One of my favorite lame math jokes -

A farmer went out into his field to get a head count on his cattle and counted 196, but later that night when he rounded them up there were 200.

How to prove any theorem:

Proof by vigorous handwaving: authority trumps all

Proof by forward reference: reference is usually to a forthcoming paper of the author, which is often not as forthcoming as at first.

Proof by funding: three different government agencies can’t go wrong

Proof by example: the case n = 2 works, therefore every case works

Proof by omission: ‟The reader may easily supply the details”

Proof by lack of space: I can prove it, but it’s too big to fit it in the margins

Proof by deferral: we will prove it later

Proof by picture: basically proof by example+

Proof by intimidation: of course it’s true, stupid

Proof by seduction: let me be your derivative so I can lie tangent to your curves

Proof by cumbersome notation: we can easily prove (1-a^2 )/((1-a e^(-i omega) ) (1-a e^(i omega) )) = 1/(1-a e^(-i omega) )+(a e^(i omega) )/(1-a e^(i omega) ) by first letting x = e^(i omega) so 1/x = e^(-i omega)

Proof by obfuscation: randomly backtrack and initiate useless circuit logic

Proof by wishful citation: also cite the inverse, converse, and contrapositive from popular literature.

Proof by eminent authority: ‟I saw Karp in the elevator and he said eight-dimensional color cycle stripping was probably NP-complete.”

Proof by personal communication: ‟Eight-dimensional colored cycle stripping is NP-complete [Karp, personal communication].”

Proof by reduction to the wrong problem: to prove the 4-color theorem, we can easily simplify this into a simple quadratic

Proof by importance: if this is not true, the universe as we know it will explode

Proof by accumulated evidence: no one has found a counterexample yet

Proof by theology: mathematics is a field restricted only to the holy

Proof by mutual reference: In reference A, Theorem 5 is said to follow from Theorem 3 in reference B, which is shown to follow from Corollary 6.2 in reference C, which is an easy consequence of Theorem 5 in reference A.

Proof by vehement assertion: it’s true or you fail

Proof by semantic shift: some of the standard but inconvenient definitions are changed for the statement of the result.

Proof by appeal to emotion: crayon-drawn pictures of cats and dogs are especially helpful

RIP-a-doodle doo.

:’(

That is so stupid. I love it!

I die laughing

Bazinga!