Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 exptools 1/6/84; site ihuxq.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!ihuxq!wberg From: wberg@ihuxq.UUCP (W. W. Berg) Newsgroups: net.jokes Subject: math proofs Message-ID: <1224@ihuxq.UUCP> Date: Fri, 21-Sep-84 13:43:36 EDT Article-I.D.: ihuxq.1224 Posted: Fri Sep 21 13:43:36 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 25-Sep-84 21:26:11 EDT Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL Lines: 31 The jokes which have been showing up about math proofs that a horse has an infinite number of legs, and Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms are from a paper called "The Nature Of Mathematical Proofs", which was reprinted in a collection called "The Stress Analysis Of A Strapless Evening Gown", which has just recently been reprinted. Another beaut was "Alexander the Great didn't exist, and he had an infinite number of limbs". (Proof by Authority) It has already been shown that a) all horses are white b) Alex. had an inf. no. of limbs But historians state that Alexander the Great rode a black horse named Bucephalus, and since all horses are white, Alexander the Great could not have existed. Other methods of proof include "proof by blatant assertion", and "proof by intimidation". Another paper in the same collection is "Mathmanship", which discusses ploys used in mathematical papers such as "the pi throwing contest", and "the unconsummated asterisk". This agrees very well with what I've done many times. One thing I used to do in tensor calculus was to choose a formula used very frequently, and containing a dummy index, and use a different letter for the dummy each time I wrote the formula. In ordinary differential equations: is y' another variable like y, or is it the first derivative with respect to t of y=f(t) ? How about y'' ? The paranoiacs are out to get me W. W. Berg ihnp4!ihuxq!wberg