Mathematics Comedy Videos

Sunday 3 June 2007 at 11:21 am | In Articles | 9 Comments

Mathematical humour is quite difficult to do. I have previously blogged about the book Comic Sections and there are other books like Carl Linderholm’s Mathematics made difficult and Ian Stewart‘s books which contain much humour; a cartoon series Ian drew is the inspiration for this

Mu

Mathematical humorous videos are even rarer. Here are a couple. The first is very well-known and has been written about all over the net for a long time. It is  Finite Simple Group of Order Two by the Klein Four Group and involves very clever use of mathematical terms. The other is G103 which is described as a (surreal) day in the life of an undergraduate on the 4-year MMath degree at the University of Warwick. Anyone who has experience of a pure mathematics degree will recognise the accuracy of the amusing observations it makes. There’s more about the film at the G103 site.

There was also a previous humorous video made at Warwick University called Maths Club. Unfortunately, it’s not available on that page or anywhere else as far as I can see. Does anyone know if it’s still available?

Links to other amusing mathematics videos are very welcome.

PS The Unapologetic Mathematician links to a spoof basic mathematics tutorial produced by the BBC called Look Around You – 1 – Maths.

9 Comments

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  1. Thanks for the G103 link. I’d not seen that one yet.

    I will say this: the one student discussing topology is correct. It’s almost always about balls.

    Comment by John Armstrong — Sunday 3 June 2007 2:36 pm #

  2. […] in a math(s) department Through the Mathematics Weblog I’ve just run across a very informative little film about a typical day in the mathematics […]

    Pingback by Life in a math(s) department « The Unapologetic Mathematician — Sunday 3 June 2007 3:51 pm #

  3. Oops, I hadn’t seen this post before posting mine!

    What do you know about ‘math’? is one which I’ve found recently, and there’s the Tom Lehrer one which I’m not too sure about!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooa8nHKPZ5k (what ..)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXx2VVSWDMo&mode=related&search= (tom..)

    Comment by beans — Sunday 3 June 2007 4:55 pm #

  4. I found this:

    ‘Gentlemen, welcome to Maths Club. The first rule of Maths club is, you do not talk about Maths Club. The second rule of Maths club is, you do not talk about Maths Club. The third rule of Maths club, someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out, the problem’s over. Fourth rule, only two guys to a problem. Fifth rule, one problem at a time fellas. Sixth rule, no physics no stats. Seventh rule, problems will go on as long as they have to. And the eigth and final rule, if this is your first night at Maths Club, you have to do maths.’

    Damn if only such a thing existed! (I’m particularly liking the sound of no physics and no stats!):D

    Comment by beans — Sunday 3 June 2007 5:11 pm #

  5. I’m glad you liked G103 – it was a lot of fun to make.

    Maths Club (which was a sort of forerunner to G103) is unfortunately not available – it was never intended for general distribution, so the writer/director never sorted out copyright clearance for the background music he used.

    Comment by Nicholas Jackson — Monday 4 June 2007 10:52 am #

  6. Thanks for the information. It’s a real shame particularly for those, like me, who knew the old maths institute well. I did enjoy watching it when it was available – perhaps a silent version could be shown instead?

    Comment by steve — Monday 4 June 2007 12:04 pm #

  7. […] Sixth Form Seite habe ich folgendes kleines (für Mathematiker offenbar irre komisches)  Lied Gedicht […]

    Pingback by Mathematik und Physik — Tuesday 5 June 2007 1:41 pm #

  8. I really liked the picture of the kitten saying mu!

    I was working at a Math Camp for Urban Girls this past week, and of course the topic of pi r^2 came up, and we trotted out the cliche “No, pies are round!”

    You have a great website/blog, here!

    Lee

    Comment by Lee M — Saturday 30 June 2007 3:15 pm #

  9. http://www.xkcd.com has some great mathematical obvservations, for example:
    http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/hamiltonian.png

    Chris

    Comment by Chris — Monday 27 August 2007 11:51 am #

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