I must be dense. I still don’t get #20. What does the “B” in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for?… Benoit B. Mandelbrot.
I understand Mandelbrot was a mathmetician who discovered (?) fractals…but what does that have to do with the question?
A fractal is a natural phenomenon or a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern that displays at every scale. If the replication is exactly the same at every scale, it is called a self-similar pattern. In other words, it has the seed with in it to duplicate itself perfectly, as does the middle initial “B.” in Benoit B. Mandelbrot in the joke.
You mean it doesn’t stand for “balls”? 
Benoit (Benoit (Benoit (…(…)…) Mandelbrot) Mandelbrot) Mandelbrot
It’s like recursion.
Did not get Irony on the first attempt. (Who does?)
Did not get Sodium AT ALL – and I’m old enough and educated enough to laugh at the joke, so it wasn’t just ignorance.
But I also stumbled on “unionized”, so I guess my chemistry is rusty.
I think (fervently hope) you’ve been wooshed.
Same here; methinks Amateur Barbarian is just trying to give ulcers to those of us traumatized by the interminable spectacle of that Og-condemned “.999… = 1” thread. 
A chemist is going to think in terms of ions, atoms that have either a positive or negative charge. The plumber is going to think in terms of a union, a group of workers banded together for collective bargaining. The chemist will say “un… ion… ized” (4 syllables) as in an atom that does not have an electric charge, and the plumber will say “union… ized” (three syllables) as in forming a union.
Not only this, but also there’s the fact that a great many people never made it to convergent series in math, so how would she (he?) google the explanation of the infinitely many mathematicians and the two beers?
That’s INTERpolation, actually: the missing data is between those given, it is within (“inter”) the ranges given.
Extrapolation would involve data outside (“extra”) the ranges given: with the data you give, the temperature for Friday.
Probably… Or most obviously. It might be that the logicians have some pre-arranged rules that they are following , ala other puzzles which feature three logicians making deductions based upon the other doing something, or failing to do something…
When you realise its a close, its not that funny. There is no actual joke. Its perfectly mundane answering.
Is it good or is it bad ? yes.
Ironic… remember Alanis Morriset ? the bus stop represents 10,000 spoons, the plane crash, rain on your wedding day… Perhaps the joke could more strongly reference Alanis.
“Which was ironic, given we had 10,000 spoons”. (Alanis did touch on true irony - perhaps the good advice ? )
I think I got all of them except the mathematicians and their limits… some explanations will be repeats…
Did any stump me? I read #14 as HE didn’t understand what irony was. So I missed that one due to poor reading comprehension and can only guess if I’d have gotten it right.
I think that #19 and #20 would be best explained by video clips. But here’s a simple fractal, the Sierpinski triangle. It looks like there’s only so many tiny triangles, but that’s a mistake of scale. There are an infinite number and you just can’t see the ones that are smaller than your range of vision.
If you zoomed in on the Sierpinski triangle, more little triangles would emerge, as if from nowhere, as they got large enough to be seen. The zoom can keep going forever and there would always be more internal triangles coming into view - triangles that look exactly like original, full scale triangle. In fact there are probably gifs out there that mimic an infinite zoom on a Sierpinski triangle.
The joke is saying that you can do the same with Mandelbrot’s name. As you zoom in on the middle, the B expands into the whole name. Then the next B expands. Then the next. It’s Benoit B. Mandelbrots all the way down.
There are two types of people in the world: those who divide people into two types and those who don’t.
Can somebody figure THIS one out for me?
(Impatient traveler wants room in hotel. Desk clerk insists there’s nothing available. Traveler persists. Clerk checks again. )
CLERK: Ah, here we are! A room with an adjoining.
TRAVELER: An adjoining what?
CLERK: We don’t know! We never could open the door!
Now I’ve known that one since I was a kid–and I never understood it!
Here’s my thoughts on all the ones you didn’t get. Admittedly, some of them require some uncommon knowledge, but they’re fairly funny if you know it. Some of it, I think you just missed the joke. I’ll leave them in spoilers. I got all the ones you got too, so, I didn’t bother to put thoughts on those.
3.) A Roman walks into a bar and asks for a Martinus…. “You mean a martini?” the bartender asks. The Roman replies, “If I wanted a double, I would have asked for it!”
The joke is that the Roman thinks martini is plural for martinus. I’m not super knowledgable aboue latin, but I do know that for many words that end in -us, the way to pluralize it is -i. For a common, and IMO incorrect, trope of this idea, it’s not unlike how people argue over whether the plural of octopus is octopi or octopuses.
4.) René Descartes walks into a bar. Bartender asks if he wants anything. … René says, “I think not,” then disappears.
Decartes is best known for the phrase, “I think, therefore I am”. So the joke is that if he doesn’t think, he doesn’t exist, hence he says “I think not” and ceases to exist.
5.) Sixteen sodium atoms walk into a bar… followed by Batman.
It’s a joke based on the old 60s Batman show. The chemical symbol for sodium is “Na” so, if you know that theme song, it’s a bunch of “na na na na na” followed by “Batman!” I only know this cause I heard this joke before, it works a whole lot better said rather than written down.
8.) An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first orders a beer, the second orders half a beer, the third orders a quarter of a beer, and so on. … After the seventh order, the bartender pours two beers and says, “You fellas ought to know your limits.”
It’s a math joke. Without getting too technical, it’s a clear reference here to adding up an infinite number of things. In this case, it’s of the form 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + … which is a well known sumation of (1/2)^n as n goes from 0 to infinity, and the limit equals two. So it’s a pun because usually a bartender would say someone doesn’t know their limits when they’ve had too much to drink, and in this case he’s commenting on mathematicians not knowing an important mathematical concept.
9.) Pavlov is sitting at a bar, when all of the sudden the phone rings… Pavlov gasps, “Oh crap, I forgot to feed the dogs.”
Pavlov’s dogs is a well known experiment. He conditioned some dogs by ringing a bell them feeding them. He did this for a while and then he’d ring the bell and not feed them and they’d begin salivating even without food. So there’s some comedic irony here in that he also got conditioned to hearing the bell and being reminded to feed his dogs.
10.) Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath…. This made him a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
Halitosis is a technical term for bad breath. That’s not really the joke though. The point is that the punch line sounds an awful lot like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. This is a made up word that is really famous from a song in Mary Poppins.
12.) How can you tell the difference between a chemist and a plumber? … Ask them to pronounce “unionized.”
It’s a pun. A chemist might be concerned about whether a particle is an ion, so he would see unionized and pronounce it as un-ionized, as in a particle that is not an ion. A plumber, like many professionals, may be part of a union, so he would see unionized and pronounce it union-ized, as in whether or not someone is part of a union.
13.) What’s the difference between an etymologist and an entomologist?… An etymologist knows the difference.
An etymologist studies the history of words. An entomologist studies insects. These two words are commonly mixed up, so obviously the former could help out. Frankly, I think it would be funnier if the punchline were that the entomologist knew the difference, implying that even the joke teller has trouble telling them apart.
14.) The other day my friend was telling me that I didn’t understand what irony meant. … Which is ironic, because we were standing at a bus stop.
Yes, the joke is that it’s not ironic, so the person saying it thinks he knows what it means, but then plainly demonstrates that he doesn’t.
15.) There are two types of people in this world:… Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
extrapolating from incomplete data would just mean to essentially fill in the blanks. Like if I gave population statistics that said a given area was 10% black, 10% asian, 10% hispanic, and 5% other. I didn’t mention white, but most people would assume that that’s probably what makes up the unspecified 65% and it makes sense based on their expectations. In this case, we’re told there’s two types of people, but only one is given. So, obviously, there are those who can figure out that the other group must be those who can’t figure out what the other group is, and they’ll find it amusing. Unfortunately, it seems that you’re in that second group.
16.) An MIT linguistics professor was lecturing his class the other day. “In English,” he said, “a double negative forms a positive. However, in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative remains a negative. … But there isn’t a single language, not one, in which a double positive can express a negative.” A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, right.”
It’s just a joke on sarcasm. If someone said just “Yeah” or “Right”, it would be positive, but “Yeah, right.” is a common way of sarcastically being dismissive.
19.) I’m thinking about selling my theremin… I haven’t touched it in years.
A theremin is a musical instrument that is played by motioning your hands near it, one hand controls tone, and one volume. You’ve heard it before, it’s used in the classic Star Trek theme, and often associated with cheesy 50s sci-fi, mad scientists and the like. The key point is that your hands never touch it when you play it, so it’s properly used without touching it.
20.) What does the “B” in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for?… Benoit B. Mandelbrot.
This is another math joke. Mandelbrot was a mathematician and he is best known for the Mandelbrot set. It’s fairly complex, and interesting one of the channels I follow on Youtube called Numberphile recently did a good video explaining it in more accessible terms. Without getting technical, perhaps best way to explain it is to compare it to the limits joke above about dealing with infinities. In short, if the “B” in “Benoi B. Mandelbrot” stood for the same thing, then you’d be able to expand his name infinitely, because you’d always be inserting his entire name including the “B” which could just be expanded to his full name again.
A take-off of the other “two types of people in the world” jokes. Not a clever one though.
Many motels have adjoining rooms. Basically a door between two different rooms, both locking from respective sides. If two people were traveling together, they’d get adjoining rooms and open the doors. The result–one big room.
The joke is they don’t know what’s on the other side of the door.
I always took the “2 kinds of people: those who divide people into 2 groups and those who don’t” as a subtle slam at the idea that life is so simple the entirety of people can be neatly divided into two groups.
Or - “If you think you can divide people into only 2 groups, you are a fool”.
There’s 3 types of people in this world: Those who can count and those who can’t.
You want me to murder you, don’t you.
This thread needs more jokes. My personal favourite:
Q: Who lead the Pedant’s Revolt?
A: Which Tyler.