Proof By Communism

The ultimate historical name-calling mix-up! One person's pointing at portraits of Robert Hooke (left) and Gottfried Leibniz (right) shouting "Newton!" while the actual scientists are like "Hey guys, not what we're called." 😂 This is peak scientific rivalry comedy! Newton, Hooke, and Leibniz had LEGENDARY feuds over who discovered calculus first and other scientific achievements. Newton and Hooke battled over optics and gravity, while Newton and Leibniz had the mother of all math fights over calculus. Imagine being so brilliant but still getting mistaken for your arch-nemesis! The scientific equivalent of calling your teacher "Mom" but WAY more devastating!

The rectangular blanket you confidently tucked in at bedtime somehow transforms into this hyperbolic manifold by 3 AM. In non-Euclidean geometry, parallel lines can intersect and the shortest path between two points might involve a wormhole through your mattress. Your blanket appears to have developed similar properties—simultaneously having all corners yet no corners, being both too short and too long, and existing in what mathematicians call "a state of complete bedtime chaos." The topology of bedding remains one of the unsolved problems in sleep science.

Ever notice how vector cross products only work in 3D and 7D? Yeah, mathematicians have been holding out on us. In our measly 3D world, we can calculate perpendicular vectors, but imagine the architectural possibilities if cross products functioned in all dimensions. We'd have buildings at impossible angles, flying cars that defy conventional physics, and I wouldn't have failed that multivariable calculus exam sophomore year. The mathematical tragedy of our universe is that we're stuck with the dot product in most dimensions while parallel universes with 7D geometry get all the cool non-associative algebra.

Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of algebra students like seeing "Let x, y, and z be variables..." But throw some fruit emojis in there? Suddenly everyone's a mathematical genius! Those same students who panic over abstract symbols will happily solve "If 🍎 + 🍎 = 10 and 🍊 - 🍉 = 3, what is 🍎 × 🍊 ÷ 🍉?" The human brain is truly fascinating - capable of understanding quantum mechanics but completely paralyzed by the letter x. Next time you're stuck on an equation, just replace all variables with dessert emojis. It's not what Newton intended, but it's what he deserved.

The lightbulb is unreasonably excited about dates that read the same forward and backward. May 2025 will be a mathematical paradise for pattern-loving nerds, with 5/2/25, 5/20/25, 5/21/25... all being palindromes when written as MM/DD/YY. This is what happens when you give mathematicians calendars. They find symmetry in places normal people use to remember dentist appointments.

Mathematicians really do be flexing on us with multiple definitions for the same concept. The top panel shows the standard textbook definition we all learned: "a prime number is greater than 1 and can't be written as a product of two smaller positive integers." Simple enough. But then comes fancy tuxedo Pooh with the big brain definition: "p is prime if whenever p divides a product ab, either p divides a or p divides b." This is actually Euclid's Lemma dressed up in formal mathematical language, and it's what mathematicians use when they want to sound smarter at dinner parties. Both definitions are equivalent, but one makes you sound like you shop at Walmart and the other like you have a Fields Medal hidden in your sock drawer. Next time someone asks you about prime numbers, hit 'em with the bottom definition and watch their eyes glaze over!