"OH MY GOD!" shrieks Bush, and he buries his head in his hands for a seemingly interminable 30 seconds.   Stunned at the unexpected display of emotion, the President's staff sits speechless, not sure how to react.

A man who had just joined the disciples looked very confused and asked Peter:
"What, on Earth, does he mean by that?"

Peter smiled. "Don't worry. It's just another one of his parabolas."

When he has transferred all the fleas in this way, he removes one from the now full jar, carefully pulls off its back legs, and places it on the table before the original jar. He commands "Jump," but the flea does not move. He takes another flea from the jar, carefully pulls off its back legs, and places it on the table. Again he commands "Jump," but the flea does not move. Methodically, he goes through this same procedure with the remaining fleas, and gets the same results.

The scientist records in his notebook, "A flea, when its back legs are pulled off, cannot hear."

Later in the dinner, the complainer went to the men's room. The other mathematician beckoned to the waitress and said, "The next time you come past our table, I am going to stop you and ask you a question. No matter what I say, I want you to answer by saying 'x-squared."

When the other mathematician returned, his companion said, "I am tired of your complaining. I am going to stop the next person who comes by our table and ask him or her an elementary calculus question, and I bet the person can solve it." Soon the waitress came by and he asked, "Excuse me, Miss, but can you tell me what the integral of 2x with respect to x is?" The waitress replied, "x-squared." The mathematician said, "See!" His friend said, "Oh I guess you're right." And the waitress said, "Plus a constant."

One by one, each of the engineers goes up to the ticket counter and buys a ticket to the conference. But only one of the mathematicians does. The engineers look puzzled and one of the mathematicians says, "Optimization."

The twelve get on the same car and one mathematician stands at each end of the car. Now the engineers are really puzzled. After a while, the mathematician at one end, yells, "Conductor!" On that cue, all the mathematicians pile into the rest room and lock the door.

The conductor enters the car and announces, "Tickets, please. Tickets!" He passes the engineers and punches each of their tickets. At the end of the car, he notices the restroom is occupied and knocks on the door, "Ticket, please."

The ticket slides out from under the door, he punches it and slides it back, then leaves the car and continues to the next car.

The engineers look at each other and decide how clever the mathematicians have been, and then wink at each other.

They all attend the conference and have a good time. Upon arriving at the train station, one engineer buys a ticket and they giggle at each other. The mathematicians do not buy any. This time again, the engineers look puzzled, and the same mathematician says, "Optimization."

This time all the mathematicians sit down and the engineers have the lookouts. One engineer, peers down a couple of cars and shouts, "Conductor!" Immediately all the engineers pile into the rest room, while the mathematicians just sit there. Once the engineers are in the rest room, one of the mathematicians knocks on the door and says, "Ticket, please." The ticket slides out under the door, the mathematician grabs it and along with the other mathematicians, runs to the other rest room and they lock themselves in.

-- contributed by Keith Mealy (and the next one, too)

Noah asks, "Want to tell me how the trees helped?"

"Certainly", say the snakes.

"We're adders, and we need logs to multiply."

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.

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One day he met a new patient; and true to form he stared at him and said "I differentiate you!", but for once, his victim's expression didn't change.

Surprised, the mathematician marshalled his energies, stared fiercely at the new patient and said loudly "I differentiate you!", but still the other man had no reaction. Finally, in frustration, the mathematician screamed out "I DIFFERENTIATE YOU!"

The new patient calmly looked up and said, "You can differentiate me all you like: I'm e to the x."

The derivation comes in, sees a function and says "Hey, you don't fear me?"
"No, I am e to the x", says the exponential self-confidently.
"Well" replies the derivation "but who says I differentiate along x?"

• I accidentally divided by zero and my paper burst into flames.
• I could only get arbitrarily close to my textbook. I couldn't actually reach it.
• I have the proof, but there isn't room to write it in this margin.
• I have a solar powered calculator and it was cloudy.
• I locked the paper in my trunk but a four-dimensional dog got in and ate it.
• I couldn't figure out whether I am the square of negative one or I am the square root of negative one.

Clearly: I don't want to write down all the "in-between" steps.

Trivial: If I have to show you how to do this, you're in the wrong class.

It can easily be shown: No more than four hours are needed to prove it.

Check for yourself: This is the boring part of the proof, so you can do it on your own time.

Hint: The hardest of several possible ways to do a proof.

Brute force: Four special cases, three counting arguments and two long inductions.

Elegant proof: Requires no previous knowledge of the subject matter and is less than ten lines long.

Similarly: At least one line of the proof of this case is the same as before.

Two line proof: I'll leave out everything but the conclusion, you can't question 'em if you can't see 'em.

Briefly: I'm running out of time, so I'll just write and talk faster.

Proceed formally: Manipulate symbols by the rules without any hint of their true meaning.

Proof omitted: Trust me, It's true.

Proof: cancel the n in the numerator and denominator.

This just proves that ...

The squaw of the hippopotomus is equal to the sum of the squaws of the other two hides.

Q: What do you get when you cross an elephant and a mountain climber?
A: It's undefined, since the mountain climber is a "scaler".

                 A SLICE OF PI
 
               ******************
                3.14159265358979
                  1640628620899
                   23172535940
                    881097566
                     5432664
                      09171
                       036
                        5

How many numerical analysts does it take to replace a lightbulb??
3.9967: (after six iterations).

How many classical geometers does it take to replace a lightbulb??
None: You can't do it with a straight edge and a compass.

you are fascinated by the equation .

you know by heart the first fifty digits of pi.

you have tried to prove Fermat's Last Theorem.

you know ten ways to prove Pythagoras' Theorem.

your telephone number is the sum of two prime numbers.

you have calculated that the World Series actually diverges.

you are sure that differential equations are a very useful tool.

you comment to your wife that her straight hair is nice and parallel.

when you say to a car dealer "I'll take the red car or the blue one", you must add "but not both of them."