A mathematician is asked by a friend who is a devout Christian: "Do you believe in one God?"
He answers: "Yes - up to isomorphism."

Q: How does a mathematician induce good behavior in her children?
A: `I've told you n times, I've told you n+1 times...'

Q: Do you know any catchy anagram of Banach-Tarski?
A: Banach-Tarski Banach-Tarski...

"Students nowadays are so clueless", the math professor complains to a colleague. "Yesterday, a student came to my office hours and wanted to know if General Calculus was a Roman war hero..."

Mother to her daughter: "Why does the tablecloth you just put on the table have the word `truth' written on it?"
Daughter: "Because I want to turn the table into a truth table!"

A mathematician and his best friend, an engineer, attend a public lecture on geometry in thirteen-dimensional space.
"How did you like it?" the mathematician wants to know after the talk.
"My head's spinning", the engineer confesses. "How can you develop any intuition for thirteen-dimensional space?"
"Well, it's not even difficult. All I do is visualize the situation in arbitrary N-dimensional space and then set N = 13."

A newlywed husband is discouraged by his wife's obsession with mathematics. Afraid of being second fiddle to her profession, he finally confronts her: "Do you love math more than me?"
"Of course not, dear - I love you much more!"
Happy, although sceptical, he challenges her: "Well, then prove it!"
Pondering a bit, she responds: "Ok... Let epsilon be greater than zero..."

"So how's your boyfriend doing, the math student?"
"Don't mention that crazy pervert to me anymore! We broke up."
"How can you say such a nasty thing about him? He seemed to be such a nice boy."
"Imagine! He was restless during the days and couldn't sleep at night - always trying to solve his math problems. When he had finally done it, he wasn't happy: he would call himself a complete idiot and throw all his notes into the garbage. One day, I couldn't take it anymore, and I told him to drop math. You know what he told me?"
"No."
"He said, he enjoyed it!!!"

It is only two weeks into the term that, in a calculus class, a student raises his hand and asks: "Will we ever need this stuff in real life?"
The professor gently smiles at him and says: "Of course not - if your real life will consist of flipping hamburgers at MacDonald's!"

An American mathematician returns home from a conference in Moscow on real and complex analysis.
The immigration officer at the airport glances at his landing card and says: "So, your trip to Russia was business related. What's the nature of your business?"
"I am a professor of mathematics."
"What kind of mathematics are you doing?"
The professor ponders for a split second, trying to come up with something that would sound specific enough without making the immigration officer suspicious, and replies: "I am an analyst."
The immigration officer nods with approval: "I think it's great that guys like you go to Russia to help those poor ex-commies to get their stock market on its feet..."

An investment firm is hiring mathematicians. After the first round of interviews, three hopeful recent graduates - a pure mathematician, an applied mathematician, and a graduate in mathematical finance - are asked what starting salary they are expecting.
The pure mathematician: "Would $30,000 be too much?"
The applied mathematician: "I think $60,000 would be OK."
The math finance person: "What about $300,000?"
The personnel officer is flabberghasted: "Do you know that we have a graduate in pure mathematics who is willing to do the same work for a tenth of what you are demanding!?"
"Well, I thought of $135,000 for me, $135,000 for you - and $30,000 for the pure mathematician who will do the work."

Statistics Canada is hiring mathematicians. Three recent graduates are invited for an interview: one has a degree in pure mathematics, another one in applied math, and the third one obtained his B.Sc. in statistics.
All three are asked the same question: "What is one third plus two thirds?"
The pure mathematician: "It's one."
The applied mathematician takes out his pocket calculator, punches in the numbers, and replies: "It's 0.999999999."
The statistician: "What do you want it to be?"

A math professor, a native Texan, was asked by one of his students: "What is mathematics good for?"
He replied: "This question makes me sick! If you show someone the Grand Canyon for the first time, and he asks you `What's it good for?' What would you do? Well, you kick that guy off the cliff!"

In a speech to a gathering of mathematics professors from throughout the United States, George W. Bush warned the academics not to misuse their position to force their often extremist political views on young Americans. "It is my understanding", the president said, "that you are frequently teaching algebra classes in which your students learn how to solve equations with the help of radicals. I can't say that I approve of that..."

Denis Diderot was a French philosopher in the 18^th century. He traveled Europe extensively, and on his travels also stopped at the Russian court in St. Petersburg. His wit and suave charm soon drew a large following among the younger nobles at the court - and so did his atheist philosophy. That worried empress Catherine the Great very much...
Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler was working at the Russian court at that time, and unlike Diderot, he was a devout Christian. So, the empress asked him for help in dealing with the threat posed by Diderot.
Euler had himself introduced to Diderot as a man who had found a mathematical proof for the existence of God. With a stern face the mathematician confronted the philosopher: "Monsieur, (a+bⁿ)/n = x holds! Hence, God exists. What is your answer to that?"
Quick-witted Diderot was speechless, was laughed at by his followers, and soon returned to France.

Three statisticians go hunting. When they see a rabbit, the first one shoots, missing it on the left. The second one shoots and misses it on the right.
The third one shouts: "We've hit it!"

Theorem. Every positive integer is interesting.

Proof. Assume towards a contradiction that there is an uninteresting positive integer. Then there must be a smallest uninteresting positive integer. But being the smallest uninteresting positive integer is interesting by itself. Contradiction!

Math problems? Call 1-800-[(10x)(13i)²]-[sin(xy)/2.362x].

Mathematicians never die - they only loose some of their functions.

Q: What is the value of the contour integral around Western Europe?
A: Zero.
Q: Why?
A: Because all poles are in Eastern Europe!

There were three medieval kingdoms on the shores of a lake. There was an island in the middle of the lake, over which the kingdoms had been fighting for years. Finally, the three kings decided that they would send their knights out to do battle, and the winner would take the island.
The night before the battle, the knights and their squires pitched camp and readied themselves for the fight. The first kingdom had 12 knights, and each knight had five squires, all of whom were busily polishing armor, brushing horses, and cooking food. The second kingdom had twenty knights, and each knight had 10 squires. Everyone at that camp was also busy preparing for battle. At the camp of the third kingdom, there was only one knight, with his squire. This squire took a large pot and hung it from a looped rope in a tall tree. He busied himself preparing the meal, while the knight polished his own armor.
When the hour of the battle came, the three kingdoms sent their squires out to fight (this was too trivial a matter for the knights to join in).
The battle raged, and when the dust had cleared, the only person left was the lone squire from the third kingdom, having defeated the squires from the other two kingdoms, thus proving that the squire of the high pot and noose is equal to the sum of the squires of the other two sides.

Q: What is sour, yellow, and equivalent to the axiom of choice...
A: Zorn's lemon...

Q: What is polite and works for the phone company?
A: A differential(deferential) operator...

Q: What is purple and commutative?
A: An abelian grape...

A mathematician organizes a raffle in which the prize is an infinite amount of money paid over an infinite amount of time. Of course, with the promise of such a prize, his tickets sell like hot cake.
When the winning ticket is drawn, and the jubilant winner comes to claim his prize, the mathematician explains the mode of payment: "1 dollar now, 1/2 dollar next week, 1/3 dollar the week after that..."

Q: What does the Ph.D. in math with a job say to the Ph.D. in math without a job?
A: `Paper or plastic?'

When Noah's ark had finally come to a rest on top of mount Ararat, and when the waters had receded, Noah and his family - along with all the animals - left the ark, and God told them to be fruitful and multiply upon the earth.
But after all those months under deck on an overcrowded ark, none of the animals was in the mood for sex anymore.
Noah, who knew all too well what God could do in his wrath if his creatures were disobedient, got desperate.
So, he tore down one of the ark's masts, cut it into pieces, and built a table out of the logs. Then he told one of the snakes to perform a lascivious dance on top of the table and made all the other animals gather around it. After a while the snake's seductive moves showed an effect: One animal after the other started rocking in the rhythm of the snake's dance, and one after the other sneaked off with its mate to more private places... Finally, the dancing snake and her mate were all alone, and they too disappeared.
And Noah was pleased that God's will would be heeded.

Q: What does this story from the book of Genesis teach us about math?
A: When you have to multiply, all you need are a log table and an adder!

Q: How do you make one burn?
A: Differentiate a log fire!

A math professor is talking to her little brother who just started his first year of graduate school in mathematics.
"What's your favorite thing about mathematics?" the brother wants to know.
"Knot theory."
"Yeah, me neither."

Q: How do you call the largest accumulation point of poles?
A: Warsaw!

A visitor at the Royal Tyrell Museum asks a museum employee: "Can you tell me how old the skeleton of that T-Rex is?"
"It is precisely 60 million and three years, two months, and eighteen days old."
"How can you know that with such precision?!"
"Well, when I started working here, one of the scientists told me that the skeleton was 60 million years old - and that was precisely three years, two months, and eighteen days ago..."

The math professor's six-year-old son knocks at the door of his father's study.
"Daddy", he says. "I need help with a math problem I couldn't do at school."
"Sure", the father says and smiles. "Just tell me what's bothering you."
"Well, it's a really hard problem: There are four ducks swimming in a pond, when two more ducks come and join them. How many ducks are now swimming in the pond?"
The professor stares at his son with disbelief: "You couldn't do that?! All you need to know is that 4 + 2 = 6!"
"Do you think, I'm stupid?! Of course, I know that 4 + 2 = 6. But what does this have to do with ducks!?"

"What is Pi?"
A mathematician: "Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter."
A computer programmer: "Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision."
A physicist: "Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005."
An engineer: "Pi is about 22/7."
A nutritionist: "Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert!"

A mathematician and a stock broker go to the races to bet on horses. The broker suggests a bet of $10,000. That's too much for the mathematician's taste: First, he wants to understand the rules, have a look at the horses, etc.
"Don't worry", the broker says. "I know an empirical algorithm that allows me to find the number of the winning horse with absolute certainty."
This does not convince the mathematician.
"You are too theoretical!" the broker exclaims and puts his $10,000 on a horse.
The horse comes in first - making the broker even richer than he already is. The mathematician is baffled.
"What is your algorithm?" he wants to know.
"It's rather easy. I have two children, three and five years old. I add up their ages and bet on that number."
"But three plus five is eight - and that horse had number nine!"
"I told you that you're too theoretical! Didn't I just experimentally prove that my calculation is correct?!"