Humour

simpsonsmath.com Activity Sheets

This is a cool website I found that fits in this category. From the site:
"We use The Simpsons in select classes when an episode contains significant mathematical content that we would have covered in the class anyway, or when it serves some other important course goal, such as reducing math anxiety and fostering creative thinking."

Here is the link to the site. Enjoy!

Contributed by Darren Kuropatwa

More Than Just a Good Joke

I kind of stumbled across this idea. I like telling jokes in class. It livens up the class and sets everyone at ease. It's also a great way to get everyone's attention on those warmer days when we'd all rather be playing outside. Anyway, when I can I like to tell jokes that have a mathematical flavour to them; after all, it's supposed to be math class. ;-) I had this one good joke that I wanted to tell but the kids wouldn't get the punchline until they understood what a logarithm was. So in the middle of my class on logarithms I told them this joke (see the Noah's Ark joke below) and as the laughter died down I told them: "I've been waiting two months to tell you that joke … as of today you know enough math to get it!" That turned out to be a great motivator for my class. I've started a collection of math jokes that I tell when the kids have "learned enough math." They know there's a joke coming soon so they like coming to class.

Here are a few of these sort of jokes that I've found. I've found that they come across better if you can find some way to "personalize" the story. Please add to the list if you find another one.

Contributed by Darren Kuropatwa

The Jokes

Noah's Ark
(Logarithms)
When Noah's Ark ran ashore on Mount Ararat Noah stood at the entrance to the ark as each pair of animals disembarked and called out: "Go forth and multiply!" He said it to the elephants, the bears, the rabbits (and boy did they ever), to everyone. These two snakes came slithering down the gangplank and Noah called out: "Go forth and multiply!" which made the snakes freeze and stare at him in horror. "But Noah, we can't do that!" "Why not?" "We're adders!"

So Noah tells them to wait a minute, runs out into the forest with an axe and a hammer to cut down some trees. They hear him hacking, cutting and hammering for a while. He comes back with a wooden table and shouts with glee: "Go forth and multiply!" "But Noah, we still can't do that." "Sure you can, I made you a log table!"

sign of 45
(intro to trig)
A father is showing his young daughter how to work the calculator he bought her for school. He shows her some of the commands, and gives her the calculator. Then, as a test, he asks her, "Alright, what is the sin(45)?" She looks at her pop. "Being over the hill?"

The Jesus Joke
(parabolas)
One day, Jesus said to his disciples: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like 3x2 + 8x - 9." 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."

The Mathematician and his Wife
(multiplying fractions)
A mathematician wandered home at 3 AM. His wife, quite naturally, became very upset. "You're late!" she roarded at him. "You said you'd be home by 11:45!"

"No, no, no… I'm right on time," said the mathematician, looking at his watch. "I said I'd be home by a quarter of twelve."

The Pythagorean Theorem Pun
(pythagoras)
There were three Medieval kingdoms on the shores of a lake. There was an island in the middle of the lake, which the kingdoms had been fighting over for years. Finally, the three kings decided that they would send their knights out to do battle, and the winner would take the island.

The night before the battle, the knights and their squires pitched camp and readied themselves for the fight. The first kingdom had 12 knights, and each knight had 5 squires, all of whom were busily polishing armor, brushing horses, and cooking food. The second kingdom had 20 knights, and each knight had 10 squires. Everyone at that camp was also busy preparing for battle. At the camp of the third kingdom, there was only one knight, with his squire. This squire took a large pot and hung it from a looped rope in a tall tree. He busied himself preparing the meal, while the knight polished his own armor.

When the hour of the battle came, the three kingdoms sent their squires out to fight (this was too trivial a matter for the knights to join in). The battle raged, and when the dust cleared, the only person left was the lone squire from the third kingdom, having defeated the squires from the other two kingdoms.

Thus proving that the squire of the high pot and noose is equal to the sum of the squires of the other two sides.

The Very Smart Horse
(graphing)
There was once a very smart horse. Anything that was shown it, it mastered easily, until one day, its teachers tried to teach it about rectangular coordinates and it couldn't understand them. All the horse's acquaintances and friends tried to figure out what was the matter and couldn't. Then a mathematician looked at the problem and said, "Of course he can't do it. Why, you're putting Descartes before the horse!"

Can't Get a Loan
(trig identities)
Q: Why did the identity sin(2r) = 2sin(r) get turned down for a loan?
A: Because it needed a cos(r).
(Get it? A cosigner?)