Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1996 09:31:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Splendide Catastrophe Subject: BLAGUES-L: Engineers, Mathematicians, and other specialties Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 16:57:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Vezina Marie-Helene Subject: Engineers, Mathematicians, and other specialties -----------------------------------------------------------------------= The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?" The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?" ------------ Engineers think that equations approximate the real world. Scientists think that the real world approximates equations. Mathematicians are unable to make the connection... ------------ A Mathematician, a Biologist and a Physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The Physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate.". The Biologists conclusion: "They have reproduced". The Mathematician: "If now exactly 1 person enters the house then it will be empty again." ------------ Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body. One said, ``It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints.'' Another said, ``No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections.'' The last said, ``Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?'' ------------ 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. She 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!" ------------ In some foreign country a priest, a lawyer and an engineer are about to be guillotined. The priest puts his head on the block, they pull the rope and nothing happens -- he declares that he's been saved by divine intervention -- so he's let go. The lawyer is put on the block, and again the rope doesn't release the blade, he claims he can't be executed twice for the same crime, and he is set free too. They grab the engineer and shove his head into the guillotine, he looks up at the release mechanism and says, "Wait a minute, I see your problem......" ------------ An engineer, a mathematician, and a physicist went to the races one Saturday and laid their money down. Commiserating in the bar after the race, the engineer says, "I don't understand why I lost all my money. I measured all the horses and calculated their strength and mechanical advantage and figured out how fast they could run..." The physicist interrupted him: "...but you didn't take individual variations into account. I did a statistical analysis of their previous performances and bet on the horses with the highest probability of winning..." "...So if you're so hot why are you broke?" asked the engineer. But before the argument can grow, the mathematician takes out his pipe and they get a glimpse of his well-fattened wallet. Obviously here was a = man who knows something about horses. They both demanded to know his secret. "Well," he says, between puffs on the pipe, "first I assumed all the horses were identical and spherical..."