I love those three-scientist type jokes.
A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are chatting together in a café across the road from what appears to be an empty building. After a while, they spot a couple going into the house. After a few more minutes, they come out again - with a child.
"Ah", says the physicist. "There must have been a measurement error."
"Not at all", says the biologist. "They've reproduced."
"Don't worry about it", says the mathematician. "Maybe someone else will go back in in a while, and then it will be empty again."
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An engineer, a mathematician, and a physicist are staying for the night in a hotel. Fortunately for this joke, a small fire breaks out in each room.
The physicist awakes, sees the fire, makes some careful observations, and on the back of the hotel's wine list does some quick calculations. Grabbing the fire extinguisher, he puts out the fire with one, short, well placed burst, and then crawls back into bed and goes back to sleep.
The engineer awakes, sees the fire, makes some careful observations, and on the back of the hotel's room service list (pizza menu) does some quick calculations. Grabbing the fire extinguisher (and adding a factor of safety of 5), he puts out the fire by hosing down the entire room several times over, and then crawls into his soggy bed and goes back to sleep.
The mathematician awakes, sees the fire, makes some careful observations, and on a blackboard installed in the room, does some quick calculations. Jubliant, he exclaims "A solution exists!", and crawls into his dry bed and goes back to sleep.
In the morning, the mathematician awakes to the cooling embers of the fire from his room. He fans it back into a roaring inferno, observes that "this reduces to a previously solved problem", crawls into his warm bed, and goes back to sleep.
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An engineer, a mathematician, and a physicist are each sentenced to die by the guillotine. As the physicist is led to the guillotine, she decides that she'd like to observe the blade as it falls, perhaps to verify v=at, and she requests to be strapped in face up. The executioner agrees (why not? it all pays the same...), and straps her in. As the blade falls, it sticks about two thirds of the way down. Seeing this, the crowd cheers - the physicist must be innocent! So the exectuioner unstraps her and sets her free.
The mathematician is next. Being well versed in matters statistical (perhaps she is an actuary), she quickly asks to be placed face up as well - afterall, the odds of it happening again are pretty good, especially if the initial conditions are similar. So the excutioner obliges, and once again, the blade sticks about two thirds of the way down. Again the crowd cheers, and the mathematician is also set free.
Finally, the engineer. Not willing to do anything in public that is different from her peers, she, too, requests to be placed face up. As the executioner is strapping her in, she's looking up at the blade and studying the track in which it slides. As she does so, she notices something. "Do you see that?", she asks. "About one third the way up? If you fixed that there..."
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An engineer, mathematician, and physicist are each asked to determine the volume of a red metal ball.
The mathematician measures the diameter, divides it by two to obtain the radius, and then performs a double intergration.
The physicist weighs the ball and then weighs it again when immersed in water. Knowing the density of water and the difference in the two weights, she calculates the displaced volume of water, which is the volume of the ball.
The engineer turns to her reference text The Physical Properties of Balls and in the chapter entitled "Metal", finds the table labelled "Red". Searching for a row that the contains the appropriate model number (which is stamped on the ball), she reads across to the column "volume", ignoring those dealing with "coefficient of thermal expansion" and "software rev. level".
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Mathematician, Physicist, Engineer walking through a field come upon a farmer.
The farmer asks what is the best way to construct a fence that will contain his livestock (ie., most area for least perimeter). The physicist does some calculus and concludes that the best way to do this is a square fence. The engineer looks at him and laughs. "No, the best way is a circle". The physicist concedes and they start building the fence.
The mathematician just sits there for a while and eventually stands up, puts a small piece around himself and says "I declare myself to be outside".
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There was a mad scientist ( a mad ...social... scientist ) who
kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a
mathematician, and locked each of them in seperate cells with plenty
of canned food and water but no can opener.
A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's
cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can
opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to
make an explosive, and escaped.
The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off
the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a
good pitching arm and a new quantum theory.
The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising
solution to the kissing problem; his desiccated corpse was propped
calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood:
Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die.
Proof: assume the opposite...
