All Numbers Are Small Numbers

Behold! A mathematical maverick who left π as their tip! Instead of a boring old dollar amount, this numerical ninja wrote the symbol for pi (3.14159...), creating a total of $30 instead of the mathematically precise $29.86. The universe may be built on constants, but this diner's gratuity calculations have a delightful margin of error! Mathematical elegance trumps exact arithmetic when you're living your best irrational life!

The Fields Medal winner making a pun about mathematical transformations while literally showing his physical transformation! Terence Tao is playing with the dual meaning of "transform" - in math, transformations change one function or space into another, while he's visibly transformed from his younger self. It's the ultimate mathematician dad joke that only works when you're brilliant enough to win math's highest honor. The irony is that while math doesn't actually age you, those late nights solving impossible problems might!

Ever notice how mathematical theorems collect names like a snowball rolling downhill? What started as a simple idea clearly morphed into a multi-generational collaborative nightmare! This theorem name is longer than my coffee-fueled all-nighters during grad school! 🤓 Each hyphen represents another brilliant mathematician saying "ACTUALLY, I need to add something here" while their colleagues silently facepalm. By the time you finish reading the theorem name, you've already forgotten what chapter you're on! Mathematicians: the only people who put movie credits IN the title!

The quadratic formula has claimed another victim! Poor Velma is having a mathematical meltdown as she tries to reconcile completely contradictory equations floating around her. The formula is supposed to be x = (-b ± √(b² - 4ac))/2a, but someone's written it all wrong! And then there's the logical impossibility of "if x = y then how does x ≠ y???" Plus random area formulas thrown in for extra confusion. This is basically what happens to your brain at 2AM before a math exam - pure mathematical chaos. Even with those signature smart glasses, some equations are just too cursed to compute!

Two scientists arguing over a number that's either 7.5±1.5 or 9, depending on which way you're standing. It's the mathematical equivalent of that dress nobody could agree on the color of. Perspective in mathematics isn't just a philosophical concept—it's the difference between publishing a paper and becoming a cautionary tale in next semester's statistics lecture.

The physicist is having an existential crisis! Perturbation theory is a mathematical method that relies on small changes (perturbations) to solve complex problems. When these perturbations are small, physicists can approximate solutions beautifully. But suggest those perturbations might NOT be small? Pure mathematical chaos ensues! It's like telling a baker their measuring cups might suddenly be random sizes - their entire recipe framework collapses! The physicist's angry face in the final panel perfectly captures that moment when someone threatens the very foundation of their calculation methods. The entire universe becomes unsolvable!