HP Forum Archive 14

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Math Humor Message #1 Posted by Michael Meyer on 30 Nov 2003, 8:52 p.m. Breaking News At New York's JFK airport today, an individual, later discovered to be a public school math teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule and a calculator. Attorney general John Ashcroft believes the man is a member of the notorious al-Gebra movement. He is being charged with carrying Weapons of Math Instruction (WMI). "al-Gebra is a very fearsome cult, indeed", Ashcroft said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on a tangent in a search of absolute values. They consist of quite shadowy figures, with names like, "x", "y" and "z", and, although they are frequently referred to as "unknowns", we know they really belong to a common denominator and are part of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country." "As the great Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'there are 3 sides to every angle'" he added. When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "Make no mistake, if God had wanted US to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes." A member of the Presidential group, who spoke without attribution said, "I'm extremely grateful that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are so willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. These statistic bastards love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence. Under the circumferences, it's time we differentiated their root, made our point, and drew the line." President Bush said, "these Weapons of Math Instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex." Attorney General Ashcroft said, "As our Great Leader would say, 'Read My Ellipse'. Here is one principle he is uncertainty of---though they continue to multiply --- their days are numbered and the hypotenuse will tighten around their necks."

Re: Math Humor Message #2 Posted by Ed Look on 30 Nov 2003, 10:50 p.m., in response to message #1 by Michael Meyer As much as I agree with the very basic message that most Americans are at best not well versed in math (innumerate?)(, or are they Legion?) and at worst downright hostile to instruction in it, I wonder if similar parodies would be written concerning other groups and individuals purported to be more intelligent and better educated while having at least one member claim the invention of the Internet, or claim the spending of cash (or effort) to procure cannabis and not suck down its effluent. :p

Re: Math Humor Message #3 Posted by Ed Martin on 30 Nov 2003, 10:55 p.m., in response to message #1 by Michael Meyer Very funny, despite (or perhaps because of) not being "politically correct". One wonders if the chads had hung differently (for non-US readers ... a reference to the 2000 election) whether we would be applying different al-gore-ithms to resolve these problems.

Re: Math Humor Message #4 Posted by Tom Scott on 1 Dec 2003, 12:31 p.m., in response to message #1 by Michael Meyer Well I certainly am relieved that our government officials are watching out for our interests. There's nothing more threatening than too much knowledge, math or otherwise. Tom Scott

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