All Math Actually Special Case of Political Science
By Naftali Harris
Nov. 9, 2013
Mathematicians around the world were devastated to learn yesterday that all mathematics is actually a special case of political theory. Professor John Mearsheimer, whose groundbreaking 1993 discoveries proved that states compete with each other for power, broke the news by barreling naked through Eckhart Hall, screaming, “Suck on that, dweebs! P!= NP, the Riemann Hypothesis is true, pi = 22/7, Israel is a Zionist conspiracy, and I nailed all of your moms last night!” Reached for further comment, Mearsheimer remarked, “I am just sick of mathematicians acting like they own the world, when all math is really just bad political science. I mean, it was only a matter of time before someone shattered their delusional fantasies.”
Jane Everard, a first year in Mearsheimer’s Offensive Realism course, is also taking UChicago’s MATH 208 this quarter, “just to relax.” Everard has tried to explain to her classmates that politicians really like power, which trivially implies pretty much all of complex analysis, algebraic topology, and quantum field theory, but without any luck. Failing this, Everard also attempted to at least teach them how to use a toothbrush, with similar success. “I hate to say it,” she commented, “but math majors just aren’t as sharp as everyone else. I mean, any damn fool can prove there aren’t any natural number solutions to a^n + b^n = c^n for integers n > 2, but obviously you wouldn’t expect a math major to be able to understand that countries with better funded armies tend to win wars.”
Mathematicians around the world have since enrolled in Miersheimer’s course, although they are still struggling with the first problem set. “What the bloody hell is this?!” complained the damn fool Sir Andrew Wiles of Oxford,”You can’t just say ‘I leave Hilbert’s problems as an easy exercise.’ That’s like 23 bloody problems!”
Not all mathematicians have come to grips with their inferiority, however. Professor Diane Herman, a prominent p-adicist at the University of Chicago, vehemently denied that her work was just bad political science, growling, “While math may not be as rigorous or as general as political realism, or as pure, or as elegant, it is–well, it’s just better, anyway.”
