The Natural Logarithm

The ultimate academic mic drop! This brilliant footnote about T.J. Kaczynski being "better known for other work" is the scientific equivalent of saying "Oh, that elegant mathematical proof? Just a side hustle before becoming the Unabomber." Academia in a nutshell: spend years crafting perfect proofs and publishing papers nobody reads, while history remembers you for something completely different. That tiny footnote is basically saying "Sure, he solved this complex mathematical problem... but that's not why he's in the history books!" Next time you're stressing about your publication record, remember that your CV might not be what defines your legacy. Sometimes it's your "other work" that steals the spotlight—hopefully not in the Unabomber way though!

The mathematical crime scene you're witnessing is what happens when someone writes π as a string of 3's with different subscripts. Those subscripts? They're actually different number bases. So that "3" with a subscript "4" is actually 3 in base 4, which equals 3 in decimal. But "3" with subscript "16" is 3 in hexadecimal, which equals 3 in decimal too. Engineers, notorious for approximating π as just 3, are celebrating this mathematical sleight of hand that technically makes their approximation correct. Mathematicians are currently filing restraining orders against whoever created this.

The expectation vs. reality of physics studies hits harder than a neutron star collision! Daydreaming about unraveling the mysteries of the universe? Pure bliss! Actually solving those differential equations and figuring out why that one particle decided to quantum tunnel somewhere it shouldn't? Pure pain. The transition from "I'm gonna be the next Einstein" to "I can't even remember which direction gravity pulls" happens faster than light through a vacuum. Physics: where your dreams of understanding the cosmos transform into nightmares about forgetting minus signs on exams!

Your math teacher isn't stupid—they're just an optimist. Since 3/π ≈ 0.955, each term gets smaller as you raise it to higher powers. It's like watching your motivation diminish with each additional homework problem. The sum actually converges to about 20.8, which is coincidentally the number of times you'll question your life choices while solving it.

The classic math joke strikes again! Topologists don't care about your fashion sense—they care about continuous deformations. To them, a coffee mug and a donut are literally the same shape (they both have exactly one hole). So naturally, jeans and genes are identical too! The pun works because in topology, it's all about the fundamental structure, not the superficial details. Your pants and your DNA? Mathematically equivalent if they have the same number of holes! Next time someone compliments your jeans, just say "thanks, they're topologically equivalent to my entire genetic code."

The mathematical escalation here is beautiful. First panel: 10 5 = 100,000. Mildly impressed face. Second panel: 10 ⁵ written differently, same number. Slightly more excited. But that third panel... 10 5 is pentation - raising 10 to the power of itself 5 times. That's a number so incomprehensibly large it would make supercomputers weep. No wonder the guy's face turned into an eldritch horror. Mathematicians call this level of numerical insanity "power towers," and they're basically the math equivalent of saying "hold my coffee" to infinity.