If there is any doubt left that I am a nerd, this post should take care of it. I like math. It’s not that I’m especially good at it, I just like it. I like the absoluteness of it. 2 + 2 = 4, √25 = 5, the area of a circle is πr2, and there is nothing the postmoderns can do about it. I also like limericks. In fact, I love limericks. So this post displays all kinds of nerdy goodness about me. These are a few math limericks I’ve collected.

An algebra teacher named Drew
Tried to find the √2.
He found it between
¼ and 14,
But couldn't get closer. Can you?

There was an old man who said, “Do
Tell me how I should add two and two.
I think more and more
That it makes about four—
But I fear that is almost too few.”

A mathematician confided
That a Moebius band is one-sided.
And you'll get quite a laugh
If you cut one in half,
For it stays in one piece when divided.

There was a young student from Rye,
Who worked out the value of π.
“It happens,” said he,
“That it's just over 3,
Though I'd rather you don't ask me why.”

If inside of a circle a line
Hits the center and goes spine to spine
And the line’s length is “d”,
The circumference will be
d times 3.14159.

There was a young lady named Bright
whose speed was much greater than light.
So she set out one day,
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night.

The Professor said, “Now I'll tell you
A fact known to only a few
Men and women alive.
Two plus two equals five!
(For large enough values of two.)”

This is my favorite, credited to John Saxon, the author of our math textbooks:

A Dozen, a Gross, and a Score,
plus three times the square root of four,
divided by seven,
plus five times eleven,
equals nine squared and not a bit more.

Here’s one for you to solve:

There once was a woman from Dundee,
Whose age had the last digit three.
If her whole age reversed
Is the square of the first,
Then what must the woman’s age be?