The Great STEM Showdown

The mathematical tragedy unfolding here is painfully real. When something decreases by 10% and then increases by 10%, you're actually taking 10% of different values. If $100 drops by 10%, you get $90. Then increasing that $90 by 10% gives you $99, not $100. The missing dollar slipped into the void where mathematicians store their social skills. This is why stock market investors develop eye twitches. Your portfolio isn't "back to normal" after a 10% drop followed by a 10% gain—you're still filling out paperwork for that missing 1%. The mathematical asymmetry of percentages: destroying financial expectations since humans invented counting.

When nerds flirt, they operate on different wavelengths! Guy's thinking of Keanu Reeves dodging bullets, while she's thinking of mathematical operators. The equation T mn = ⟨m|T|n⟩ represents a matrix element in quantum mechanics—literally "The Matrix" but in physics-speak. It's that beautiful moment when you realize you're both talking about matrices, just in completely different universes. Dating in STEM fields requires understanding multiple definitions of "I'll show you my matrix if you show me yours."

The math checks out, folks. If you earned $7000 every hour since Jesus walked the earth (that's roughly 2023 years or 17.7 million hours), you'd have about $124 billion. Bezos is worth around $180 billion. Nothing quite illustrates the absurdity of wealth inequality like needing to time travel back to year zero and still coming up short. Next time someone says "just work harder," remind them that apparently you need to work harder than someone earning $7000/hour for two millennia. Capitalism's final boss level is truly something else.

Nothing says "buckle up, kiddo" quite like a physics textbook that starts by telling you the pioneers of the field literally died studying it! 😱 That highlighted passage is basically saying: "Two brilliant scientists who developed this field committed suicide... anyway, YOUR TURN NOW!" No wonder the student's face is pure terror. Statistical mechanics is already intimidating enough with all those equations, but this intro is basically the academic equivalent of a horror movie opening scene. "Perhaps it will be wise to approach the subject cautiously" is textbook-speak for "RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN!"

The mathematical equivalent of "well yes, but actually no." The first student confidently applies the power rule for derivatives (d/dx of x^n = nx^(n-1)) but skips the chain rule entirely. The correct approach would involve the chain rule since we're differentiating 7^2 with respect to 7. It's like watching someone get the right answer using completely wrong methods—the mathematical equivalent of failing successfully. That hesitant "you're not wrong but..." response is what every math tutor internally screams before launching into a 20-minute explanation about proper differentiation techniques.

The duality of mathematicians is pure genius! The top panel shows the absolute panic when confronted with division by zero—complete with "field axioms" and "runtime error" labels because that operation breaks the fundamental rules of arithmetic. Meanwhile, the bottom panel shows the chill acceptance of square root of negative one. Instead of freaking out, mathematicians just casually invented an entire number system (complex numbers) with i = √-1 as the imaginary unit. It's basically math saying: "Divide by zero? ABSOLUTELY NOT, THE UNIVERSE WILL IMPLODE!" but then "Square root of negative one? Sure, we'll just make up some imaginary numbers. No biggie."