ddhr.org - Jesus' math

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Jesus' math (5)	Nov 7, 2006
From the Thrilling Wonder Story, One day, Jesus said to his disciples, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like 3x² + 8x - 9." A man who had just joined the disciples looked very confused and asked Peter, "What on Earth does he mean by that?" Peter replied, "Don't worry, it's just another one of his parabolas." (via Digg) #religion

Comments

#1	Rich	Nov 7, 2006
	Similarly: What's round and purple and rides the bus to work? An abelian grape.

#2	Dave	Nov 7, 2006
	I don't get it. I even tried looking it up. Please explain in semi-simple terms.

#3	Emily	Nov 7, 2006
	I googled it and this is what I got. The joke is on this page. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/AbelianGroup.html

#4	Dave	Nov 7, 2006
	So it's a grape because it's purple, it commutes (i.e. is commutative) because it's abelian, and it's a play on words because it's an "abelian grape", not an "abelian group". I thought the Jesus joke was funny (albeit in a geeky way). I'm sorry Rich, this doesn't even get a laugh now that I understand it.

#5	Rich	Nov 7, 2006
	Yea, that's pretty much what I told the guy that taught it to me. That's what you get when you hang out with a bunch of physicists. I just thought that they were similar jokes, both niche and a play on words. I will grant you that the abelian grape is really lame. I've never laughed at it. Jesus' parabola actuallly got a chuckle out of me.