- What do you call a rigorous demonstration that a statement is true?
- If “proof,” then you’re a mathematician
- If “experiment,” then you’re a physicist
- If you have no word for this concept, then you’re an economist
- What do you call a slow, painful, computationally intense method of solving a problem?
- If “engineering,” then you’re a mathematician
- If “mathematics,” then you’re an engineer
- What do you call a person who is in their first job after a PhD?
- If “postdoc,” then you’re a mathematician or physicist
- If “assistant professor,” then you’re an economist
- If “wealthy,” then you’re a computer scientist
- If you have no word for a job after a PhD, then you’re in the humanities, and you have our condolences
- What do you call a calculator with graphing capabilities?
- How do you pronounce “Pythagorean”?
- If you pronounce it “pithAGorEan,” then you’re a mathematician
- If you pronounce it “PITHaGORean,” then you’re a physicist
- If you just mumble the word and hope no one notices, then you’re a TA
- What name do you use for the person who invented calculus?
- If “Leibniz,” then you’re a mathematician
- If “Newton,” then you’re a physicist
- If “magical wizard,” then you’re probably not ready for grad school
- What do you say after successfully proving your point beyond all doubt?
- If “QED,” then you’re a mathematician
- If “the prosecution rests,” then you’re a mathematician with a flair for drama
- If you do not believe proof beyond all doubt is possible, then you’re a scientist
- What do you call a simplified representation of reality, such as imagining a physical system with no friction or air resistance?
- If “a model,” then you’re a computer scientist
- If “an approximation,” then you’re an engineer
- If you call this “reality,” then you’re an economist
- How do you refer to a piece of work that suffers from one small but visible mistake?
- If “rough,” then you’re an engineer
- If “as good as it’s going to get,” then you’re a computer scientist
- If “worthless,” then you’re a mathematician
- What do you call a formal gathering of professionals from your field?
- If “a conference,” then you’re a physicist
- If “a start-up,” then you’re a computer scientist
- If “an advisory panel to the president,” then you’re an economist
- If “a game of D&D,” then you’re a mathematician
Thanks for reading! If you prefer bad gifs to bad drawings, you might also check out The Math Aficionado’s Guide to High Fives.
I remember taking my first undergrad-level class in electrical after getting my physics degree. It took me forever to figure out how to do imaginary numbers on my seldom-used calculator. I still don’t know that I can graph things very well.
Yeah, graphing calculators are still my Achilles heel – something I really need to work on, for my students’ sake.
I remember walking up to my AP Calculus teacher the week before the test, saying, “How do you use this thing?” I don’t think I’d turned it on more than once or twice all year.
(And I never even THOUGHT about doing complex numbers on a graphing calculator! Although obviously they should have that capability.)
These days, if you can’t use a graphing calculator, then you are sunk on the AP test. For example — what if they ask you to integrate cos(x^2) from, say, 0 to 0.6? ? Some calculators can do it, but for all intents and purposes you can’t do it by hand at all.! And that was on the 2013 AP calc BC test.
Yeah, I always made sure to cover the really essential stuff with my students. (Graph equations; find roots; compute definite integrals.) But I know there’s tons of untapped power I wasn’t telling them about.
Of course you can do it by hand. The half-angle formula gives cos^2x – .5(1+cos(2x)).
That formula is a nice trick, but in this case, it’s the input (x) being squared, not the output (cosx). Also, even if it were (cosx)^2, I wouldn’t be able to compute the cosine of 1.2 radians by hand
Typo: should be Leibniz.
Yikes! Will fix.
This was excellent and terribly funny 😀 and I love that you included us unemployed English majors haha
I like exactness and proofs and writing QED, and find that I consider mistake-ridden work worthless, so in that sense I’m a mathematician. But I’m lazy, and will take an easy approximation any day, which is why I’m an engineer by trade. (Although I never relied too much on my graphing calculator, and never got the hang of the actual graphing or the more complex capabilities it offered.) I really enjoyed this post!
Well, I’m a Communications and Mass Media major who took mostly English classes, left without graduating to enter a Ph.D. program, left that shortly after, went on to a 30-year career as a computer programmer, and am now working as a professional ontologist. What does that make me?
Annoyingly difficult to stereotype?
Do you recapitulate philology?
I try my best, yes, though the full philological research program (to understand ancient cultures through their languages and literatures) is now too capacious for any one person to carry out. I should perhaps have mentioned that I spent my first undergraduate year as a physics major, and I remain a scientific American.
As an aspiring economist, I dream of the day we might be taken seriously by anybody.
Great post! Your Newton and Leibniz are definitely not Bad Drawings. I’m curious if there is a word for what mathematicians might call a simplified representation of reality?
Mathematicians don’t care much about reality in the first place; they’re always working with abstractions and idealizations. So I think they just call it “mathematics”!
As a Physicist student, i disagree with the calculus one. Leibniz is for Physics, Cauchy for Matematics!
As a math major, I like to switch the letters and Cettle Satan.
Great illusions causes great fluctuations in the stratosphere. In other words hot air rises.
Hysterical.
I have friends who like discussing quantum physics/reality and friends who are mathy.
Unfortunately, they are the same friend and I have to smack him on the forehead every few sentences to get him to stop using math analogies for everything as if they were Aesop’s Fables.
PS: The bartender says, “We don’t serve your kind here.”
A tachyon walks into a bar.
Reblogged this on ankandikpati63 and commented:
MATHeng
this is funny!!!!!!!!!!!
creative and inspiring
Must show this to my math-major boyfriend! It also reminds me of the time I tried to teach a group of nine-year-olds how to do proofs:
“But why can’t you just say it’s true?”
“Because I’m in high school.”
“What else do they teach you in high school?”
“Right – uh who wants to learn how to count in Spanish?”
That went over so well I majored in it!
I have to share this with my physicist son! What a riot!
This is great!
Reblogged this on towifimani and commented:
ok fix…..
best….is the best
I always enjoy reading your posts!
very nice post…
this is so hilarious to see and creative idea.. lol
Reblogged this on java learner's blog.
I just read this aloud at an extended family dinner filled with mathematicians and computer scientists who are also the descendants of an accountant. There was much hilarity. 🙂
nice one..
Couldn’t like this more.
A lot of this went over my pleb humanities-taking head, but it was good! I loved the burns on economics too – so true.
Reblogged this on Blog 4 Rants and commented:
I love the drawings much better than mine
O-/–(
Reblogged this on Singapore Maths Tuition and commented:
Very interesting Math jokes!
Reblogged this on Beth Kamatu – What matters most and commented:
Am in journalism, so am so not getting it, but that makes it news doesn’t it, hehehehe!
This made me laugh so much. My precious.
uum, things i like the most is the picture u draw up there 😀
really cool 😀
Reblogged this on ari1141.
This was cool 🙂
Reblogged this on groenlagoe.
This is hilarious! With those drawings you could consider becoming an artist. I love it.
Reblogged this on Apps Lotus's Blog.
Reblogged this on firetruckingbrigade.
Reblogged this on heartheavenstore.
Reblogged this on LUKWAGO_LWAASA_LAIMO the IDIOMATIC FOOD ADDICT. and commented:
At Least We Can Agree On One Thing; Economists Are Daft. THE MATHEMATICAL DIALECT QUIZ.
Reblogged this on angelogorek.
Ha ha. A great post!
As a communications / public policy major who took maths and economics but likes to watch tv about physics and has friends in engineering, I have only just enough enough knowledge to appreciate this post!
art is fine the quiz is sacked.
Reblogged this on 7mee and commented:
life and math 😉
Laugh out loud funny. Great job.
Too Funny!!! I love the economist’s bit. Fantastic!
Reblogged this on PERSPECTIVES and commented:
This is a great and an enlightening post, especially for those who deal with Maths and Economics 🙂 Enjoy
Reblogged on Perspectives
Reblogged this on Either I will find a way, or I will make one. .
This was hilarious.