THE MATHEMATICIAN, THE PHYSICIST AND THE ENGINEER (AND OTHER PROFESSIONS)
Three women, a physicist, a engineer and a computer scientist, are
travelling in a car. Suddenly, the car starts to smoke and stops.
The three astonished women try to solve the problem.
-The Physicist says: This is obviously a classic problem of torque. The
elasticity limit of the main axis has been exceeded.
-The Engineer says : Get real! The engine heat has melted a hole through
this oil tube. Give me ten minutes; I'll fix it with this chewing gum.
-The Computer Scientist says : What if we get off the car, wait a minute,
and then get in and try again?
A mathematician and a physicist agree to a psychological experiment.
The mathematician is put in a chair in a large empty room and a
beautiful woman is placed on a bed at the other end of the room.
The psychologist explains, "You are to remain in your chair. Every
five minutes, I will move your chair to a position halfway between its
current location and the woman on the bed." The mathematician looks
at the psychologist in disgust. "What? I'm not going to go through
this. You know I'll never reach the bed!" And he gets up and storms
out. The psychologist makes a note on his clipboard and ushers the
physicist in. He explains the situation, and the physicist's eyes
light up and he starts drooling. The psychologist is a bit confused.
"Don't you realize that you'll never reach her?" The physicist smiles
and replied, "Of course! But I'll get close enough for all practical
purposes!"
A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are
on a photo-safari in Africa. They drive out into the savannah in their
jeep, stop and scour the horizon with their binoculars.
The biologist: "Look! There's a herd of zebras! And there, in the middle:
a white zebra! It's fantastic! There are white zebras! We'll be famous!"
The statistician:
"It's not significant. We only know there's one white zebra"
The mathematician:
"Actually, we know there exists a zebra which is white on one side"
The computer scientist:
"Oh no! A special case!"
An Engineer, a Physicist, and a Mathematician all go the same
Conference. University budgets being what they are, they all stay in
the same cheap hotel. Each room has the same floor plan, has the same
cheap TV, the same cheap bed, and a small bathroom. Instead of
a sprinkler system, the hotel has opted for Fire Buckets.
The Engineer, Physicist, and Mathematician are all asleep in bed. At
about 2AM, the Engineer wakes up because he smells smoke. He looks in
the corner of the room and sees that the TV set is on fire! He dashes
into the bathroom, fills the Fire Bucket to overflowing with water, and
drenches the TV set. The fire goes out, and the Engineer goes back to
sleep.
A little while later, the Physicist wakes because he smells smoke. He
looks in the corner and sees that the TV set is on fire. He grabs a
handy envelope, estimates the BTU output of the fire, scribbles a quick
calculation, then dashes into the bathroom and fills the Fire Bucket
with just enough water to douse the flames. He puts the fire out and
goes back to sleep.
In a little while, the Mathematician wakes up to the smell of smoke.
He looks in the corner and sees the TV on fire. He looks into the
bathroom and sees the Fire Bucket. Having determined that a solution
exists, he goes back to sleep.
An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture
with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest
possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep
into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A
circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the
best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of
infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around
the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around
the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little
thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I
define myself to be on the outside!"
What is "pi"?
Mathematician: Pi is the number expressing the relationship between the
circumference of a circle and its diameter.
Physicist: Pi is 3.1415927, plus or minus 0.000000005.
Engineer: Pi is about 3.
An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an
anecdote, one quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard.
After some observations and rough calculations, the engineer realizes the
situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist
understands too and chuckles to himself happily as he now has enough
experimental evidence to publish a paper.
This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as she had observed
right away that she was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite
rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considered
this anecdote too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny.