It’s how mathematicians multiply.
It’s algebraic, even.
8==D (1)( o Y o )
The confusion must come from the idea that it might not be clear which set of parens to solve first.
You know, I don’t know if this is an abstract conceptual mathematical joke or not, but I get it just by reading dirty pictures from the symbols. A lesson there for the “2+2=5” crowd.
Hey! That’s the Encyclopædia Britannica right there on the shelves.
No, you got it. There’s no actual mathematical content to cmyk’s post, beyond “it has symbols other than numbers, therefore it’s algebra”. I mean, I suppose you could assign meaning to it, but it wouldn’t be particularly interesting meaning.
I just like to titillate with meaningless variables. 
Is this pertinent, somehow?
/ I re-found this thread by Google searching “Chronos” AND “I’ll be in my bunk.” Of all the stuff I remember him that he posts it’s this… 
We don’t want to know why you were Google searching “Chronos” AND “I’ll be in my bunk.”
Just sayin’…
I believe it was to find this thread, to post the new picture…but it still sounds odd. :insert reasonably witty smiley here:
OK, that picture that Leo Bloom just posted is definitely weird. What’s with the… masks, I guess? that they’re wearing? My best guess is that that picture was trying to convey a message basically opposite the one in the OP, from a morality play or some such that was saying that it was evil for women to be educated.
Vassar 1889, The sophomores who finished their required mathematics warned the freshmen of the rigors to participate in an annual play called the Trig Ceremonies.
I really should take a closer interest in Tumblr.
xkcd forums has an explanation now.
http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2739&sid=f33fc18abf19bcd3d5275a4c37879f5d&start=80
The full title is:
Beyond the Standard Model: Nineteen things we understand and four we don’t
It is true that it was inspired by the Pink Floyd poster.
They’ve sold out.
http://www.cafepress.com/physchicks
From top to bottom it’s the Taylor-series derivation of the Euler identity.
“The mathematics writer Constance Reid has opined that Euler’s identity is ‘the most famous formula in all mathematics’.” [above cite]
Well that oughta shut me up.
Though as Indistinguishable is fond of pointing out, the Taylor series is far from the most elegant way to prove the Euler identity.
Maybe, but it’s the only way I’ve seen that I found to be comprehensible.
It’s the only way I know of. How do you define sin and cos? By some dubious pictures or by the power series? I prefer the latter. Unless you are going to get them from y’'=-y, plus initial conditions, which is legitimate but requires an existence and uniqueness proof, Picard’s little theorem. Proof of convergence of the power series is far the easiest, AFAIK.
Well, from my point of view as a physicist, the “dubious pictures” are the one and only definition of sin and cos, and if you want to use the power series, you have to first prove that they’re faithful descriptions of the pictures. Which is probably about as much overhead as what you’re describing.