If they knew the labels were switched, they know which one held caffeinated coffee...even the physicist is too sophisticated...
They don't know if the labels were correct before, or even if the tanks were swithet.
A joke about the difference between mathematicians and physicists
21–28 of 28 posts
Re: A joke about the difference between mathematicians and physicists
#22Re: A joke about the difference between mathematicians and physicists
#23Seems there are many variations on this joke. The one I know: An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician go for a walk in the countryside. They spy a black sheep in the distance. The astronomer immediately proclaims, "All sheep are black!" The physicist thinks for a moment and suggests, "Some sheep are black." The mathematician ponders awhile and says, "There exists a sheep such that at minimum one of its sides i…
There is the joke where scientists lock an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician each in a room with a bed and a can of soup. In the morning they open the rooms one by one. In the first room the engineer is asleep and there is mangled open can of soup on the floor. They wake him up and ask about the soup can. And he says, I got hungry so I smashed the soup can against floor to open it. Next room the physicist wa…
I heard a variation of this that ended with the mathematician scribbling the same equations as the physicist and then stating "and this the problem reduces to a previously solved problem" and going back to sleep without bothering to open the can.
Instead of a can of soup it was a fire that broke out in their respective rooms, the engineer sprays fire extinguisher all over the room, the physicist sprays precisely at the exact point that will extinguish the fire, and the mathematician is satisfied knowing that the problem has a known solution.
Re: A joke about the difference between mathematicians and physicists
#24The version I know goes like this:
A physicist, a mathematician and a logician are taking the train to Scotland. As the train crosses the border they see a black sheep on a hillside. The physicist remarks, "Oh look all the sheep in Scotland are black." The mathematician replies, "Oh you can't quite conclude that, the most you can say is at least one sheep in Scotland is black." Then the logician says, "Well really the most you can say is that at least one sheep in Scotland is black on one side."
Re: A joke about the difference between mathematicians and physicists
#25> A physicist and a mathematician are flying cross-country together. Each is keeping a diary of the trip. They fly over a white horse in Iowa. The physicist writes, 'There is a white horse in Iowa.' The mathematician writes, 'There exists, somewhere in the Midwest, a horse, white on top. Reminds me of a quote from a favorite textbook [1] of mine: > In mathematics, an argument must be airtight; that is, convincing in…
> It's interesting how in the sciences, we worship at the altar of the almighty Evidence. However, in math, not even evidence is good enough.
An alternate way of looking at that is, math requires you to be explicit about basing your statements on observations: now you have probability theory.
Re: A joke about the difference between mathematicians and physicists
#26> "The physicist writes, 'There is a white horse in Iowa.' The mathematician writes, 'There exists, somewhere in the Midwest, a horse, white on top."
I'm neither a mathematician nor physicist...but this seems like a category error to me. What the heck does a mathematician care about horses?
Re: A joke about the difference between mathematicians and physicists
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is the joke where scientists lock an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician each in a room with a bed and a can of soup. In the morning they open the rooms one by one. In the first room the engineer is asleep and there is mangled open can of soup on the floor. They wake him up and ask about the soup can. And he says, I got hungry so I smashed the soup can against floor to open it. Next room the physicist wa…
The joke is usually an economist saying, "assume a can opener": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assume_a_can_opener
I think economist is waiting for the free market to sell him a can opener.
Re: A joke about the difference between mathematicians and physicists
#28A mathematician, physicist and biologist sit in a street café, guarding people leaving and entering the opposite house. They see that 2 people go to the house first. Some time passes and they notice that 3 people are leaving the house and start to discuss about the meaning of this observation.
Physicist: "The measurement may have not been accurate enough."
The biologist: "They may have reproduced inside."
Mathematician: "If exactly one person went into the house now, the house would be empty again."