Math Jokes

Max Zima: greatest mathematizian of all time

From: Bill Dubuque 
Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 06:17:08 -0400
Subject: Max Zima: greatest mathematizian of all time

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted as well (Sci.math).

Ilias Kastanas  wrote:
:Martijn Dekker  wrote:
:>"N.R.Bruin"  wrote: 
:>:Pertti Lounesto wrote:
:>:> Newton, Gauss, Hamilton, Galois and Ahlfors are great mathematicians.
:>:> I have heard that the greatest mathematician of all times is a Russian
:>:> mathematician called Maplev, who is still living.  Is this true, and
:>:> what are the contributions of Maplev?
:>:
:>:I thought experts couldn't agree whether Maplev or M.A. Them a Tica from
:>:Illinois has greatest influence. Isn't Maplev living in Canada nowadays ?
:>
:>Well, maplev is of canadian origin, not sure whether her still lives
:>there, anyway, he must travel a lot because I see him everywhere!
:
:Has he ever gone to Scotland, to meet MacSymah ?

Clearly you mean Max Zima, the Siberian constructivist, whose 
program is known especially for its clear algorithmic content.

Walter Lou Maplev and M. A. The. Matica are disciples of Zima,
although Zima would himself approve of neither of their efforts,
neither of which imbibe fully Zima's principle of constructive 
bar-induction -- a fundamental tenet of intuitionistic spirit.
The true spirit of Zima's program is presented quite clearly at

http://www.zima.com/

Zima is especially critical of Matica's program -- founded as it
is upon specious products of intuitionistically questionable
bracketed functional abstractions -- which lead quite quickly to
disarray.  Further, Matica has been subject to harsh criticism
from the math community for failure to reveal clear proofs of his
basic algorithms, e.g. for his Rich Algorithm [3] -- an integral
part of his program.  One of Zima's students has mocked these 
questionable incentives by writing under the pseudonym Rich Fate Man:

http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/~fateman/

In particular, Rich Fate Man has pioneered the implementation of a 
successful Mock Matica program:

http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/~fateman/mma.mailer

Mock Matica is founded upon a manifesto consisting of a 
scathing critique of the entire Matica program, see [2] or

ftp://peoplesparc.berkeley.edu/pub/papers/mma.review.ps.Z

In Russia Max Zima's son, Ed Vax Zima, has been instrumental
in a spirited evolution of the original Zima program, see [1].

-Zilly (a Zima ztudent)

[1] Abramov, S. A.; Zima, E. V.; Rostovtsev, V. A. 
Computer algebra. (Russian) Programmirovanie 1992, no. 5, 4--25. 
MR 94g:68053 68Q40

[2] Fateman, Richard J.  A review of Mathematica. 
J. Symbolic Comput. 13 (1992), no. 5, 545--579. 
MR 93f:68049 (Reviewer: D. Z. Spicer) 68Q40 (68-04 68N99)

[3] Risch, Rob. The solution of the problem of integration in finite terms.
Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 76 1970, 605--608. 
MR 42 #4530 (Reviewer: K. Okugawa) 12.80 (14.00)

Pythagoras and Einstein

I very much enjoyed the work of one lunatic who combined 
the insights of Pythagoras and Einstein into the portmanteau

                       2    2    2
                E = m c  = a  + b

(I learned of this example from George Andrews).

Frobenius: a sesquilogue

FROBENIUS: a sesquilogue - a poem of Lee Rudolph.

PI

}>
}>Me:  What's the area of a circle?
}>
}>Students:  Pi r squared.
}>
}>Me:  Pi are not square!  Pi are round!
}
}... Cornbread are square.

 I first heard that in a larger context, where the hillbilly has 
 a son who can't shoot very well.  Sends the kid away to college 
 to study triggernometry.  Kid comes back home and dad asks him 
 what he learned, "Pi R squared"  .... etc as above.  Bad joke. 

 My dad told me that about the time he taught me that the root 
 of 3 is 1.732, which you can remember since George Washington 
 was born in 1732.  Of course, being a product of 60s schools, 
 that is how I know when Washington was born.