Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

As an old topology joke goes: “A topologist is somebody who can’t tell the difference between a coffee mug and a doughnut.”

From New York Times • Jan. 1, 2023

“The cliché is that a doughnut and a coffee cup are the same to a topologist, because there’s a hole in the doughnut, and there’s also a hole in the coffee cup,” he says.

From Scientific American • Apr. 5, 2022

This example inspired the joke that a topologist cannot tell the difference between a coffee mug and a doughnut: as abstract spaces, these objects are the same.

From Scientific American • Sep. 14, 2021

There, she became the top student of acclaimed topologist William Waldron Schieffelin Claytor, the third African American to earn a PhD in maths.

From Nature • Mar. 11, 2020

Many of my topologist colleagues, who study the properties of geometric objects, seem to live in an alternative, imagined world.

From The New Yorker • Nov. 7, 2019