Geek and Nerd Humor

You're as old as I am if you remember what this photo is from. Hard to believe it has been 30 years.

What IS it from?

The last ep of mash. Not exactly geekish, but maybe nerdy

omg, I just now came back from yoga, and this totally blew my zen.

wow, I don't know where my mind is. I thought it was from the Jim Jones thing.

That would have implied a sense of humor.

Aaaaaaaah! Thank you.

I can't help thinking it should have started with

Dear Algebra
For the nth time....



While I'm being geeky - ever wondered why X features so heavily in Algebra?

In under five minutes it's explained via TED:

That is interesting!

Not to get away from the humor here, but I wish I had seen something like this video when I was a freshman in high school. From day 1 in first year algebra, I was asking "what do you mean "X" what does that mean?" I got what was to me, answers that made no sense, as in "X is whatever you want it to be" WTF did that mean, I thought. Tell me what X is, how can I look for something when I don't know what I'm looking for!?" My mind was stuck on this and couldn't move away, and from that first day I got farther and farther behind, and I got the reputation of not knowing what I was doing, and failing failing failing. After struggling (struggling is a mild word) through 2 years of the required algebra, they figured I was retarded, then then stuck me in some rudimentary geometry class, which infuriated me, since I was in regular, or advanced classes in my other subjects. Plus, I was like "what's so hard about figuring this area/this angle, etc?" Not at all equating it to the previous algebra experience, or, I think, even seeing it was the same X.
I had the same problems when I had to take college algebra, but this time the terror of X was so woven into the word algebra I couldn't see around it.
It wasn't intil I took statistics, and the instructor said, and these were his exact words "Let's say X equals the temperature at the center point of your attic". The sun came up, the birds sang, I soared and aced the class.

WHY DIDN'T ANYONE EVER TELL ME X WAS THE TEMPERATURE AT THE CENTER POINT IN MY ATTIC???!!!

I swear to God, if someone on day one had just told me X was the number of cats in a bag, things would have turned out differently.

X is the unknown my ass.

There was a rather legendary maths teacher at my high school (affectionately called bonehead). We were an all boys school up to our final year when it when co-ed in a couple of years transitioning to fully co-ed.

Anyway first day and Bonehead is teaching a coed class for the first time in years (or ever) he's showing them Pythagorus' theorem, but by some mischance he's labelled the hypotenuse 'b' so he writes the formula a^2 + c^2 = b^2

A new student puts her hand up says 'Excuse me sir - at my last school they said it was a^2 + b^2 = c^2

Bonehead paused, a little dumbfounded (he didn't have a nasty bone in his body - but he was single-minded about mathematical excellence) and all he could say was 'What school did you go to?'

I feel for her if she ever got her head around her mistake - that's like Rimmer's gazpacho moment. Mortifying once you get it.

He was a good teacher, we had a coterie of guys doing 4 unit maths (2 unit is standard, five 40 minute periods a week, so 4 is double that load). And some of them got 100% in the final exams (or 200% as we used to giggle). One qualified for medicine but it was his second choice - luckily his HSC mark was nearly twice what his first choice, Actuarial Studies, required.

Bugger retired at 40 to the southern highlands.

My bugbear was greater than and less than signs when I was 7 or 8 - took me ages to stop worrying about which way they were pointing without looking at the numbers.

whoo wee (wiping the corner of my eye), that's a good'un!




You say gazpacho, I say vichyssoise

Good 'un, RP. But very scary.

Sometimes math teachers can save lives:

A math professor was explaining a particularly complicated calculus concept to his class when a frustrated pre-med student interrupts him. "Why do we have to learn this stuff?" the pre-med blurts out. The professor pauses, and answers matter-of-factly: "Because math saves lives." "How?" demanded the student. "How on Earth does calculus save lives?" "Because," replied the professor, "it keeps certain people out of medical school."