The Desperate Mathematician's Cookbook

Someone clearly never tried proving the Riemann Hypothesis on their TI-84! The sweet summer child who thinks math degrees are just about punching numbers into calculators is about to have their world shattered faster than an unstable isotope. Higher mathematics is where calculators go to cry in the corner while you wrestle abstract concepts with nothing but chalk and tears. Pro tip: If your math problem still involves numbers, you're basically still in kindergarten.

The eternal question that keeps mathematicians up at night: if Σ represents summation and Π represents multiplication, what unholy symbol lurks in the darkness for exponentiation? Mathematicians have standardized notation for adding things up and multiplying sequences, but apparently drew the line at creating a dedicated symbol for "let's raise this to the power of that a bunch of times." Some grad student is probably frantically working on this right now, hoping to name it after themselves. "And here we apply the Johnson Exponentiation Operator..." Sure, buddy. Keep dreaming.

The duality of mathematicians is real! Top panel: losing your mind over having to use Newton's method to find an intersection point of two basic functions. Bottom panel: waxing poetic about the elegant beauty of a Gaussian integral that gives you √π. Nothing captures the mathematician's experience quite like sobbing over numerical approximations one minute, then having spiritual awakenings over elegant solutions the next. We're either drowning in tears or basking in the divine glow of mathematical perfection—there is no in-between!

The mathematical rebellion continues! First it was "x" doing all the heavy lifting in algebra, then programmers said "nah, we prefer *" for multiplication. Meanwhile, dot notation is sitting in the corner like "am I a joke to you?" The true evolution isn't just in the symbols—it's in how increasingly frustrated math teachers become when students use the wrong one on exams. Natural selection at work: only the most adaptable notation survives!

When your love life is so disappointing you turn to theoretical physics for comfort! This poor soul is using the multiverse theory to cope with rejection by calculating the probability (p≠0) that in some parallel universe, his crush might actually like him back. The equation on the whiteboard is basically a heartbreak formula disguised as quantum mechanics, with the variables literally spelling out "Together," "Separated," "Universe," and "You." Nothing says romance like desperately searching for a universe where the odds are in your favor! Even Einstein didn't think of using relativity to solve dating problems!

Engineering students living in their own dimension where casual conversation is replaced by Navier-Stokes equations. The meme brilliantly captures that moment when someone asks a fluid dynamics enthusiast "how's it going?" and their brain immediately floods with partial differential equations instead of normal human responses. The Navier-Stokes equations shown are the holy grail of fluid dynamics - describing how the velocity, pressure, density and viscosity of a moving fluid are related. They're notoriously complex (one of the Millennium Prize Problems offers $1 million for solving them!), yet to engineering students, they're just casual chitchat material. That final "yea" panel is engineering humor at its finest - as if these incomprehensible equations are just a normal way to respond to "how's it going?" The title "Who Up Stoking They Navier Rn?" perfectly parodies late-night social media posts with "who up?" but for people who stay up late solving fluid dynamics problems instead.