Pi Day (March 14, or 3/14) gets a lot of play in the U.S., but doesn’t work in other countries that write dates as DD/MM/YYYY, so it becomes 14/3. An alternative in those areas is e day, after the base of natural logarithms, e, (2.71) on 27 January. So, we’re going to avoid the Pi Day rush and post some math cartoons today.
Like pi,e shows up in a variety of places in mathematics, and is associated with some of the greats in mathematical development. From Wikipedia:
“The number e is sometimes called Euler’s number …—after the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler —or Napier’s constant—after John Napier. The constant was discovered by the Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli while studying compound interest.”
Some fuzzy math from websites. The first is from Kiva.org.
This one is from MyVirtualMission.com, a site where you can virtually pretend to climb Everest or complete the Camino de Santiago as you run/walk/bike around your neighborhood. Somehow, their counter of missions (trips) has gone awry. Or maybe I did one backwards?
Is this a Noah’s Ark joke? Is there a missing caption? Are they checking the Alaska cruise schedule to see when the tourists with food will arrive? I can’t bear not understanding this.
The joke in this bear comic is clear — the confusing thing is that it appeared December 29. Given that timing, a better punch line would be “Go to sleep. It’s December 29 already!”
Do we need an anti-geezer alert for this one? I would never have understood this joke a few years ago. Actually, depending on your state, it might be a CIDU still.
This is from June 21, 1966, repeated on December 12, 2023. LBJ is president. Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are Batman and Robin, but that’s obscure enough without trying to tie it into the national debt.
It’s New Year’s Day, 2024, so why not post some New Year’s cartoons from another NY, The New Yorker? Wait. Wasn’t that yesterday’s theme? But this is a theme so nice, we’re using it twice.
1931 (i.e. first issue of 1931): some wake-up bells to start your year
1930
1932: not a cheerful New Year’s
1933: Roosevelt’s been elected, but not inaugurated. The man here is not hopeful.
1933
Similar theme from 1934:
To all our readers, commenters, editors, and cartoonists who make this possible, best wishes for a wonderful 2023 2024!
Reflect and think? Or maybe just do some things appropriate to the season. Change out that furnace filter that should be changed every 3 months. Is your toothbrush getting too long in the tooth? Check your IRA balances if you’ll need to make RMDs. Check the refrigerator for stuff that expired in 2022. Make some Hoppin’ John with those black-eyed peas in the back of the pantry. Feel free to comment on your own ways to mark (or ignore) the day.
Or, perhaps like Mooch, you’re perfect and can just take a nap.
Angel and devil on the shoulders is a familiar setup, but the idea is to have contrasting ideas. Here we have synonymous phrases. I didn’t get the joke and had scheduled it as a CIDU for a later date.
But, here in the US, it’s the weekend where college football conference championship games are played, and the 4 teams who will play for the national championship are picked. Last night at dinner, while our joint grandson opened presents for his 10th birthday, his other grandfather had the Florida State – Louisville game on his phone at the table — and it was only a scoreless first quarter. This made me realize that lots of people are committing all their angels, good and bad, to this sport.
