Buffon
Explanation
The Joke
Two people are discussing mathematics. One mentions Buffon's proof and asks why it is considered beautiful. The other responds that it is "elegant." When pressed on why, they explain: "Precisely. To a mathematician, a beautiful proof is one so quickly and elegantly demonstrated, it seems almost like cheating, leaving open for playing with friends and going home early. Beautiful proofs are what lazy people dream of for social scientists."
In the final panel, two parents are shown with one saying "No wonder they started a cult around Pythagoras." The other responds: "He taught us to be lazy, that our children might know even greater laziness" -- framing mathematical elegance as the highest form of laziness.
The Humor
The comic offers a hilariously cynical reinterpretation of mathematical beauty. Mathematicians prize elegant proofs -- short, clever demonstrations that seem to cut through complexity effortlessly. The comic reframes this aesthetic ideal as, essentially, a celebration of laziness: the "most beautiful" proof is the one that gets you out of work the fastest. The Pythagoras punchline extends the joke by imagining that the quasi-religious reverence mathematicians have for foundational figures is really just gratitude for showing them how to do less work. It is a loving jab at mathematicians that also contains a genuine insight: there is something to the idea that elegance in mathematics is about achieving maximum result with minimum effort.
References
Buffon's Needle is a famous problem in probability theory posed by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, in the 18th century. It involves dropping a needle onto a floor with parallel lines and calculating the probability that the needle crosses a line -- the solution elegantly involves pi. Pythagoras, the ancient Greek mathematician, was indeed the center of a cult-like following (the Pythagoreans) who believed numbers held mystical significance.