Subsections

• Jokes
• Poems
• The Popcorn Gallery ©2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan
• Homeplay

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The Land of the Lounge Mathematician

Jokes

• Q: What sound does a drowning analytic number theorist make? A: loglogloglog ^... . This is attributed to Ram Murty.
• There are three kinds of mathematician, those who can count, and those who cannot. This is attributed to John Conway.
• One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God, so they picked one scientist to go tell him. ``God," the appointee said, ``we've decided we no longer need you. We can cure diseases, clone people, and create life, so why don't you just go on your way."
  God listened patiently to the man, then said, ``Very well. But first let's have a man-making contest, doing it just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
  ``Sure, no problem," the scientist said, bending down to scoop up a handful of dirt.
  ``No, no, no," God admonished, ``Get your own dirt."
  This is attributed to Playboy's Party Jokes, March 2000.
• A mathematician is showing a new proof to a large group of peers. After going through most of it, one of the mathematicians says, ``Wait! That's not true. I have a counter-example!" She replies, ``That's okay. I have two proofs." This is attributed to Stefan Chakerian via Raymond Cheng.
• I believe that people would be alive today if there were a death penalty. This is attributed to Nancy Reagan.
• In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The Cuckoo clock. This is attributed to Orson Welles.
• Q: What has points closed and comes from Formosa? A: A Taiwan space. This is attributed to Bob Quackenbush.

For more math jokes click on the link mathfun at Dan's UNBC page and click on the link Jokes at Raymond's UCAL page

Poems

The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams⁰¹⁰.

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

you fit into me by Margaret Atwood⁰¹¹.

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye

A limerick by Cyril Kornbluth⁰¹².

A burleycue dancer, a pip
Named Virginia, could peel in a zip;
But she read science fiction
And died of constriction
Attempting a Möbius strip.

An equation limerick by Jon Saxton (an author of math textbooks)⁰¹³.

((12 + 144 + 20 + (3×))/7) + (5×11) = 9² + 0 Or for those who have trouble with the poem: A Dozen, a Gross and a Score,
plus three times the square root of four,
divided by seven,
plus five times eleven,
equals nine squared and not a bit more.

The Popcorn Gallery ©2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan

You may recall that Shannon Patrick Sullivan of Canadian Millionaire fame is an amateur movie critic. Click on The Popcorn Gallery. We hope to inspire Shannon to contribute a movie column regularly. His rating scale is 4 stars-outstanding, 3 stars-very good, 2 stars-average, 1 star-poor, and No stars-terrible. Shannon has 68 total reviews. Here is an excerpt from Shannon's review on Magnolia, which he rated 4 stars.
Magnolia (1999) / ****
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Screenplay by Anderson. Starring Philip Baker Hall, Jason Robards, Tom Cruise. Running time: 188 minutes. Rated R for offensive language by the Maritime Film Classification Board (MFCB). Reviewed on March 20th, 2000.
I am almost surprised to find myself reviewing ``Magnolia", two months after viewing the film. But although I have seen several movies in the intervening weeks, the images of ``Magnolia" have remained strong in my mind, and so here I sit at my keyboard. This is not to say that ``Magnolia" is a perfect film; in some respects, it is deeply flawed. But it is one of those movies which demands to be viewed, contemplated, remembered, even if the verdict is not entirely positive.
``Magnolia" is the brainchild of Paul Thomas Anderson, and is a sequel of sorts to his ``Boogie Nights", featuring many of the same cast and crew. Some critics have reviewed ``Magnolia" on this basis, but I have not seen ``Boogie Nights" (yet) and would prefer to discuss ``Magnolia" on its own merits anyhow.
For a complete review of Magnolia see http://www.physics.mun.ca/sps under The Popcorn Gallery under Magnolia.

Homeplay

Let S(p) be the length of the curve y = x^p for 0 x 1. Show that S is an increasing function of p for p 1.⁰¹⁴

Andrew J. Irwin 2001-03-19