mathbabble

English

Etymology

From math +‎ babble.

Noun

mathbabble (uncountable)

1. Incomprehensible talk about mathematical equations.
   • 1992 October 15, Chad Mattingly, “Number theory”, in alt.tv.northern-exp (Usenet):

     I agree that it was nice to see a woman of the mathematical persuasion, and although Chris' patented MathBabble(tm) did its job and completely nauseated me and thus prevented any enjoyment of seeing a living breathing mathbabe on NEXP, I was surprised to hear about her new-agey theory that if she could just calculate pi to a few more godzillion places, she'd get "a message from beyond" or whatever, since this is the kernel of the plot of the Carl Sagan novel "Contact": […]

   • 1993 November 11, Dan Johnson, “Taligent fails”, in comp.sys.mac.advocacy (Usenet):

     No, I mean wrt to a menu _bar_. If you move the menbar you'd loose the backtop, and it would slow down a whole lot. (at least, it seems to for me. And my mathbabble says it should. This is what's so wrong with Window's, Motif and OS/2 menubars.)

   • 1996 October 1, Rick, “KNOCK IT OFF.......please!”, in alt.recovery.aa (Usenet):

     >Oh, my Gawwwd. Techno-babble strikes again! / >Rachel / Actually it's mathbabble, a much more refined dialect.

   • 1997 October 25, ia...@nanosecond.com, “Prove TURNAROUND yourself (you can do this at home!)”, in rec.gambling.blackjack (Usenet):

     All the mathbabble in the world won't make the existence of trends into a lie: they are an essential factor in all games of chance, and the player who ignores them or pretends they don't exist does so at great peril.

   • 1998 March 24, Peter Rottengatter, “AES evnt_button() problems”, in comp.sys.atari.programmer (Usenet):

     This is a lot of mathbabble, in more common language it is this : […]

   • 2002 January 30, Lumina Dragon, “Electrostatics”, in rec.games.computer.ultima.dragons (Usenet):

     I recognized enough of his mathbabble to know that he was dealing with integrals, and integrals are something which I do not recall as being introduced prior to Calculus math courses.

   • 2006 September 8, Lester Zick, “How big is infinity?”, in sci.math (Usenet):

     I'm not talking "truth values" "atomic statements" and "truth table" mathbabble here.

   • 2007, Tim Harrower, Inside Reporting: A Practical Guide to the Craft of Journalism, McGraw-Hill, →ISBN, page 84:

     Otherwise, you’re forced to trust the politicians, pollsters and bean-counters who feed you mathbabble like this: In 2004, imports rose by 12 percent and the company earned $22 million, a 26 percent increase over 2003, […]

   • 2017 June 6, FromTheRafters, “VeeCrypt Encryption Scheme - Cryptanalysis.”, in sci.crypt (Usenet):

     His mathbabble is as bad as his cryptobabble.