thnik again!

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you. – Will Rogers

On my farm all the animals are dogs, except two. All the animals are cats, except two. All the animals are horses, except two.

How many animals are there on my farm?

If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur. – Doug Larson

Alan Alda does MATH

Besides many accomplished roles on stage, screen, and television—his Senator Vinick character in The West Wing boasts his own Wikipedia page—Alan Alda hosted PBS’s Scientific American Frontiers for eleven years. His deep and genuine interest in science was on display when he took the stage of the Roda Theatre in Berkeley with mathematician Bob Osserman of MSRI, in a fascinating and wide-ranging public conversation that dwelt on curved space-time, new math, marriage, Richard Feynman, public perceptions of science, and much more. Watch the friendly duel of wits at http://tinyurl.com/6xw59p.

Alda wants the nathematicians to communicate to the masses what they are doing in a way that the masses will understand. Feynmann could do it. Can it be done by others? In China, I believe, it was once was, maybe still is, a requirement for scientists to communicate to the masses.

—

In the seventies, I guess, I bought a book with four dialogues between philosophers. It was staged at a university in the Netherlands and was televised. I don’t remember the name of the book, but one of the participants was Arne Næss and another was Noam Chomsky. Searching for the book on the Internet the closest I got was the Socratic Dialogue; The Dutch Experience.

Finally I found it:

The International Philosophers Project (1971) led to the publication of Reflexive Water, the basic concerns of mankind, containing debates with leading philosophers, sir Alfred Ayer and Arne Naess, sir John Eccles and sir Karl Popper, Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, Leszek Kolakowski and Henri Lefèbvre.  Source

Here is a video of one of the dialogues. 

Arrange the vertices such that no edges overlap

Play it here.

- You look good!
- Thank you! Sometimes it is good to get away from it all.
- Where did you go?
- I visited six cities.
- In which country?
- I don’t remember. But I recall that there was at least hoopla km between any two.
- I see.
- The greatest distance between any two of the cities was heida km.
- How much is hoopla and heida?
- I don’t remember, but you should be able to tell me how big (heida/hoopla) may be.
- Me?! How can I find the answer? I never travel!

Problem source: Nick’s Mathematical Puzzles.

I’m a jerk to everyone. Best way to protect yourself from lawsuits. - David Hoselton

A farmer has four straight pieces to make a pigsty. What is the biggest pigsty he can make? The pieces measure 10, 20, 30, and 40 meters.

Problem source: Nick’s Mathematical Puzzles.

I’m not a vegetarian because I love animals. I’m a vegetarian because I hate plants. - A Whitney Brown

Four inmates went for a walk. They were 3628, 2426, 4146, and 1448. Suddenly one of them started to cry because he felt he was different from the others. Who started to cry?

Problem source: Question of the day.