Ball Bearings
A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer were being interviewed.
As part of the process, they were given 2 brass ball bearings, left
alone for a while, then asked what they had done.
-
Mathematician: "I haven't
done
anything with them, but
I've some theories about 2-ness."
-
Physicist: "I've tried to balance one on the other, and have
some ideas about friction."
-
Engineer: "Er... they broke."
Black Sheep
An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician were on a train heading
north, and had just crossed the border into Scotland.
-
The engineer looked out of the window and said "Look! Scottish
sheep are black!"
-
The physicist said, "No, no.
Some
Scottish sheep are
black."
-
The mathematician looked irritated. "There is at least one
field, containing at least one sheep, of which at least one side is
black."
variants:
-
The statistician : "It's not significant. We only know there's
one black sheep"
-
The computer scientist : "Oh, no! A special case!"
Boiling water
An engineer and a mathematician were shown into a kitchen, given an
empty pan, and told to boil a pint of water. They both filled the pan
with water, put it on the stove, and boiled it.
The next day they were shown into the kitchen again, given a pan full
of water, and told to boil a pint of water.
-
The engineer took the pan, put it on the stove, and boiled it.
-
The mathematician took the pan and emptied it, thereby reducing it
to a previously solved problem.
Bone
Three hungry cannibals --- who were a chemist, a physicist and an
engineer --- found a human thigh bone.
-
The chemist licked it, and put it in water to try to dissolve it.
-
The physicist tried to break it open to get at the marrow.
-
The engineer took it, hit the other two over the head, and ate
them.
Fence
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. He 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."
-- from HUMOURNET
Oldest Profession
An engineer, a physicist, and a computer scientist were discussing
what was the oldest profession.
-
The engineer claimed priority. "Look at all that matter
engineered into amazing constructs like galaxies, stars, and planets."
-
The physicist disagreed. "Before there were planets, the
matter had to be made from chaos. Physics is responsible for all the
quarks, gluons, photons, and electrons."
-
The computer scientist coughed modestly. "Ah, but where do you
think the chaos came from?"
Precision
-
Engineers work to a couple of decimal places
-
Physicists work to an order of magnitude
-
Astrophysicists work to an order of magnitude in the exponent
Prime numbers
Various proofs that
every odd number is
prime
:
-
Mathematician: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime. The result
follows by induction."
-
Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is
experimental error..."
-
Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime..."
-
Computer programmer: "2 is prime, 2 is prime, 2 is prime, 2 is
prime, ..."
-
Economist: "2 is prime, 4 is prime, 6 is prime, 8 is prime..."
Puncture
A project manager, a hardware engineer, and a programmer were in a
car. Coming down a hill, a tyre got a puncture, the car went out of
control, and a bad crash was only narrowly averted.
-
The project manager wanted everyone to help draw up a plan of how
to fix the car and carry on.
-
The hardware engineer wanted to change the tyre and carry on.
-
The programmer wanted to go back to the top of the hill, drive down
again, and see if the problem happened again.
Reality
-
An engineer thinks that equations are an approximation to reality.
-
A physicist thinks reality is an approximation to equations.
-
A mathematician doesn't care.
--- (from
Canonical
List of Math Jokes
)
Results
-
The problem with engineers is that they tend to cheat in order to
get results.
-
The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toy
problems in order to get results.
-
The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at
toy problems in order to get results.
--- (from
science
jokes, ver 6.7 mar 1, 1995
)