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Isn't this joke ambigious?

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Paraphrased from joke told by Prof. Ed Landesman, University of
California at Santa Cruz:

Two math professors, Dr. Smith and Dr. Jones, are dining together in a restaurant. Dr. Smith is disillusioned about math teaching, and he says that he doesn't think people bother to learn what they teach, and that they shouldn't bother teaching math in the first place. Dr, Jones is trying to convince him otherwise, that people do listen in math class. They decide to settle their argument by asking their waiter a calculus question, and see if he gets the right answer. When Dr. Smith gets up to use the restroom, Jones calls the waiter over. Handing him a $20 bill, he says "When my colleague returns, I am going to ask you what the integral of ln x is, and you are to respond 1/x dx." The waiter agrees and walks off. When Smith gets back, they call the waiter over, and Jones asks him the question, which he answers correctly, much to Smith's surprise. As they walk out the door, Smith apologizing to Jones, the waiter calls out after them, "Plus a constant!"
 
Didn't get it. Professors should be held accountable for lack of knowledge/interest in a subject not the students?
 
Standing there for 3 hours and talk is stupid.

Teachers should only give the pages you have to read/do.

Then offer some office hours for people who couldn't do the exercices.
 
well, ln x -> 1/x dx implies you're taking the derivative, not the integral (people get picky about the language sometimes).

so the fact that the waiter says "plus a constant" means that he's mistaken, as the derivative of a constant is, well, you know. in other words, the waiter really doesn't understand the question.

i think?
 
Standing there for 3 hours and talk is stupid.

Teachers should only give the pages you have to read/do.

Then offer some office hours for people who couldn't do the exercices.
not everybody is like you. Stop and think about that for a second and you will realize some people like that interaction of sitting in a classroom.
 
well, ln x -> 1/x dx implies you're taking the derivative, not the integral (people get picky about the language sometimes).

so the fact that the waiter says "plus a constant" means that he's mistaken, as the derivative of a constant is, well, you know. in other words, the waiter really doesn't understand the question.

i think?

This is the worst understanding of the situation there. The thing is how you get the word "Jones asks him the question, which he answers correctly, much to Smith's surprise". What does "correctly" mean? Did he say
xlnx - x
and then added constant? Or "correctly" means how Jones asked him to say? (1/x). The words "correct" which "surprised" Smith are the origins of ambiguity.

So my question would be: What waiter responded? xlnx-x or 1/x?
 
I don't get it. The integral of ln(x) is xlnx-x (plus a constant). Why would Jones purposely undermine his own argument by feeding wrong information to the waiter?
 
I don't get it. The integral of ln(x) is xlnx-x (plus a constant). Why would Jones purposely undermine his own argument by feeding wrong information to the waiter?

Yes but that doesn't cause any problem here. Simply what makes the joke a bit confusing is what the waiter responded when the author says he answered CORRECTLY which SURPRISED smith. Did he respond correctly or: xlnx - x?
or in "correctly" the author means how he was asked to answer?
 
I think that the joke as written contains a typo; perhaps the joke writer actually meant the following:

I am going to ask you what the integral of "1/x dx" is, and you are to respond "ln x".
 
I think that the joke as written contains a typo; perhaps the joke writer actually meant the following:

I am going to ask you what the integral of "1/x dx" is, and you are to respond "ln x".

Assuming it is how it is, what would you think the waiter responded?
 
Well, perhaps the waiter has a math Ph.D. (or, an MFE?) and could not find a "real" job because of the unfavorable market conditions.
Thus, he is waiting tables...
:D

But, I still think it's a typo. Here's the same joke, using "x squared" instead of the items you have above (scroll down a screen or two):
http://www.math.utah.edu/~cherk/mathjokes.html#topic4
 
This is the worst understanding of the situation there. The thing is how you get the word "Jones asks him the question, which he answers correctly, much to Smith's surprise". What does "correctly" mean? Did he say
xlnx - x
and then added constant? Or "correctly" means how Jones asked him to say? (1/x). The words "correct" which "surprised" Smith are the origins of ambiguity.

So my question would be: What waiter responded? xlnx-x or 1/x?

perhaps you feel that "this is the worst understanding of the situation there" [sic] for reasons entirely unattributable to me...?

myampol's position that this was a typo makes sense on its face, but then there isn't really a joke.

the punch line is "plus a constant."

smith was surprised that the waiter got it right. smith was dubious about the waiter's chances. it didn't say jones was surprised. so if jones wasn't surprised, it makes sense that the answer the waiter gave was the answer jones provided. had it been any other answer (given that the waiter answered correctly), *both* professors would have been surprised.

as i am not a math professor, i can't speak from a position of authority, but i do recall there being some clarity issues around the derivative/integral direction, depending on whether certain other words were involved. i believe that, once this is taken into account, you actually have your joke.

edit: or, in light of the link myampol just posted, the typo explanation does make sense.
 
does it really matter? there's obviously a typo; the real point of the joke is the irony at the end; end of story.
 
smith was surprised that the waiter got it right. smith was dubious about the waiter's chances. it didn't say jones was surprised. so if jones wasn't surprised, it makes sense that the answer the waiter gave was the answer jones provided. had it been any other answer (given that the waiter answered correctly), *both* professors would have been surprised.

Exactly that's the sense. Had the author made a typo it really wouldn't be a joke. So assuming a typo fixes everything there but breaks the point. So if Jones didn't get surprised he got an expected answer - 1/x dx. So why did Smith apologize then?
 
Exactly that's the sense. Had the author made a typo it really wouldn't be a joke. So assuming a typo fixes everything there but breaks the point.
And i was thinking this is supposed to be some kind of irony related to ill educated Professors . :confused:
 
Well, perhaps the waiter has a math Ph.D. (or, an MFE?) and could not find a "real" job because of the unfavorable market conditions.
Thus, he is waiting tables...
:D

There's a bit of truth in that: some years ago someone wrote a letter to Notices of the AMS complaining that he hadn't been able to get an academic job (despite his PhD) and had been reduced to becoming a wine waiter. There are people with doctorates working as waiters (I understand the job market is so bad these days some establishments are insisting on graduates), so it's plausible that some of them have their doctorates in mathematics.

There's also some truth in the argument that many math profs can't teach worth a damn: how these bums get placed as lecturers beats me. They can't talk, they can't motivate a presentation, they can't organise their course materials, they can't understand the learning difficulties a newcomer may have.
 
I see the point of the joke but it is not funny.
 
not everybody is like you. Stop and think about that for a second and you will realize some people like that interaction of sitting in a classroom.

Alan, the reality of the classes today is that there is little to no interaction.

Why? Because the ''teacher'' aka the talking head is only there to get paid to talk. Whenever we ask questions, he answers them for the first 5 minutes and then says : ''no more time for questions, we got to keep it moving''. And he goes on and keep reading.

A real life example:

I was in class and the teacher was telling us that the definition of inflation is rising prices.
Knowing that the real definition is the expansion of the money supply and that the rising prices are one of the symptoms of inflation, I asked him this:

'' You told us that the price system (supply/demand) is the most efficient system in that, it send us the right signal about the scarcity or the abundance of a product''.....''if that is the case, why do the central bank (who defines inflation as rising prices) tries to control prices (via the CPI)? Is it against efficiency? Why is it trying to distort the market by trying to hide the market signals?''

The teacher's answer: '' -smiles- We do not have time to discuss this, I still got powerpoints to read''

Why do you want me to stay in class when I have this type of clueless bozo (sorry :D) infront of me? lol
 
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