Mathematicians Throw Shade Like No Other

The classic half-full/half-empty glass debate just got hijacked by science nerds! While regular folks argue about optimism vs pessimism, physicists are busy calculating empty space percentages with unnecessary precision. But the topologist? They're on another level entirely—seeing empty and full glasses as topologically equivalent shapes that can be continuously deformed into each other without tearing or gluing. In topology, a donut and a coffee mug are the same object (both have exactly one hole), and similarly, the empty and full glass configurations are isomorphic. They don't care about the water level because they're too busy thinking about homeomorphisms and invariant properties. Mathematicians, making simple things unnecessarily complicated since forever!

Finding a Hermitian operator that commutes with the Hamiltonian is like striking quantum gold—it gives you those sweet, sweet conserved quantities. But the moment you're dealing with degenerate states, you start eyeing that operator like it's your ex who just texted "we need to talk." Suddenly, perturbation theory looks mighty attractive. For the uninitiated: Hermitian operators represent physical observables in quantum mechanics. When one commutes with the Hamiltonian (H), it means you can measure both properties simultaneously—a rare luxury in the quantum world. Degenerate states, however, are quantum mechanics' way of saying "it's complicated."

The universal experience of sitting through a math lecture on Fourier transforms—where your professor is essentially speaking an alien language. The math transforms complex waveforms into simpler sine and cosine components, but your brain transforms it all into "funny words magic man." That glazed expression is the international symbol for "I should probably understand this, but instead I'm wondering if pizza is a valid dinner choice for the fifth night in a row."

Ever tried to do math without Gauss? It's like trying to navigate with your eyes closed! The mathematical genius who gave us the normal distribution and least squares method is basically saying "I see you struggling without my formulas." Mathematicians worldwide feel this in their soul. Imagine tackling complex calculations and Gauss is just sitting there like "darkness bro" because he already solved it two centuries ago. That smug "brooooo" at the end is just him watching us rediscover what he figured out while barely trying.

Who needs vague pandemic guidelines when you can calculate exactly how far away to stand from other humans? The top panel shows rejection of plain "social distance" instructions, but the bottom panel shows enthusiastic approval for the Euclidean distance formula √(x₂-x₁)² + (y₂-y₁)². Finally, a way to mathematically prove you're following health protocols! Just whip out your calculator at the grocery store and scream "YOU'RE 1.92 METERS AWAY, WE'RE GOOD!" Pandemic safety for nerds who prefer precision over approximation!

The eternal battle between students and professors captured perfectly! On one side, we have SpongeBob (aka every science student ever) being absolutely crushed by what appears to be a modest "list of equations" that already looks like someone threw up the entire thermodynamics textbook onto a single sheet. Meanwhile, Patrick (the professor) is gleefully shouting "Nonsense!" while casually introducing an even MORE horrifying avalanche of partial derivatives, Gibbs free energy formulas, and whatever that Greek alphabet soup is supposed to represent. This is that special moment in every STEM student's life when you realize your professor genuinely believes these equations are "the basics" and "should be intuitive." Nothing says academic trauma like watching your professor add another whiteboard's worth of equations while you're still trying to remember if delta means "change in" or "please end my suffering."