karn@petrus.UUCP (Phil R. Karn) (03/02/86)
Actually, *my* favorite "engineer/physicist/mathematician" joke is as follows: An engineer goes to bed. He is rudely awakened in the middle of the night to discover that his wastepaper basket is on fire. He jumps up, runs to the bathroom, grabs a bucket, fills it with water, rushes back to the fire and empties the bucket on the fire. Satisfied that the fire is out, he goes back to bed. A physicist goes to bed. He is rudely awakened in the middle of the night to discover that his wastepaper basket is on fire. He jumps up, runs to the bathroom and pauses. Taking into account the chemical composition of the fire's fuel, the available oxygen concentration and thermal output of the fire, he fills the bucket with just enough water to put out the fire. He then runs over to the trashcan and dumps the bucket. Satisfied that the fire is out, he goes back to bed. A mathematician goes to bed. He is rudely awakened in the middle of the night to discover that his wastepaper basket is on fire. He jumps up, thinks for a moment, and then goes back to bed confident that there exists a solution to the problem at hand. Phil