More Math for More People
CPM Educational Program is a non-profit publisher of math textbooks for grades 6-12. As part of its mission, CPM provides a multitude of professional learning opportunities for math educators. The More Math for More People podcast is part of that outreach and mission. Published biweekly, the hosts, Joel Miller and Misty Nikula, discuss the CPM curriculum, trends in math education and share strategies to shift instructional practices to create a more inclusive and student-centered classroom. They also highlight upcoming CPM professional learning opportunities and have conversations with math educators about how they do what they do. We hope that you find the podcast informative, engaging and fun. Intro music credit: JuliusH from pixabay.com.
More Math for More People
Episode 4.6: Where Joel and Misty talk about sprinkles and complete their conversation with Kevin Dykema
It's National Sprinkle Day! So, of course, Joel and Misty first discuss how they use sprinkles, different names for sprinkles, and some other interesting facts about them. How will you celebrate?
Then they have the final part of their conversation about productive struggle in math class with Kevin Dykema, the President of NCTM. If you missed parts one and two, then rewind back to June 25 to start from the beginning.
To connect with Kevin:
X: @ kdykema
Instagram: dykemamath
LinkedIn: kevin-dykema
Then, Joel and Misty google some higher level math jokes. Maybe you can explain some of them to us?
Send Joel and Misty a message!
The More Math for More People Podcast is produced by CPM Educational Program.
Learn more at CPM.org
X: @cpmmath
Facebook: CPMEducationalProgram
Email: cpmpodcast@cpm.org
You are listening to the More Math for More People podcast. An outreach of CPM educational programs Boom. An outreach of CPM Educational Program.
Speaker 2:Boom, July 23rd 2024. What is our national day, Joel?
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:National Sprinkle Day. Sprinkle Day, sprinkle Day.
Speaker 1:Sprinkle Day.
Speaker 2:Sprinkle Day. Okay, I'm trying to wonder what the context of this is. Do you mean like rain sprinkle? Do you mean like sprinkles you put on? Like to call it sprinkle is interesting to me, not sprinkles day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sprinkle Day, we're celebrating non perioles.
Speaker 2:The candy sprinkle. Oh yeah, I never had to know how to say that word either. I think it's non-perioles. Non-perioles. I see that word all the time and I'm always like what does that actually mean? Is that what those things are called?
Speaker 1:Why are they non something I don't know, but why are they not?
Speaker 2:something. They's what those things are called.
Speaker 1:Why are they non-something?
Speaker 2:I know, but why are they not something they're?
Speaker 1:decorative. What are perils, then? Yeah, what are perils? These are the non-peril.
Speaker 2:They're a decorative confectionary of tiny balls made of sugar and starch. It's such a weird thing to call them that they're not something else, but it doesn't make any sense to me. We used to call those jimmies.
Speaker 1:Jimmies? Did you ever call them jimmies the sprinkles?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I moved around a lot when I was a kid, right, and when we moved to Massachusetts and we went to this restaurant it was called Friendly's, I think was the restaurant, and they had delicious ice cream like sundaes and banana splits and things like that ice cream like sundaes and banana splits and things like that and they asked us if we wanted jimmies on them. I've never heard that before, and I remember we were like what are those?
Speaker 1:And there were the chocolate sprinkles.
Speaker 2:Oh, specific chocolate. Well, they were chocolate. I think that's the only. They really only refer to the chocolate ones, as I remember as jimmies, but I was 10, so I might have forgotten.
Speaker 1:Fair enough.
Speaker 2:But yeah, we learned that they were called jimmies and that's the only other place that I ever remember them being called jimmies.
Speaker 1:I see here in the 1930s jimmies in America Jimmies are used as a cake topping there you go.
Speaker 2:Interesting. So and at Friendly's in Massachusetts in the 1980s. No 1970s.
Speaker 1:So they're called Hegel's Leg in the Netherlands. What?
Speaker 2:Hegel's Leg. It sounds like a Dutch word. You probably have to say it Hegel's Leg.
Speaker 1:And they're Jimmy's in Boston and Philadelphia and they're Mews and Stroge's in Belgium, which means mouse droppings.
Speaker 2:Oh, delicious.
Speaker 1:Like some mouse droppings or some musenstrojies.
Speaker 2:So Jimmy's is a. So I wonder if our coworker who lives in Philadelphia area calls them Jimmy's also. Well, we have to to have to find out. Maybe she'll send us a message and let us know. Yeah, I hope so, but anyway, but we don't know why they're called non-pareils.
Speaker 1:No, we don't know that yet, but I do want to say do you think you can give your dog sprinkles?
Speaker 2:No, you should not give your dog sprinkles as long as they don't contain chocolate.
Speaker 1:So don't give them jimmies.
Speaker 2:Yes, of course you could give them the sprinkles. Well, why would?
Speaker 1:you give your dog sprinkles.
Speaker 2:I don't. I think that's not. I think in general. Still, I'm not going to advocate to people that they should give their dog sprinkles. I could say it's probably not unsafe to do so, but I'm going to say I would still have some hesitation to give my dog sprinkles.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't give Wendell sprinkles. There's no way. Are sprinkles made of bugs?
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:Are sprinkles made of bugs? Why would they?
Speaker 2:be made of bugs.
Speaker 1:No. Well sprinkles have a coating of shelliac, which is something extracted from insects. So, yes, sprinkles have a coating.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, that's like saying it's ice cream made of seaweed.
Speaker 1:It's nothing like that.
Speaker 2:It has the agar stuff in it. It's exactly like that. Oh my gosh, exactly like that. Okay, so we don't know why they're called non-pearls. They're made with bugs.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And sometimes called jimmies, but only if they're chocolate and you could put them on a sugar cookie.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely From last episode. Callback from two weeks ago yeah, you could totally put them on a sugar cookie.
Speaker 2:Okay, I have another question, though. Does it include all the different kinds, like the rainbow sprinkles, the little ones that are metallic? Yes, all the different kinds, like the rainbow sprinkles, the little ones that are metallic, spheres, like all of those all kinds of sprinkles. What about the ones that are like the green sugar or the red?
Speaker 1:sugar? Yes, and in fact this day is all about learning the different variations of sprinkles so you can try them out.
Speaker 2:Yes, Sometimes they're like little shapes, like almost like hard candy.
Speaker 1:I don't know about the shapes, I just know about the little sprinkles there's ones that are like that are like little flowers.
Speaker 2:I don't know, and they're like they're like almost like Necco candy or something.
Speaker 1:So maybe that's Necco candy. There's all different kinds. No, no, no, no no, no, no big sprinkles. I bet that counts, then I only ever use sprinkles.
Speaker 2:I feel like when we were making cookies at.
Speaker 1:Christmas Fairy bread. Do you ever make fairy bread what? You take a piece of bread, you put some butter on it and then you sprinkles.
Speaker 2:Ooh.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I don't want to eat.
Speaker 1:It's the closest of what you'll get to what they're actually intended for. Actually Is what it says. That's what sprinkles were intended for is to put on your buttered bread they were intended to put on.
Speaker 2:Bread Says who.
Speaker 1:Says my source. Okay, well, that's interesting. Maybe that's why they're called nonpareils or whatever Something to do with, just don't do it.
Speaker 2:Alright, we're leaving you with so many research questions.
Speaker 1:I don't know guys.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it's it's National Sprinkle Day. I still think it's called National Sprinkles Day, but it's fine.
Speaker 3:We don't get to choose those things.
Speaker 2:No Well.
Speaker 3:I could just call it in my own head that way, anyway.
Speaker 2:So go have some sprinkles, get some, however you want, all right. All right, so today on the podcast, we have part three of our conversation with Kevin Dyke, who is the president of NCTM. If you missed parts one and part two, you should really go back to the June 25th podcast and start from the beginning. We split it into three parts for you. It was a nice conversation and you're going to want to hear how we led up to this part where we've talked a little bit about planning, we've talked a little bit about preparing and we move into how do we help students maintain their perseverance and be okay with making mistakes and some of that's modeling. So it's a great conversation. If you haven't heard the first parts, go back to the beginning. Otherwise, here you go, part three of our conversation with Kevin Dykema.
Speaker 3:One of the things that I constantly try to do and I'll emphasize the word try to do some days it works better than others. When the students have a misconception, when they make an error or whatever, I often try to figure out what's the problem they were really doing and so often if I can tell the student oh, you did a great job, but here's the problem you were solving, we're solving this problem. And when they can see what problem.
Speaker 3:They were really solving for so many they're like oh, now I know what I need to do to actually solve the problem that we're doing in class. Very rarely are students completely and totally clueless, but I think so often we think, oh, they either know how to do it or they don't know how to do it, and there's so many shades of gray in between there. And so often students may be 90% of the way with something understanding, but yet they're getting the problems consistently wrong with that. It's figuring out that last little bit. What's that? That's usually a relatively small little thing that we just need to tweak a little bit and all of a sudden they start to feel confident and they recognize that, and I do try as much as I can to help them. See. All right, if the problem was this, your solution strategy, your solution would have been perfect, but unfortunately you don't get to pick your own problem. Here's the problem we're actually working on in class today, or working on at this point in time.
Speaker 2:Well, and so often there I see that they're afraid to say what they think because so many times they've just been met with that's wrong, right, that's not. And they're still at an age where it's very hard to differentiate Right, because of their brain development. I was wrong versus, I am wrong, right. So there's. It could be really hard, if they've met that a lot of times, then to continue to say, well, here's what I was thinking when it's not received with oh, that's interesting thinking right, let's attach this other ideas to it as well.
Speaker 3:And I think sometimes our reaction as educators when we make a mistake. If I'm telling my students I value your mistakes, I think it's great. But then I make a mistake in class, I'm like, oh you guys, I can't believe I did that, how embarrassing. I wish I wouldn't have done that class. And like, oh you guys, I can't believe I did that, how embarrassing, I wish.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't have done that?
Speaker 3:What message is that really sending? Or those teachers that say, oh, I purposely made that mistake to see if you were paying attention, baloney, you are not. Just own up to that. If we want our students to recognize that it's through their mistakes that we can learn, they need to see us as the educators, as the adults in the room. They need just see that we can make a mistake as well and that life continues on and that it's okay that we made that mistake. At that point in time, we figure out what we did wrong and we keep on keeping on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love how we're celebrating mistakes. Obviously is what we're talking about, but then I like how you phrase it as oh, I'm going to find out the problem that you're solving. So, likewise, as an adult, I was trying to solve this other problem. Yeah, very much so. That's a great way to think about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Or sometimes I again working with teachers like a teacher, I have dyslexia and sometimes I write the things wrong on the board. You need to be paying attention to what I'm writing on the board. Did I do this right? Did I do that step right? And acknowledging that, yeah, it's just part of my learning and the way I operate, and particularly on the board. It's hard and it gets kids paying attention and then they're like, oh wait, that's supposed to be an X squared. He's like okay, and fixes it right, but it's engaging them in the learning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had this weird phenomenon sometimes of saying the answer is 42. And as I'm writing on the board, I write 89 or some other random number that I have no idea where it came from. And the class all laughs and I just look and say I have no idea where that came from. I told you the correct stuff of what I wrote down, for whatever reason is there. But how do I react in that moment If I make a big deal out of it, say, I'm so embarrassed, we're just telling the kids making mistakes isn't good, persevering isn't necessary at that point in time if I need to make sure that my actions are modeling what I'm, what I'm saying to the students.
Speaker 1:Absolutely one of the things that I find it great that you've been working with students with exceptionalities, and you had that NCTM conference that you've put together, and so often those are the students that are least likely to be supported in struggle, and so I wanted to hear your thoughts of.
Speaker 2:On both ends.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Very much, so we push kids on both ends toward here's the procedure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very much so. We push kids on both ends toward here's the procedure.
Speaker 3:We're thinking about students who are receiving specialized learning services through IEPs. For so many of them it's just rote memorization. And when I look at how many students have IEPs in middle school and high school, their objective is to be able to multiply one-digit numbers or whatever the case Boring. Let's allow them to think and maybe it's through that thinking and we provide them the tools to do some of those calculations. I am not saying that I don't want students to have their facts memorized. I would love for them to have their facts memorized, but the reality is so did my teacher. My teacher would have loved for all of us to have our facts memorized. I did, but some of the students who struggled did not have it. But we've historically done in mathematics we've denied access to high quality, interesting math that we don't give our students any opportunities to to want to continue doing math because we just keep beating them over the head with the same thing year after year after year and increasingly students whether they have a disability, whether they don't have a disability are like forget you when you think about students who are currently excelling. Sometimes students who are currently excelling really have very little critical thinking skills. They just memorize the procedures.
Speaker 3:Well, I was a great rule memorizer, but it wasn't until I started teaching that I started to see some of those connections. And I'm sure my students my first few years of teaching thought I was absolutely crazy, because in the middle of class they'd be like, oh, now I get it. And they would say don't you know how to do the problem? I'd say yes, but there's a difference between knowing how and then knowing why. I'd say yes, but there's a difference between knowing how and then knowing why. And this was, I mean.
Speaker 3:I was a student in the pre-technology days. Graphic calculators were just starting to be a thing in my high school as I was getting ready to be a senior. And now we know there's so much more technology available to our students than if that was my experience. My students' experience better look different than my experience, however, many years ago, because we live in an ever-increasing technology world and we live in a society where some of those calculations so many of us were just taught to be human calculators in some respects. And our students don't need to be human calculators. They have tools at their disposal. Let's get them to think when you think about a professional mathematician. They're not sitting around doing worksheet after worksheet after worksheet, they're actually thinking, making sense, trying to push the boundaries of what's already known. But yet in K-12, so much mathematics is really just worksheet after worksheet after worksheet and there's this disconnect between what mathematics is and what mathematics should be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and that's, that's a. There's a such a conflict with that, right, because, yes, practice is a thing our brains need. We do need to do things to repeat information, to make those the you know, to myelinate the, the neural pathways, right, and. But if that's all we're doing, that's not very interesting and it doesn't last over time. So how to balance that, how to balance enough practice right To get the familiar with those ideas, with the conceptual understanding as well, right, so that students are able to make all those connections that you and I and Joel can make because we've been learning math for a long time, we've got a lot of different things in there and how to help students who are still at this very non-expert space to make those, to begin to make those connections. It's such a big, it's a conflict and it's a challenge. It's such a big, it's a conflict and it's a challenge, right at the same time.
Speaker 3:Very much so, and the amount of purposeful practice that student A needs may look different than the amount of purposeful practice that student B needs and may be different than student C. We tend to give everybody the same thing, and it's figuring out. How do you make those, those critical adaptations to support every single student and yet not not overdo it with students, but not underdo it with students. It's a challenge. I think that's one of the beautiful things about teaching mathematics. That's why I love to to teach mathematics, because what works for student a doesn't work for student b, and it's figuring, figuring out what is going to work for you. How can I help you engage in this notion of productive struggles that you're making sense of the mathematics and you're seeing those different connections, rather than just having to try to memorize a set of procedures that we know for many students they just don't see a purpose for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, purpose for yeah. And before you're talking about ieps and changing what what's in an iep to help a student have a goal of thinking. And then I wanted fun activity. That would be everybody make their own individualized plan and how can you think and you can reflect yourself and the teacher could respond to that. That would be fun activity yeah it would be,
Speaker 2:I remember when I taught middle school also, and I always felt like that was one of my goals, many goals but one of my many goals was to help students figure out how they learn right, like having a little binder with the dividers and that may not be the way the organization that works for you, and you may struggle to figure out an organization that works. So how can we give you some options and some things to try? But some part of it was like okay, what kind of ways of taking notes works for you? What kinds of ways? And so it's giving them lots of different options and having them think about did this work for me? Well, I don't know, why did it not work for me? I don't know. So how can they get into that metacognitive activity around their own thinking?
Speaker 3:Very much so. And middle schoolers, what works for student A doesn't work for student B. With the organization.
Speaker 3:And the same thing is true for adults I'm sure for other ages as well that you have that student who has an incredibly messy binder, an incredibly messy locker, and yet they know where every last little piece of paper is and they can find everything there. And for those who are highly organized, it drives them absolutely crazy. And sitting at parent-teacher conferences it becomes evident sometimes that the parents are so frustrated with the child because the child looks like it's a disaster zone with their binder. But that kid can just pull and find anything fairly quickly. But that's not how the parents want them to be organized.
Speaker 3:And it's a beautiful thing in teaching middle schoolers. They're quirky.
Speaker 2:Well, so we're going to wrap up here, and I think, joel, you have a request, don't you?
Speaker 1:I do. One of our new segments for our fourth season of this podcast is we're requesting if anybody has math jokes. So I'm asking you do you have a math joke that you'd like to share?
Speaker 2:with the audience, A favorite go-to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, nothing tremendously great other than the best.
Speaker 2:It could be your favorite and I'll be great to be clear.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, it's not all. That. It's what I may think has some humor. My two daughters, who are now 24 and 22, don't find quite as humorous. But what do you do if you're cold? You can go stand in the corner, because it's 90 degrees.
Speaker 1:I like it, thank you.
Speaker 3:But now I want to go back and listen to all of your podcasts so I can get a whole bunch of math jokes. Yes, it'll be great to expand my repertoire. My daughters will love it when I start texting them all these different math jokes.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. I think that pretty much all of them are pretty punny. I don't think we've come across very many math jokes that aren't puns, so far, so fun.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much. Oh, you're very welcome.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for coming on the podcast and spending this time with us.
Speaker 3:Thanks for all you're doing to help promote math education and thanks to all of our listeners today of thinking about what can you do to help math make sense for our students. And to move past the procedures and get them engaging in seeing those different connections.
Speaker 2:And good luck with your keynote at the CCMC. We hope it goes well. Joel will report on it later.
Speaker 1:I will. I'll come say hello, sounds great.
Speaker 3:All right Sounds great.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you, kelly, thank you Okay.
Speaker 2:so we've started this new segment on the podcast with math jokes. We have, and we've gotten a few math jokes submitted so far. They're all like one-liners, right.
Speaker 1:They're just like what's this? And kind of punny too.
Speaker 2:And an answer yeah, and there were a kind of punny too. And an answer yeah, and there were a lot of puns yeah. So we were curious if we could find I wanted to find a math joke that was a story right Like a long story math joke. And so we Googled story math jokes, yeah, and we found a couple of Reddit pages, and so we're going to share some of the math jokes that are there. Okay, so what do you got, joel?
Speaker 1:I was on the what's your favorite math joke. That requires at least some amount of higher education in math. Okay, so let's try. Should we just try one?
Speaker 2:Sure Go for it.
Speaker 1:So you keyed it up with a big story.
Speaker 2:However, we'll just see, well, that's what I Googled. That doesn't mean that's what we found, let's just try this one.
Speaker 1:Okay, how do you make?
Speaker 2:a computer program that decides if a number over 10 to the 50th power is a prime or not with 99% accuracy. I have no idea, just say not a prime every time I don't get it. I don't get it either okay okay, oh, I get it. No, I get it now because 99 of the numbers that big must not be primes, see there you go.
Speaker 1:Oh see, it made sense I'm glad I got that one.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, okay. Okay, I've got one. That's like a story. So a mathematician walks into a bar accompanied by a dog and a cow. The bartender says hey, no, animals are allowed in here. The mathematician replies these are very special animals. How so? The mathematician says they're not theorists. The bartender raises his eyebrows and says I've met a number of not theorists who I thought were animals, but never an animal. That was a not theorist. Well, I'll prove it to you. Ask them anything you like. So the bartender asks the dog Name a not invariant Arf, barks the dog. The bartender scowls and turns to the cow asking "'Name a topological invariant'. "'moo' says the cow. At this point the bartender turns to the mathematician and says very funny, with that he throws the three out of the bar, outside sitting on the curb. The dog turns to the mathematician and asks do you think I should have said the Jones polynomial instead? I don't know anything about knot theory, so I do understand why and how that's supposed to be funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I don't really.
Speaker 1:Because Mew and yeah, I do see the person who submitted that joke has told it many times with great success.
Speaker 2:So that's something to keep in mind. It's been upvoted on. Up voted on reddit, so what are little eigensheep called eigensheep I don't lambda again.
Speaker 1:I get it because I don't really know what I can know, but I know, like the symbol, lambda, right, like that's got to be like no, I get that, I get that.
Speaker 2:I don't want to know what it has to do with eyeing a sheep. All right, this one says. Noah's ark settles on dry land. All the animals disembark and Noah goes back inside patting himself on the back. Inside he sees two snakes hanging back. Noah looks at them and says the Lord said go forth and multiply, beat it. The snakes look at him and one says we can't multiply, we're adders, adders. Huh, says Noah annoyed. He goes off into a nearby forest. Noah chops down a tree and proceeds to make a beautiful table from the split logs. He's after dragging the table all the way back to the ark and cursing himself for having wandered so far away. He stands before the snakes with much fanfare and says there, even adders can multiply with a log table. Wah.
Speaker 1:Oh boy, we need our sound effects.
Speaker 2:I know we're going to have to put the sound effects in here, that's for sure. I don't know what a. Do you know what a vuvuzela is?
Speaker 1:No, I don't know what a Vuvuzela is.
Speaker 2:Choke doesn't help.
Speaker 1:What do you call a group of symmetry preserving transformations of the Middle East? Oh, my goodness, lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence, I think we have to know what a Lawrence means.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's not spelled like l-o-r-e-n-t-z. Well, it's a group of symmetry preserving transformations is what I would think, apparently.
Speaker 2:Apparently, a respected mathematician goes to announce an exciting new result at a conference. The room crowded with people interested in all the hubba. He introduces the main idea and then moves into giving a sketch of the proof to the audience. Fifteen minutes pass, then twenty, thirty, forty, fifty all with the audience listening closely. Finally, he wraps up his presentation and begins taking questions. A junior researcher in the audience hesitates for a moment, then raises his hand. Excuse me, sir. Yes, I have a counterexample to. I haven't got any sense of it either.
Speaker 1:Well, that's it. That's the punchline. No, that's good so if he has a counterexample to one. He just has a differentline. No, that's good so if he has a counter example to one.
Speaker 2:He just has a different proofs. Yeah, that seems silly.
Speaker 1:Interesting. What is yellow, normed and complete.
Speaker 2:Yellow, normed and complete.
Speaker 1:A bonach space. No idea, no idea.
Speaker 2:No idea. Okay, this one I understand. Okay, an engineer and a computer scientist are asked to help out in the classroom. The professor placed an empty bucket on top of the table at the front of the room. He then asked the engineer remove the bucket from the room. The engineer circles the table, analyzes it from every angle, then picks up the bucket and walks out of the room with it. Very good, says the professor. He brings the bucket back in, fills it to the room with water and this time he places it underneath the table. He then asks the computer scientist take the bucket out of the room. The computer scientist circles the table, analyzes it from every angle, then picks the bucket up, dumps the water water all over the floor and places it on top of the table. The professor is aghast and his shoes are soaked. But you have not removed the bucket from the room, the professor complains. The computer scientist, with a smug look, exclaims Ah, but I have reduced the problem to one already solved.
Speaker 1:Ah, good one.
Speaker 2:I thought so too. Okay. This one, I think high school teachers can get too Okay let's do it. What do you get when you cross a mosquito with a mountain climber?
Speaker 1:Mosquito with a mountain climber.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:I want to say malaria, but I'm not sure. Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Nothing. You can't cross a vector with a scalar. That's a good one, sure, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Nothing. You can't cross a vector with a scalar. What? That's a good one. A sphere and a torus walk into a bar. When it comes time to pay the tab, the torus is out of cash. The sphere says Sorry, man, I can't cover you.
Speaker 2:Okay, this one's a good one too. So these two explorers are exploring in a hot air balloon and they get lost over the desert. They see someone walking beneath them and looking for help. They release the ballast and shout at her when are we? She thinks, and just before they get out of earshot, answers You're in a hot air balloon. The first explorer tells the second one she must be a mathematician. Why, says the second balloonist? One, because she thought before she answered. And two, her answer was 100% accurate. And three, it was totally useless.
Speaker 1:What do you think of mathematicians?
Speaker 2:So the mathematician says ah, I see, you guys must be physicists. Yes, indeed, we are. How do you know it? Well, for three reasons you got into an experiment without knowing exactly what you were doing. Two, when you got into trouble, you asked a mathematician for help. And three, and now that you find out that I can't help you, you're probably going to blame me for your failure. There's a lot of mathematician versus others.
Speaker 2:I was going to say let's point the fingers at everybody else kind of thing, well, it is true that mathematicians and engineers and career scientists like people who are really into those fields of thinking there is there's some very distinctive difference in how they approach this it's true. All right, you got one more for us, Joel.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You got a good one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they keep getting worse and worse.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, because we're going down the Reddit thread.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, Okay. An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first mathematician orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The first mathematician orders a beer, the second orders half a beer. I don't serve half beer. The bartender replies Excuse me.
Speaker 2:Asks mathematician number two what kind of bar serves half beers? The bartender remarks that's ridiculous. Oh, come on. Says mathematician number one. Do you know how hard it is to collect an infinite number of us? Just play along. There are very strict laws on how I can serve drinks. I couldn't serve you a half beer, even if I wanted to, but that's not a problem. Mathematician number three chimes in At the end of the joke you serve us a whole number of beers. You see, when you take the sum of a continuously halving function, I know how limits work, and there she acts, the bartender having function. I know how limits work, and there she acts, the bartender. All right then. I didn't want to assume a bartender would be familiar with such advanced mathematics. Are you kidding me? The bartender replies you learn limits in like ninth grade. What kind of mathematician thinks limits are advanced mathematics? He's on to us. Mathematician number one screeches Simultaneously, every mathematician opens their mouth and out pours a cloud of multicolored mosquitoes.
Speaker 2:What Each mathematician is bellowing insects of a different shade. The mosquitoes form into a singular polychromatic swarm Fools. It moves in unison. I will infect every being on this pathetic planet with malaria. The bartender stands fearless against the technicolor horde, but wait, he interrupts. Thinking fast. If you do that, politicians will use the catastrophe as an excuse to implement free health care. Think of how much that will hurt the taxpayers.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:I don't know where this is going. The mosquitoes fall silent for a brief moment. My God, you're right. We didn't think about the economy Very well. We will not attack this dimension For the taxpayers, and with that they vanish. Nearby Barfly stumbles over to the bartender. How did you know that would work? It's simple. The bartender says I saw the vectors formed a gradient and therefore must be conservative. Wah, this is the comment on a. This started out as a normal math joke, slid sideways into metahumor, took a sharp turn into cosmic horror and then somehow brought it all back into a dumb math punchline. I'm in awe. Okay, and with that.
Speaker 1:Wait, I got one more. I got one more.
Speaker 2:Okay, you got one more. Okay, one more. Last math joke.
Speaker 1:The Great Engineering, mathematics and Physics Convention was in town, so there were a lot of mathematicians, physicists and engineers staying at the local hotel. During the night a fire broke out on all three floors, and on the bottom floor an engineer was the first to wake up when the alarm went off. They ran out into the hallway, saw the fire, saw the fire hose and quickly calculated the exact amount of water to use to put out the fire so as to not cause any unnecessary damage to the building. The next person to wake up was the physicist. They saw the fire and the fire hose and quickly calculated the optimal trajectory for the water, so they don't have to get too close.
Speaker 1:Then the mathematician wakes up. They see the fire and the fire hose and declare aha, a solution exists and they go back to bed. This, of course, wakes up the mathematician's roommate, who is another mathematician. What's going on? They say oh, it's just a fire, but don't worry, there's a hose. Don't get me wrong. I take great satisfaction in knowing the problem can be easily solved, but this is a real-world situation and we have to take practical action or we'll die. So they run out into the hall and grab the fire hose, wake up the physicist and hand them the hose, thus reducing it to a previously solved problem.
Speaker 2:All right, I hope you enjoyed our math jokes. I thought they were somewhat ridiculous. We'll play some sound effects for you now. Remember that you can send us your math joke anytime by just recording your name, where you are and your favorite math joke and send it to us at cpmpodcast, at cpmorg. Thanks so much. So that is all we have time for on this episode of the More Math for More People podcast. If you are interested in connecting with us on social media, find our links in the podcast description, and the music for the podcast was created by Julius H and can be found on pixabaycom. So thank you very much, Julius. Join us in two weeks for the next episode of More Math for More People. What day will that be, Joel?
Speaker 1:The August 6th, national Root Beer Float Day, and I love a good root beer float and root beer float by the numbers. Did you know? In 1876, that was the year that root beer was invented. Number 16. That's the number of roots and herbs that root beer was made of. 3%, that's the percentage that root beer makes up in America's soft drink market. 1960, the year when a key ingredient in root beer, the saffron root, was banned by the FDA. And number one, the ranking of A&W as the leading root beer brand in America. I do like that a little bit, so I might have some argument there, or some local brews, of course. I'm excited to talk about national root beer. Thank you.