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2010-06-12 -Short Attention Span Theater-

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Posted by Nimble Spemble 2010-06-12 00:00|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 What's the difference between a physicist, an engineer and a mathematician?

One night a physicist, an engineer, and a mathematician were staying in a hotel. By coincidence, a small fire broke out in each of their rooms.

The physicist woke up, did some quick calculations, determined it would take one cup of water to put the fire out. He threw a cup of water on the fire and went back to bed.

The engineer also woke up, did some quick calculations, determined it would take one cup of water to put the fire out. He threw a cup and a half of water on the fire and went back to bed.

The mathematician woke up, did some quick calculations. He said "Aha! There is a solution!" and went back to bed.

(Yes, I was a math major.)

Posted by Rambler in Virginia 2010-06-12 00:14|| 2010-06-12 00:14|| Front Page Top

#2 ...Leaving the fire to burn merrily.

My favourite joke, Rambler!

Posted by trailing wife 2010-06-12 02:25|| 2010-06-12 02:25|| Front Page Top

#3 I thought the Engineer got the answer from the Big Book of Small Hotel Fires?

Aw well. The Navy would have secured it properly and then painted it.

Later asking for a smaller, faster, more expensive hotel.

Posted by Shipman 2010-06-12 06:07|| 2010-06-12 06:07|| Front Page Top

#4 " I thought the Engineer got the answer from the Big Book of Small Hotel Fires?"

If so it was obviously the "Red Book", and not the "Blue Book" as the blue book has been shown to have suffered from the early Pentium rounding error somewhere it its maths and produced inaccurate results. In those cases the engineer goes nuts attempting to measure out 1.499999998 cups of water before being burned up in the flames that eventually engulf the entire room.

Posted by crosspatch 2010-06-12 13:33|| 2010-06-12 13:33|| Front Page Top

#5 Of course, there is a followup to my joke.

It turns out that each of them had miscalculated (possibly due to the Red Book/Blue Book controversy that crosspatch mentioned). As a result, the fires did not go out, but continued to grow.

The physicist and engineer woke up to the larger fire and kept calculating to find the solution to the larger fire. Sad to say, they did not find a solution in time.

The mathematician, upon waking up, realized that by this time there was no solution. As a result, he escaped.

Like I said, I was a math major. I am NOT a mathematician, however.

Posted by Rambler in Virginia 2010-06-12 15:01|| 2010-06-12 15:01|| Front Page Top

#6 A lady with several liberal arts degrees in theatre and like photography or something I know calculated (and correctly I might add) that the best route to an engineers heart is acting so dumb that he has the constant need to correct her miscalculations and drama. The equation is called pie times the square route of an idiot. The woman is my stepmother who to this day doesn't work. And the man is...my father who supports her. ooops.

Posted by Clineng Poodle6890 2010-06-12 17:06|| 2010-06-12 17:06|| Front Page Top

#7 Clineng Poodle6890, let me speak to the issue you raise, as I, too, am married to an engineer. While many engineers, practical men that they are, marry nurses (or doctors in these non-sexist times) or something equally useful, a few odd ones feel the need for something impractical and artistic, a medieval walled garden in which to indulge the other side of their brains. No matter how it may look, or what your stepmother may think about her manipulative skills, it is highly likely your father got exactly what he wanted. I speak with the authority of being Mr. Wife's rose garden, and the friend of a number of nurses and doctors married to engineers; I had planned on being a career woman, you see (because a double major in math and dance leads to such things, right?), but he knew after a few minute's acquaintance that I was meant for other things and was fine with that. Eventually I figured it out, too, with no manipulation involved.

Posted by trailing wife 2010-06-12 17:45|| 2010-06-12 17:45|| Front Page Top

#8 True Story.
A good friend of mine spent more than 40 years as a petroleum engineer working in the oil well drilling industry. The last 15 years of his carreer he spent as a drilling consultant for BP. Since the Deepwater Horizon disaster he has been besieged daily by journalists trying to get dirt on BP. Several days ago he finally aquienced and agreed to answer questions from a group of about 30 journalists and writers. After the interview I asked him how it went. "Horrible" he said, "the answers to questions they asked, even broken down into the simplest technological form, were so far over their heads not even one of them could understand what I was trying to explain. Who knows what they will write about or quote me as saying. It was worse than trying to explain the theory of relativity to a class full first graders."
"How so?" I asked.
"First graders don't think they know more about the theory of relativity than Einstein." He said.

Posted by junkirony 2010-06-12 23:28|| 2010-06-12 23:28|| Front Page Top

23:55 European Conservative
23:48 junkirony
23:43 crosspatch
23:41 crosspatch
23:37 crosspatch
23:28 junkirony
23:25 mojo
23:18 Frank G
23:10 Charles
22:51 badanov
22:48 Shieldwolf
22:46 bman
22:43 tipper
22:11 Barbara Skolaut
22:07 Barbara Skolaut
21:53 Barbara Skolaut
21:39 KBK
21:34 Frank G
21:29 Frank G
21:28 KBK
21:27 junkirony
21:23 trailing wife
21:17 Secret Asian Man
21:09 eLarson