635 Comments
- bowlagoat, on 11/19/2008, -8/+710You know, you used to have to stalk and kill a mammoth to impress a girl. But that's cool too I guess...
- AgentMull, on 11/19/2008, -12/+698Yay for converging series.
∞
Σ(1/2^n)=2
n=0 - ceredron, on 11/19/2008, -10/+468You know, just because three numbers have started a simple pattern doesn't mean the pattern will continue.
Watch the fourth mathematician, just to spite the barkeep, order a round for everyone. - Berkana, on 11/19/2008, -4/+400A sheep rancher invites an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician to a competitive bidding for building his corral.
The engineer is the first to present his solution: he looks at the white board with a picture of sheep scattered around a field, and draws a square that encompasses them all, saying that the fence walls would be of a uniform length and that making orthogonal cuts is the most natural thing with power tools.
The physicist presents his solution next: he goes up to the white board and draws a circle around all the sheep, saying that the circle gives the most interior area for the least circumferential length.
The mathematician then goes up to the white board to present his solution. He draws a little circle off to the side that doesn't encompass a single sheep. The rancher, the engineer, and the physicist are all puzzled, and look at him wondering what he's up to, demanding that he explain himself.
"That," said the mathematician, pointing to the interior of the little circle, "is the outside." - Shiftyeyedgoat, on 11/19/2008, -13/+406It's funny because the sum of all their beers will be two.
Lightweight mathematicians; learn to drink like engineers. - PsychoBrat, on 11/19/2008, -1/+352A quantum theorist walks into a bar. Maybe.
- Defiant001, on 11/19/2008, -57/+336Very clever joke :) I like it, my girlfriend didn't full understand it though so here is how I explained it to her:
"The first one orders a full beer, the second orders a half, the third orders a quarter, theoretically what they are doing here is splitting the unfilled portion of the cup in halves and "filling" it, then repeating the step with the remaining unfilled portion. The bartender understands that even with an infinite amount of splitting in half and filling that cup will never ever reach 100% full because its always going up by half of whats left to fill even if refilled infinite times. So therefore he just gives them 2 full beers which would be the easy way out of the problem, but also an incorrect outcome. It will go to an infinite amount of decimal places and never reach 100% capacity." - wannarto, on 11/19/2008, -3/+251a dyslexic man walks into a bra...
- TheHammar, on 11/19/2008, -1/+245if you prefer pictures:
1 + http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/Lessons/Series/one.gi ... = 2 - dha07030, on 11/19/2008, -30/+253Photoshopped. Pixels are a dead give away.
- Tamant, on 11/19/2008, -6/+198C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!!!?
- MelvinSchlubman, on 11/19/2008, -4/+183Almost. The equation AgentMull posted is correct. With the number of mathemeticians approaching ∞, that 2nd beer is full (not almost full), giving 2 full beers. It's not a practical matter of adding a bit more for each mathemetician and never getting to the end of them. Instead, we're considering the totality of them, inclusive out to ∞. That is mathematically = 1 (not *almost* 1), added to the 1st beer for the total 2.
- snurfle, on 11/19/2008, -2/+173A termite walks into a bar and says, "Where is the bar tender?"
- jamdogg, on 11/19/2008, -3/+155All well and good but the bartender assumed a pattern. The fourth mathematician might have wanted ten beers.
- HtomSirveaux, on 11/19/2008, -8/+158A biologist, a physicist, and a mathematician are eating lunch at a patio cafe. All three of them observe 2 persons enter a building across the street. A few moments later, three persons exit the same building.
The biologist postulates that they reproduced and the third person was their offspring.
The physicist thinks that one slapped the other so hard that he/she split bringing their total to three.
The mathematician simply says that there are now negative one people in that building. - mistermaster, on 11/19/2008, -1/+147If one more person enters the building, it will be empty.
- zjbird, on 11/19/2008, -9/+141Then she dumped you.
- inactive, on 11/19/2008, -16/+144my head asplode
- AtheismFTW, on 11/19/2008, -1/+121One of them will have a quantum of beer. QUANTUM BEER.
That ***** just sounds awesome.
Edit: Judging by the downvotes, it seems some people here don't realize that beer isn't beer when you divide it enough. Chances are they probably subscribe to homeopathic treatment. - cooljmy10, on 11/19/2008, -1/+114As an engineering student we frequently reach balmers peak
- psolms, on 11/19/2008, -5/+112yeah.. THATS why you never see an infinite number of mathematicians walking into a bar...
- Ninjapope, on 11/19/2008, -5/+110Finally. My semester of calculus pays off.
- noahgelman, on 11/19/2008, -7/+102I think the mathematician and the physicists role would be reversed in this situation
- Scarblac, on 11/19/2008, -5/+97a baby seal walks into a club...
- doctechnical, on 11/19/2008, -3/+94A physicist, a biologist and a chemist are all walking along a beach. The physicist is enraptured by the wave motion dynamics, and walks into the ocean to study it. He's never heard from again. The biologist is overtaken by the fascinating flora and fauna of the ocean, and he walks in to get a closer look. He's never heard from again.
After many hours the chemist pulls out his notebook and writes "The physicist and biologist are both soluble in salt water." - gamben0, on 11/19/2008, -6/+93At least the first guy gets a whole beer...isn't that is what is important?
- inactive, on 11/19/2008, -1/+80actually he walked in a number of bars at the same time
- occasus, on 11/19/2008, -10/+85Poor mathematicians. An infinite number of them won't get any beer at all.
- hauntedchippy, on 11/19/2008, -5/+79//and never reach 100% capacity//
It will reach 100%, but only at infinity. If each mathematician took a certain amount of time to enter and ask for the beer then it would take an infinite amount of time to complete the order, but infinity isn't the same as never. - mapkinase, on 11/19/2008, -1/+741 US pint = 473.176473 milliliters=474 gram
1 dalton = 1.67 x 10-24 g
1 H20 molecule = 2*1+16 Dalton = 18 Dalton
2 US pint = 3.15 × 10^25 H20 molecules
log(3.15369261 × (10^25)) / log(2) = 84.7
That's the upper limit number of mathematicians that could be served this way.
The rest of infinity can go away and get the same service at LHC bar - PsychoBrat, on 11/19/2008, -3/+76It's funny because they're all stupid.
- Mr.Scientist, on 11/19/2008, -6/+79But if the mathematicians then decide to split the beers evenly, nobody gets to drink any beer! That's why you never see an infinite number of mathematicians walking into a bar.
- thanacus, on 11/19/2008, -1/+74Until some ***** observed him...
- AaronSTL, on 11/19/2008, -14/+86Weren't Ben Affleck and Morgan Freedman in a movie based on this joke, "The Sum of All Beers"?
- Berkana, on 11/19/2008, -2/+66True. The infinite series is a question of limits; if one understands limits, one understands that with an *infinite* number of mathematicians (and not just a large finite number) ordering half the prior portion, the quantity served actually converges on 2 beers.
- darlingt, on 11/19/2008, -2/+65http://xkcd.com/323/ if you're interested in what they're talking about.
- evanscott07, on 11/19/2008, -5/+67you need to comment more often on this site that has become devoid of humor
- Acglaphotis, on 11/19/2008, -1/+63Give the farmer 700 billion and run?
- DodgerJJ, on 11/19/2008, -4/+65They pour the second-to-last atom of beer, then they split the last atom of beer and the whole bar explodes
- elhaf, on 11/19/2008, -1/+56I thought they would say, "I'll halve what he's having".
- grumpyrain, on 11/19/2008, -6/+60If infinity was a number then yes.
But infinity is a concept, and as the number of orders approaches infinity, the sum of their beers will approach 2 from below. It kinda breaks down after you put the smallest possible combination of molecules that can be called beer in a glass. - serif69, on 11/19/2008, -1/+54A neutron walks into a bar and asks the bartender, "How much for a drink?" The bartender replies, "For you? No charge."
- Acglaphotis, on 11/19/2008, -2/+55Man, bartenders know EVERYTHING.
- Dinsdale77, on 11/19/2008, -12/+64I'm more amused by picturing an infinite amount of mathematicians walking into said establishment. Probably because I was a psych major.
- naner, on 11/19/2008, -1/+52The 494956060th mathematician walks into the bar, points at the 1st mathematician and says, "I'll have what he's having."
- JoeRW, on 11/19/2008, -2/+53No, I prefer beer, and Im the 494956060th person into that bar.
- agbullet, on 11/19/2008, -1/+50@JoeRW
You ain't gettin' much beer, son. - MxM111, on 11/19/2008, -4/+51No, because he is a mathematician.
- grumpyrain, on 11/19/2008, -2/+49Just be careful, we don't want another Windows ME.
- hyAxis, on 11/19/2008, -2/+49The shadows are all wrong, too.
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