Maths for laughs

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Mathematics may not be something one associates with jokes. But for some nerds, finding humour even in maths books isn’t difficult. A Facebook page, “Dr. Isomorpheus”, is trying to change the notion of mathematics — as a serious subject for serious students — by adding a dash of humour to it.
Hitesh Gakhar, a Maths major at Indian Institute Of Science Education And Research, Mohali, who has started this page, tries to make maths fun with situations taken from everyday life and characters inspired by the subject that include Tangentino, Epsilly and Mathlecia.
Hitesh, who confesses to be crazy about maths, says that the idea of creating a platform where maths is discussed with a dash of humour, came from a character — Ms Epsilly — that he found in a friend’s (Nishika Bhatia) college newsletter. “With the help of this character, my friend was simplifying certain formulae and educating fellow students about other myths in maths. It struck me that if a few more characters like this are created, the subject can be made super cool,” he says, adding that he brainstormed with Nishika to come up with more such characters and ideas.
And thus emerged the idea of cartoon strips which makes maths easy and fun in varied ways — from Dr Isomorpheus giving an alternative to fat burning exercises and helping Epsilly in planning a date with Mr Tangentino to proving the Goldbach’s Conjecture!
The idea is to make maths fun. But Hitesh understands that not everybody can get all the jokes posted on the page, as some of them are quite technical. “I don’t expect every person to understand a math or science joke. But then I also feel that humour can be culled from anywhere and any situation,” says Hitesh, explaining the diverse character of a word like “normal”. “In common language, ‘normal’ can be usual, average, ordinary or anything similar, but in mathematics Normal is a term in Linear Algebra. It’s a very technical term. Humour arises from these things,” he explains.
To make it simpler for non-math people, he has created segments like “Dr Iso Speaks” where he explains mathematical terms and theorems used in the strips. There’s also a quiz section — “Answer Silly Epsilly”.
Now that the page has become popular with more than 1,500 likes in just two months, Hitesh and Nishika plan to come up with more characters and ideas. “The first on our list is Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper. Since he is really popular among youngsters, we are planning a character inspired by him,” says Hitesh, who wants to go slow with the idea. He doesn’t want to get into any commercial ventures with this. “This has emerged out of passion and thus I don’t want to make it commercial in any way,” he says.