Math Help

The owner of a golf course in Georgia was confused about paying an invoice, so he decided to ask his secretary for some mathematical help. 

He called her into his office and said, "Y’all graduated from the University of Georgia and I need some help. If I wuz to give yew $20,000, minus 14%, how much would you take off?" 

The secretary thought a moment, and then replied, "Everthang but my earrings.”

How Tall Is It?

An Engineering Student, a Physics Student, and a Mathematics student were each given $150 dollars and were told to use that money to find out exactly how tall a particular hotel was.

All three ran off, extremely keen on how to do this. The physics student went out, purchased some stopwatches, a number of ball bearings, a calculator, and some friends.  He had them all time the drop of ball bearings from the roof, and he then figured out the height from the time it took for the bearings to accelerate from rest until they impacted with the sidewalk.

The math student waited until the sun was going down, then she took out her protractor, plumb line, measuring tape, and scratch pad, measured the length of the shadow, found the angle the buildings roof made from the ground, and used trigonometry to figure out the height of the building.

Of course, with all that was involved in getting this experiment done, they were up plenty late studying for other courses' exams.  These two students bumped into the engineering student the next day, who looked quite refreshed.  When asked what he did to find the height of the building he replied:  "Well, I walked up to the bell hop, gave him 10 bucks, asked him how tall the hotel was, and went inside for happy hour!"

Bullshit Pays

Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants over 100%. How about achieving 103%? Here's a little math that might prove helpful. What makes life 100%?

If A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z is represented as:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then, H A R D W O R K = 8 1 18 4 23 15 18 11 = 98%

K N O W L E D G E = 11 14 15 23 12 5 4 7 5 = 96%

But, A T T I T U D E = 1 20 20 9 20 21 4 5 = 100%

And, B U L L S H I T = 2 21 12 12 19 8 9 20 = 103%

So, it stands to reason that hard work and knowledge will get you close, attitude will get you there, but bullshit will put you over the top.

Star Player

A football coach walked into the locker room before a game, looked over to his star player and said, "I'm not supposed to let you play since you failed math, but we need you in there. So, what I have to do is ask you a math question, and if you get it right, you can play."

The player agreed, so coach looked into his eyes intently and asked, "Okay, now concentrate hard and tell me the answer to this. What is two plus two?"

The player thought for a moment and then answered, "4?"

"Did you say 4?" the coach exclaimed, excited that he had got it right.

Suddenly all the other players on the team began screaming, "Come on coach, give him another chance!"

Converting Pi To Binary

Warning: Do not calculate Pi in binary. It is conjectured that this number is normal, meaning that it contains all finite bit strings.

If you compute it, you will be guilty of:

• Copyright infringement (of all books, all short stories, all newspapers, all magazines, all web sites, all music, all movies, and all software, including the complete Windows source code)
• Trademark infringement
• Possession of child pornography
• Espionage (unauthorized possession of top secret information)
• Possession of DVD-cracking software
• Possession of threats to the President
• Possession of everyone's SSN, everyone's credit card numbers, everyone's PIN numbers, everyone's unlisted phone numbers, and everyone's passwords
• Defaming Islam. Not technically illegal, but you'll have to go into hiding along with Salman Rushdie.
• Defaming Scientology. Which is illegal - just ask Keith Henson.

Also, your computer will contain all of the nastiest known computer viruses. In fact, all of the nastiest possible computer viruses.

Some of the files on my PC are intensely personal, and I for one don't want you snooping through a copy of them.

You might get away with computing just a few digits, but why risk it? There's no telling how far into Pi you can go without finding the secret documents about the JFK assassination, a photograph of your neighbor wearing his frilly underwear, or complete copies of the not-yet-released Star Wars prequels. So just don't do it.

The same warning applies to e, the square root of 2, Euler's constant, Phi, the cosine of any non-zero algebraic number, and the vast majority of all other real numbers.

There's a reason why these numbers are always computed and shown in decimal, after all.

A Math Person's Christmas Tree

1 x 8 + 1 = 9

12 x 8 + 2 = 98

123 x 8 + 3 = 987

1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876

12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765

123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654

1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543

12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432

123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321

1 x 9 + 2 = 11

12 x 9 + 3 = 111

123 x 9 + 4 = 1111

1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111

12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111

123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111

1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111

12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111

123456789 x 9 + 10 = 1111111111

1 x 1 = 1

11 x 11 = 121

111 x 111 = 12321

1111 x 1111 = 1234321

11111 x 11111 = 123454321

111111 x 111111 = 12345654321

1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321

11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321

111111111 x 111111111 = 1234567898654321

Learning Addition

Little Leroy was at home doing his Math homework. He said to himself, "Two plus five, that son of a bitch is seven. Three plus six, that son of a bitch is nine".

At that moment, his mother comes in and hears what he is saying.

"Leroy, what are you doing?! Why are you saying that?!"

Little Leroy answered, "I'm doing my Math homework, Mom."

She said, "And is that what your teacher taught you?"

He replied, "Yes"

The next day, the mother, worried about the education her son is receiving, goes to Little Leroy's school to talk to the teacher. The mother said to his Math teacher, "I would like to know what you are teaching my son in Math?"

The teacher replied, Right now, we are learning addition problems."

Little Leroy's mother asked, "And... are you teaching them to say two plus two, that son of a bitch is four?"

When the teacher stopped laughing she replied. "Not at all! What I taught them was two plus two, the sum of which is four."

Failing Math

A ten-year-old Jewish boy was failing math. His parents tried everything from tutors to hypnosis, not to mention summer school - all to no avail.

Finally, at the insistence of a family friend, they decided to enroll their son in a private Catholic school.

After the first day, the boy's parents were surprised when he walked in after school with a stern, focused and very determined expression on his face.

He went straight past them, right to his room and quietly closed the door. For two hours he toiled away in his room - with math books strewn about his desk and the surrounding floor. He emerged long enough to eat, and after quickly cleaning his plate, went straight back to his room, closed the door and worked feverishly at his studies until bedtime.

This pattern of behavior continued until it was time for the first quarter's report card. The boy walked in with it unopened - laid it on the dinner table and went straight to his room.

Cautiously, his mother opened it and, to her amazement, she saw the red 'A' under the subject of Math.

Overjoyed, she and her husband rushed into their son's room, thrilled at his remarkable progress.

"Was it the nuns that did it?" the father asked.

The boy shook his head and said "No."

"Was it the one-to-one tutoring? The peer-mentoring?"

"No."

"The textbooks? The teachers? The curriculum?"

"No," said the son, "on that first day, when I walked in the front door and saw that guy nailed to the plus sign, I knew they meant business!"

Flag Pole Math

Two students were staring away at the flag pole in front of the college building. The professor of English walking by asked, "What seems to be the problem?"

One of the students said, "We need to know how to measure the height of this flag pole for our math class."

The professor of English quickly unscrewed the pole from its moorings, laid it on the ground, whipped out a measuring tape, measured it, and said, "It is exactly 20 feet long."

Looking at the English professor as he walked away, the other student said, "Smart alec. We wanted to know the height, and he tells us the length!"