Not Even A Truth

Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of Excel users like seeing it interpret your fraction as a date. Left side: Mathematicians confidently stating 10/5 = 2, with the smug certainty of someone who's never had to fight with spreadsheet software. Right side: Excel, the digital sociopath, converting your simple division into "5-Oct-2022" because apparently helping you do actual math would be too straightforward. This is why mathematicians work with chalk and physicists drink heavily.

Dating can be confusing, but you know what's never confusing? Maxwell's equations! While relationships might have their ups and downs, these four fundamental equations of electromagnetism are perfectly consistent. The meme brilliantly plays on the phrase "bigger on bottom than on top" - which in physics refers to Maxwell's equations having more complex terms in the bottom equations (especially that beautiful curl of B with current density and electric field time derivative). Unlike that person who keeps you guessing, Maxwell's equations will always give you the exact same answer every single time you use them. They're the most reliable relationship you'll ever have in physics!

The circular definition strikes again! Nothing quite like asking what a vector is and getting the mathematical equivalent of "it's a thing that's a thing." That confused Mike Wazowski face perfectly captures the existential crisis of every student encountering math definitions for the first time. The definition is technically correct—vectors are indeed elements of vector spaces—but it's about as helpful as defining water as "the wet stuff that makes things wet." This is why mathematicians shouldn't write dictionaries.

Nothing gets a scientist more excited than fresh unit prefixes! While normal people wake their partners for emergencies, physicists lose their minds over the International System of Units expanding to include ronna (10 27 ) and quetta (10 30 ). Finally, a convenient way to express the mass of Jupiter without writing zeros until your hand cramps! This is basically the scientific equivalent of Supreme dropping a new collection. Measurement nerds have been waiting DECADES for this moment.

Ever wondered what happens when math and moral philosophy collide at high speed? This meme takes the infamous trolley problem and gives it a mathematical twist using the Riemann Zeta function! The joke hinges on the bizarre result that 1+1+1+1... (infinitely many 1's) somehow equals -1/2 according to the Riemann Zeta function when evaluated at zero. It's like counting infinite victims and ending up with negative half a person! This is what happens when mathematicians try to solve ethical dilemmas - you either kill infinite people but somehow create half a person (mathematical zombie?), or kill nobody at all. And they say higher math has no practical applications!

That sweet moment of intellectual victory in the most mundane setting! Instead of mindlessly scrolling through social media during bathroom time, your brain decides to flex by deriving the equation of motion for a pendulum using Lagrangian mechanics—and nails it! For the uninitiated, Lagrangian mechanics is an alternative formulation of classical mechanics that uses energy functions instead of forces. Solving a pendulum problem this way requires tracking kinetic and potential energies and applying partial derivatives. Getting it right without computational aids? Pure galaxy-brain energy. Next challenge: deriving the Navier-Stokes equations before the hand soap runs out!