Article 111648 of alt.folklore.computers:
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From: jeffo @ rayleigh.lanl.gov (Jeff Olson)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.physics,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Mathematician joke
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 1995 16:32:14 GMT
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
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In article <Pine.HPP.3.91.950711014302.9986C-100000 @ weber.ucsd.edu> Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan <dmckiern @ weber.ucsd.edu> writes:

>On Mon, 10 Jul 1995, Bob Kovsky wrote:

>>       The mathematicians were home first with their massive tome, 
>> entitled "A Structural Model of the Dynamics of Milk."  It was duly 
>> delivered to the Speaker of the House.
>> 
>>       On its first page, it commenced:  "Begin with a spherical cow."

>Yes, but be fair.  If you look in the appendix, it's clear that they
>=generalized= the concept of =sphere= such that what one would
>normally consider a sphere was =just one= special case.  As it
>turned out, the theory was equally applicable to cubic cows, and could
>approach a cow of =any= shape, so long as the volume of the cow
>could be made arbitrarily large or small.

>          It's always Dark.  Light only hides the Darkness.

>          Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan           (619) 535 - 0546
>          athanatos @ UCSD.edu   132.239.147.2    <75013,676>

Indeed, the formalism is given, where one simply approximates the cow of 
arbitrary shape as a sum of spherical Bessel (or, in this case, Bessie) 
functions.
Jeff