ddhr.org - Jesus' math

Date: 2006 | 11 | 07

Jesus' math (5)

Nov 7, 2006

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

Rich

Nov 7, 2006

Similarly:
What's round and purple and rides the bus to work?
An abelian grape.

Dave

Nov 7, 2006

I don't get it. I even tried looking it up. Please explain in semi-simple terms.

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

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.

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.