In 1996, just a day before the election of the 40th President of US, the New York Times published a curious crossword. In the 8th row, the solver should discover a phrase – the “lead story of tomorrow’s newspaper”. More precisely – the name of the future President of the country appears there. But how could New York Times know whether it was going to be Clinton or Bob Dole?
ACROSS:
1. “___ your name” (Mamas and Papas lyric) 6. Fell behind slightly 15. Euripides tragedy 16. Free 17. Forecast 19. Be bedridden 20. Journalist Stewart 21. Rosetta ??? 22. 1960s espionage series 24. ___ Perigion 25. Qulting party 26. “Drying out” program 28. Umpire’s call 30. Tease 34. Tease 36. Standard 38. “The Tell-Tale Heart” writer 39. Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper, with 43A 43. See 39A 45. Gold: Prefix 46. ___ Lee cakes 48. Bobble the ball 49. Spanish aunts 51. Obi 53. Bravery 57. Small island 59. Daddies 61. Theda of 1917’s “Cleopatra” 62. Employee motivator 65. Otherworldly 67. Treasure hunter’s aid 68. Title for 39A next year 71. Exclusion from social events 72. Fab Four name 73. They may get tied up in knots 74. Begin, as a maze
DOWN:
1. Disable 2. Cherry-colored 3. Newspaperman Ochs 4. Easel part 5. Actress Turner 6. Ropes, as dogies 7. Place to put your feet up 8. Underskirt 9. First of three-in-a-row 10. Lower in public estimation 11. Onetime bowling alley employee 12. Threesome 13. English prince’s school 14. ’60s TV talk-show host Joe 18. Superannuated 23. Sewing shop purchase 25. TV’s Uncle Miltie 27. Short writings 29. Opponent 31. Likely 32. Actress Caldwell 33. End of the English alphabet 35. Trumpet 37. Ex-host Griffin 39. Black Halloween animal 40. French 101 word 41. Provider of support, for short 42. Much debated political inits 44. Sourpuss 47. Malign 50. “La Nausee” novelist 52. Sheiks’ cliques 54. Bemoan 55. Popsicle color 56. Bird of prey 58. 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 60. Family girl 62. Famous ___ 63. Something to make on one’s birthday 64. Regarding 65. Quite a story 66. Dublin’s land 69. ___ Victor 70. Hullabaloo
The answer is simple, yet very impressive. The crossword’s author, the mathematics professor Jeremiah Farrell, created the puzzle so that it could be solved in two different ways, revealing either “Clinton Elected” or “Bob Dole Elected” in the middle row. Many of the newspaper’s readers didn’t realize the prank and assumed New York Times was displaying a bias towards one of the candidates. They started sending lots of angry letters and calling the editor, complaining about arguably the coolest crossword of all time.
Who says science jokes are not funny? Below you can see some of the best Math jokes we know, along with short explanations to the more obscure of them.
Do you know any funny Math jokes yourself? Let us know in the comment section below.
“Why did you divide sin by tan?” “Just cos.”
Explanation When you divide sinus (sin) by tangent (tan), you get cosine (cos).
Let epsilon be smaller than zero…
Explanation Rather silly math joke, based on the fact that the variable epsilon is always chosen to be a small positive number.
“What does the ‘B’ in Benoit B Mandelbrot stand for?” “Benoit B Mandelbrot.”
Explanation Benoit B Mandelbrot is a famous Mathematician, who was interested in fractals. Fractals are natural sets which exhibit repeating patterns. If you keep replacing the middle “B” in the name with “Benoit B Mandelbrot”, you will get a fractal.
A biologist, an engineer, and a mathematician were observing an empty building. They noted two people entering the building and sometime later observed three coming out. The biologist remarked, “Oh they must have reproduced.” The engineer said, “Our initial count must have been incorrect.” The mathematician stated, “Now if one more person goes into the building it will be completely empty.”
At a party for functions, eˣ is at the bar, looking despondent. The barman says: “Why don’t you go and integrate?” eˣ replies: “It would not make any difference.”
Explanation If you integrate the function eˣ, you get again eˣ, i.e. it doesn’t change.
“Why can’t atheists solve non-linear equations?” “Because they don’t believe in higher powers.”
Explanation Non-linear equation contain high powers of the variables.
“Why did the chicken cross the Mobius strip?” “To get to the same side.”
Explanation The Mobius strip is a non-orientable surface which has only side. You can make a Mobius strip by taking a strip of paper, twisting it 180 degrees and gluing its opposite ends.
There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don’t.
Explanation The number 2 is written as “10” in binary system.
Three logicians walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Do you all want something to drink?” The first logician says, “I don’t know.” The second logician says, “I don’t know.” The third logician says, “Yes.”
Explanation Even though all three of them want to drink, none of the logicians can reply “yes” unless he is sure that his friends also want to drink. Since the first two replied with “I don’t know”, the third one already knows that all of them are thirsty and says “Yes”.
There are two types of people in the world. Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Explanation “To extrapolate” means to deduce information from incomplete data.
A logician’s wife is having a baby. The doctor immediately hands the newborn to the dad. His wife asks impatiently, “So, is it a boy or a girl?” The logician replies, “Yes.”
Explanation Since the baby is either a boy or a girl, the answer to the question (regarded as a logic inquiry) is in both cases “Yes”.
An infinite amount of mathematicians walk into a bar. “I’ll have a pint,” says the first one. “Half a pint for me please,” says the second one. “Quarter of a pint please barkeep,” says the third one. After 5 minutes of ordering, the barman interrupts the mathematicians: “Look, here you are 2 pints of beer, you figure it out yourselves.”
Explanation The amounts of beer the mathematicians order forms an infinite arithmetic progression – 1, 0.5, 0.25, etc., which has a total sum 2.
Three foreigners – a businessman, a physicist, and a mathematician, are talking about the country they are all visiting for the first time. Suddenly, the businessman points out the window in surprise. “Look at that! The sheep in Scotland are black,” he says. Amused at how readily his new friend jumps to conclusions, the physicist corrects him: “No, all we can be certain of is that some of the sheep in Scotland are black.” The mathematician looks out the window himself, and corrects both of them: “We know there exists a sheep in Scotland which is black at least on one side.”
Two random variables were talking in a bar. They thought they were being discrete but I heard their chatter continuously.
Explanation Wordplay with the two types of random variables in probability theory – discrete and continuous.
There was a statistician who drowned crossing a river… The river was 3 feet deep on average.
“Why did the chicken cross the road?” “The answer to the question is trivial and is left to the reader as an exercise.”
Explanation Many times a professor who can’t remember or doesn’t want to prove some more technical result in class, leaves it as an “exercise” for the students.
A physicist and a mathematician are sitting in a faculty lounge. Suddenly, the coffee machine catches on fire. The physicist grabs a bucket and leap towards the sink, filled the bucket with water and puts out the fire. The second day, the same two sit in the same lounge. Again, the coffee machine catches on fire. This time, the mathematician stands up, got a bucket, hands the bucket to the physicist, thus reducing the problem to a previously solved one.
Explanation One common approach for solving mathematical problems is reducing them to other, already solved problems, then making a reference to them.
When a statistician passes the airport security check, they discover a bomb in his bag. He explains. “Statistics shows that the probability of a bomb being on an airplane is 1/1000. However, the chance that there are two bombs at one plane is 1/1000000. So, I am much safer…”
Explanation Even though the statement is correct, the statistician is not taking in account conditional probability. Obviously, his chances for safe flight are not changing by bringing a bomb.
An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are staying in a hotel. The engineer wakes up in the middle of the night and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees fire, then goes back to the room, fills a trash can with water, and douses it. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. He goes to the hallway, sees the fire and then the fire hose. He thinks for a moment and then exclaims, “Ah, a solution exists!”, then goes back to bed.
Explanation In many mathematical problems, all you need to do is just prove that a solution, without finding it specifically.
A chemist, a physicist, and a mathematician are stranded on an island when a can of food rolls ashore. The chemist and the physicist come up with many ingenious ways to open the can. Then suddenly the mathematician gets a bright idea: “Assume we have a can opener…”
Explanation Many mathematical proofs are based on various assumptions, which can be sometimes way too strong.
A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. Soon, they find themselves lost in a canyon somewhere. They yell out for help: “Hellooooo! Where are we?” Fifteen minutes later, they hear an echoing voice: “Hellooooo! You are in a hot-air balloon!” The physicist says, “That must have been a mathematician.” The engineer asks, “Why do you say that?” The physicist replies: “The answer was absolutely correct, and it was utterly useless.”
Explanation Many people consider mathematics to be very exact, but useless for real life.
“Why don’t you see quaternions ride the bus?” “Because they do not commute!”
Explanation Quaternions are a number system, extension of the complex numbers. Quaternions do not possess the commutative property, i.e. xy may not equal yx.
