How To Do Maths: The Einstein Method

The mathematical conspiracy unfolds! Our stick figure protagonist discovers the number 51 isn't prime (it's 3×17) and is utterly bewildered—questioning reality itself. In the second panel, they've accepted their fate as a prime number investigator, with 51 now properly positioned between composite numbers 12, 85, and 49. The "a prime?? in thecompositefactory??" line is peak mathematician horror—finding an imposter among your carefully sorted numbers is basically a numerical security breach!

The classic frog-lily pad-rock scenario strikes again! If you've ever taken a probability course, these three images haunt your dreams. Markov chains describe systems where the next state depends only on the current state (not the past), and textbook authors are OBSESSED with using frogs hopping between lily pads and rocks to explain it. It's like textbook authors had exactly ONE meeting about how to explain probability transitions and unanimously decided: "Green frog. Green pads. Some rocks. DONE." The probability of escaping this example? Approximately zero!

The exponential function e x is just vibing in its own mathematical universe! No matter what operation you throw at it—differentiate it, integrate it—it just stays e x , completely unbothered. It's the mathematical equivalent of that friend who never changes despite life's chaos. While other functions are having identity crises when differentiated, e x is just like "I'm still me, bro!" The ultimate mathematical narcissist—always returning to itself. Even calculus can't mess with its perfect mathematical zen!

Mathematical sleight of hand at its finest! This "proof" starts with the innocent truth that 2=2 and then descends through a rabbit hole of increasingly suspicious operations with complex numbers. The punchline? Somehow 2=0. The sneaky culprit here is the mishandling of complex numbers (those pesky i 's). When we reach the step with i² (which equals -1), suddenly the math takes a convenient "forget everything you know about algebra" turn. It's like watching someone build an elegant house of cards and then deliberately sneezing on it. Every math professor has this pinned somewhere in their office as a warning to students who think they can pull a fast one on their homework. Nice try, but we've seen this trick since Pythagoras was in diapers.

The instruction says "Write as a product" and the student literally wrote the expression multiplied by 1. Technically correct - the best kind of correct in mathematics. This is what happens when you spend 14 hours debugging code and your brain starts interpreting instructions with machine-like literalism. The professor probably wanted (x+y)(x+y), but sometimes malicious compliance is the only joy left in a STEM degree.

Next up in the "Impossible Things" series: "Swimming Without Water" and "Astronomy Without Telescopes." The academic equivalent of selling dehydrated water. Psychology students everywhere are having statistical significance anxiety attacks just looking at this cover. Somewhere, a statistician is crying into their p-value calculator.