.
   So A = B.

   Assume that the theorem is true for some value k.  Take A and B
   with  MAX(A, B) = k+1.  Then  MAX((A-1), (B-1)) = k.  And hence
   (A-1) = (B-1).  Consequently, A = B.

Keith Goldfarb
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Old mathematicians never die; they just lose some of their functions.

John C. George, U.Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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Philosopher: "Resolution of the continuum hypothesis will have
              profound implications to all of science."

Physicist:   "Not quite.  Physics is well on its way without those
              mythical `foundations'. Just give us serviceable mathematics."

Computer Scientist:
             "Who cares?  Everything in this Universe seems to be finite
              anyway.  Besides, I'm too busy debugging my Pascal programs."

Mathematician:
             "Forget all that!  Just make your formulae as aesthetically
              pleasing as possible!"

Keitaro Yukawa, U. of Victoria, B.C, CANADA
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                   /
                   |  d(cabin)
Q: What is         |  --------   ?
                   |   cabin
                  / 

A: natural log cabin

Dan Beckler
Daniel McGurl
Walter Daugherity
John Smith  (who adds: log cabin + C = houseboat)
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Q: What's d(hi/ho)?
A: (ho d(hi) - hi d(ho)) over (ho ho)   !!

Mark Frydenberg
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As seen on the Simpsons:

Take the integral of 3d(r^2)    (where d is a constant) 
The answer is d(r^3) or rdrr  ...get it (ha)rd(ha)r(ha)r

David P. Lawrence
Mark Moir 
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      Mathematicians do it in groups, rings, and fields.

Dan Beckler
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Q:  What do you get when you cross an elephant and a palm tree?
A:  Elephant * palm tree * sine theta.

Peter Hamlen
Alex Elliott
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Q: What do you get when you cross a mountain climber with an elephant?
A: You can't!  A mountain climber's a scalar (scaler).

(Another variation that this reminded me of:
 Q: What do you get when you cross a mountain climber with a mosquito?
 A: You can't cross a vector with a scalar!)

Peter Hamlen
Alex Elliott
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Q: What did the vector say to the scalar?
A: I'm getting tensor and tensor.
Q: What did the scalar respond?
A: Don't pull rank on me.

Peter Hamlen
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There's an old MIT football cheer:

       E to the x, dy, dx,
       E to the x, dx.
       Secant, tangent, cosine, sine,
       3.14159.
       Square root, cube root, log base e,
       Cheers for math at MIT.

Walter Daugherity
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Theorem:       1 = 2
Proof:

   Use: df(x)/dx = dg(x)/dx for f(x) = g(x)
       x^2 = x + x ...   x
              <- x times ->
   so: d(x^2)/dx == 2x
       == d(x + x ...   x)/dx == (1 + 1 ...  1) == x 
              <- x times ->        <- x times ->
       Therefore 2x = x.
       Assigning x = 1 yields 2 = 1.

       Q. E. D.
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Why do programmers and mathematicians have trouble distinguishing
Halloween from Christmas?

Because OCT 31 = DEC 25.

Dennis Williamson <73260.350@compuserve.com>