this is not about hamilton

but anyway so in ancient greek there is something called a μέν … δέ construction

this doesn't always come out in translation but rest assured if you play an ancient greek, they should be μέν … δέ ing all the time

it is a way of setting up a contrast

μέν this cat is black, δέ the other is white

μέν can also be "and so" when used with other particles

and it's used, I want to stress— all the time. like I went to go search the number of times "μέν" is used in the iliad on perseus but you're not allowed to search for it because it's too common, like and, yours, the

anyway usually when you do translate this, it's

"on the one hand this cat is black, on the other hand the other cat is white"

and I have tried very hard about turning this into another bad eugenides one hand joke so so so often

on the one hand no one will get it, on the other it's funny to me

Image: I darjeelingandcoke An ancient Greek walks in...

I appreciate ur dedication

me with every math joke

it's true, I would be bad at math jokes

I got like 60th percentile on the GRE math with like, two days of studying and I think that's fine!!

that's plenty of maths for me.

my favorite joke of all time involves linear algebra and puns

explain the joke

that's what this plurk is for

jokes too nerdy to reliably pull off

I can probably handle algebra

okay, you prime the pump with:
Q: What do you get when you cross a mouse with an elephant?
A: |mouse||elephant|sin(θ)

because crossing is an operation where you find the vector that is at right angles to two other vectors

after they get done groaning:
Q: What do you get when you cross a mosquito with a mountain climber?

and they say "|mosquito||mountain climber|sin(θ)", but suspiciously, because they realize this is a joke setup

A: You can't cross a vector with a scalar, dummy!

(scalar is pronounced exactly the same as scaler)

thank you for this joke

I will tell my mom who loves math puns