LaTeX/Math jokes

Question

Lighten up a bit guys. How about the following

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
If~~$\displaystyle\lim_{x\rightarrow8}\frac{1}{x{-}8}=\infty$
~~then~~$\displaystyle\lim_{x\rightarrow5}\frac{1}{x{-}5}=\rotatebox{90}{5}$
\end{document}

Which gives — enter image description here

Can anyone give me some nice Tikz of PStricks code for the following enter image description here

I am sure there there must be more Latex humor out there, even among the Germans ;-)

To avoid this becoming simply a rehash of the AMS article, may I add the proviso that TeX has to be non-trivially involved in the joke (as is the case in the two examples given). — Andrew Stacey, May 16 '11 at 06:59
I made it CW because it asks about more contributions which wouldn't fit in the normal Q&A scheme. — Martin Scharrer, May 16 '11 at 07:21
@Danie: You should add any new examples that you think of as answers rather than editing the question. — Andrew Stacey, May 16 '11 at 08:41
@Martin: That's exactly the sort of thing I'd like this place to avoid. (Though I did once have a friend who said "As 5 -> 0 ..." with a straight face.) — Andrew Stacey, May 16 '11 at 12:40
For the first example I think \rotatebox{-90}{5} is more correct. Notice where the heavier stroke of the 8 and \infty fall. Yes I am a pedant. — Lev Bishop, May 16 '11 at 13:07
Can I please change the first sentence a bit? The way I read it, there is a hidden implication that we take ourselves too seriously here on TeX-SX. — Andrew Stacey, May 17 '11 at 18:26
@Andrew Stacey: I've started using Latex way back in the previous millennium. The one thing that I have seen everywhere, here, CTT, other newsgroups is that we are taking ourselves way to serious. This is the first time through all the years that I have seen postings on latex humor. History in the making and you are part of it ;-) — Danie Els, May 18 '11 at 04:15
@Danie: This is the first TeX-like group that I've joined and I've found it to have a good atmosphere. Serious enough that we don't get overwhelmed with silly stuff, but not so serious that we can't enjoy ourselves (for example, I note that your question has only one downvote). Your first sentence reads (to me): "Everyone here is so serious. Let's lighten up a bit!". I would have written something more neutral, such as "They say that humour is a great way to learn. So let's have some examples of TeX humour. Things like ..." — Andrew Stacey, May 18 '11 at 08:32
@Danie: (Probably worth noting that I cut my teeth on MathOverflow where we do take ourselves very seriously.) — Andrew Stacey, May 18 '11 at 08:33
Since this starts to attract lots of negatively voted answers, I vote to close the question. — Caramdir, May 26 '11 at 19:00
@Caramdir: We will never find this bug http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/93093/151752 without many negatively voted responses. — Display Name, May 29 '11 at 14:16
I've also voted to close now. The idea I had was that the "jokes" should reveal something about TeX, such as illustrating a technique. Some answers did that, but the longer the question stays open then the less likely it is that new answers will continue in that vein. So while I enjoyed it when it was asked, I think that it had a finite life and it is now time to close it. — Andrew Stacey, May 29 '11 at 20:21
This topic did not explain the rules from the beginning. I thought that we have to make a joke of mathematics using LaTeX. Or make a joke of mathematics without using LaTeX. Or make a joke of LaTeX without associating it with math. This topic has been subjective since the beginning and we are late to close it. Obviously there are benefits that can be learned. :) — Display Name, May 31 '11 at 04:07

score 37 · Answer 1 · answered May 16 '11 at 08:14

37

I was laughing about this one quite a bit. I had to recall it from German and translate it. Feel free to adjust the language.

500random

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{pgffor}
\pagestyle{empty}

\parindent=0pt
\begin{document}
\large\sffamily

\resizebox{\textwidth}{!}{The first 500 natural random numbers}

\vspace{1em}

\centerline{\LARGE For easy access listed in their natural order}
\bigskip

\par\noindent
\foreach \n in {1,...,500} {%
    \makebox[1.8em][r]{\n}
}

\end{document}

answered May 16 '11 at 08:14

Martin Scharrer

262,582

@ Martin Scharrer - I like this. Do you mind if I turn it into a natural number spotter's guide and stick it on wall? – Richard Terrett May 18 '11 at 08:29
1

@Richard: Sure. Note I didn't came up with it. I saw this in my college in the math building once. – Martin Scharrer May 18 '11 at 08:32

score 37 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 03 '17 at 11:13

37

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}

Expand $(a+b)^n$:
\begin{gather*}
  (a + b)^n\\
  (a\ + \ b)^n\\
  (a\quad + \quad b)^n\\
  (a\qquad + \qquad b)^n
\end{gather*}

\end{document}

enter image description here

EDIT: to Andrew:

\documentclass{article}

\newcount\mycntr

\begin{document}

Expand $(a+b)^n$:

\begin{center}
  \mycntr=0
  \loop\advance\mycntr by 1
  \ifnum\mycntr<40
    $(a\hskip\mycntr pt +\hskip\mycntr pt b)^n$\\
  \repeat
\end{center}

\end{document}

edited Jun 03 '17 at 11:13

Moriambar

11,466

answered May 16 '11 at 16:00

Gonzalo Medina

505,128

1

This one is epic. – Paulo Cereda May 16 '11 at 16:31
6

Aw, come on ... no iteration? Let's have a more programmatic version of this one! – Andrew Stacey May 16 '11 at 17:45
@Andrew Stacey: done. Personally I prefer the non-iterative version. – Gonzalo Medina May 16 '11 at 18:09
I prefer expanding the expression in 2 dimension. – Display Name May 27 '11 at 07:05

score 36 · Accepted Answer · answered May 16 '11 at 07:33

36

How about:

\font\donteveruseoutsidecartoons="Comic Sans MS" at 14pt
\font\donteveruseoutsidecartoonstwo="Comic Sans MS/IB:slant=.3pt" at 22pt
\input tikz
\usetikzlibrary{shapes.callouts,positioning}
\tikzpicture[mycallout/.style={draw,ellipse callout,inner sep=1.2ex,
    callout relative pointer={#1}}]
  \node[mycallout={(.5cm,-.5cm)}] (ico) {\donteveruseoutsidecartoons Be rational};
  \node[mycallout={(-.5cm,-.5cm)}, right=of ico] (pco) {\donteveruseoutsidecartoons Get real};
  \node[below=.1ex of ico.pointer] {\donteveruseoutsidecartoonstwo i};
  \node[below left=.1ex of pco.pointer] {\donteveruseoutsidecartoonstwo π\vphantom(};
\endtikzpicture
\bye

enter image description here

answered May 16 '11 at 07:33

morbusg

25,490
4
81
162

30

especially for the font names – Andrew Stacey May 16 '11 at 07:40
2

This is very good. People may not realize it, but all this stuff is very usefull to make boring engineering or math lectures a little bit more interesting. – Danie Els May 16 '11 at 08:00
1

@Danie: Completely agree. And often (speaking as a lecturer) it's not until I see an example that I realise that such things are possible so there is certainly potential value in this question. – Andrew Stacey May 16 '11 at 08:28
1

–1 for the font. ;-) – Konrad Rudolph May 16 '11 at 11:53
3

@Konrad --- surely that should be \mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\pi} for the font? – Ian Thompson May 16 '11 at 15:59

score 33 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 15 '17 at 07:37

A silly one I found on a blog:

six

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{cancel}

\begin{document}

\begin{eqnarray*}
    \frac{1}{n}\sin x & = & \mathrm{?} \\
    \frac{1}{\cancel{n}} \mathrm{si}\cancel{\mathrm{n}} ~x & = & \mathrm{?} \\
    \mathrm{six} & = & 6
\end{eqnarray*}

\end{document}

This one from xkcd is a classic:

transform

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}

$
\begin{bmatrix}
    \cos 90^{\circ} & \sin 90^{\circ}\\
   -\sin 90^{\circ} & \cos 90^{\circ}
\end{bmatrix}
\begin{bmatrix} a1 \\ a2 \end{bmatrix}
=
$
\rotatebox[origin=c]{270}{$\begin{bmatrix} a1 \\ a2 \end{bmatrix}$}

\end{document}

Paulo Cereda · Answer 5 · 2011-05-16T16:20:44.807

32

I never played with tikz before, so that's my first attempt. I simply love the following joke:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.pathmorphing}
\usepackage{frcursive}
\begin{document}

Find $x$.

\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw (0,0) -- (4,0) node[midway,below] {4 cm}
   -- (4,3) node[midway,right] {3 cm}
   -- (0,0) node[midway,left,circle,draw=blue,decorate,decoration={random steps,segment length=1pt,amplitude=0.5pt}]{$x$}
   -- (4,0) rectangle (3.7,0.3)
   -- cycle;
\draw (0.4,0) arc (0:30:0.5);
\draw (4,2.6) arc (270:226:0.5);
\draw (1,2.1) node []{\color{blue}\fontfamily{frc}\selectfont{It's here!}};
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

The result:

Find x.

edited May 16 '11 at 16:20

answered May 16 '11 at 15:03

Paulo Cereda

44,220

2

You should also draw a blue circle around x. Just add circle,draw=blue to its node. I might need to set the color of the content back to black. – Martin Scharrer May 16 '11 at 15:22
@Martin Scharrer: Thanks a lot, I updated both code and image. It looks way better that way! =) – Paulo Cereda May 16 '11 at 15:59
4

The circle could use a jittering line (it’s hand-drawn, right?). You can use the random steps decoration for that. – Konrad Rudolph May 16 '11 at 16:07
2

@Konrad Rudolph: Thanks, I updated the code again. You guys are awesome! =) – Paulo Cereda May 16 '11 at 16:24
3

A pedant's note: you could use a \, or \SI from siunitx to typeset the lengths. – Andrey Vihrov May 17 '11 at 15:11

score 16 · Answer 6 · answered May 16 '11 at 15:34

16

Mathematicians do it in \LaTeX.

I'll get my coat.

answered May 16 '11 at 15:34

Ian Thompson

43,767

http://i.stack.imgur.com/jplOL.jpg – Sean Allred Jul 18 '15 at 23:52

score 12 · Answer 7 · answered May 16 '11 at 10:32

12

To all my Australian friends:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
\noindent Are there any \raisebox{1ex}{\rotatebox[origin=B]{180}{Australians}}
here mate?\\ Hang on tight!
\end{document}

enter image description here

answered May 16 '11 at 10:32

Danie Els

19,694

score 6 · Answer 8 · edited Jun 15 '17 at 06:58

Here's another joke I remember:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[light,math]{anttor}

\begin{document}

Let $\displaystyle f(a) = \sqrt[n]{e^x}$.

\begin{minipage}{0.5\textwidth}
   \begin{eqnarray*}
      \lim_{t\rightarrow\infty} f(a) - \frac{i}{f(t)} & = & \frac{d}{dx} f(u) \\
      \lim_{t\rightarrow\infty} f(a) - \frac{i}{\infty} & = & \frac{d}{dx} f(u) \\
      \lim_{t\rightarrow\infty} f(a) - 0 & = & \frac{d}{dx} f(u)
   \end{eqnarray*}
\end{minipage}

\bigskip

Then

\begin{minipage}{0.5\textwidth}
   \begin{eqnarray*}
      \sqrt[n]{e^x} & = & \frac{d}{dx} f(u) \\
      (\sqrt[n]{e^x})^n & = & \frac{d}{dx} f(u)^n \\
      e^x & = & \frac{d}{dx} f(u)^n \\
      \int e^x & = & f(u)^n
   \end{eqnarray*}
\end{minipage}

\end{document}

The output:

You naughty equation!

Sadly, no. I simply wrote it as it is from a PNG image. =) — Paulo Cereda, May 27 '11 at 09:11

score 3 · Answer 9 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

3

Riffing on the "Australians" joke, borrowing from this answer.

Any Australians here?

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

Community

1

answered May 16 '11 at 10:37

Seamus

73,242

1

I get the original joke, but fail to see it in the alternations. – Martin Scharrer May 16 '11 at 11:31
@Martin it's my tribute to Stewart Lee – Seamus May 16 '11 at 11:40

LaTeX/Math jokes

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