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."

A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms.

The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, pulled out his CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, he threw down his pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. He threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep.

The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep.

The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you -name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have proven that I can put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep.

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 mustard with that?"

A lecturer tells some students to learn the phone-book by heart.

The mathematicians are baffled: `By heart? You kidding?'

The physics-students ask: `Why?'

The engineers sigh: `Do we have to?'

The chemistry-students ask: `Till next Monday?'

The accounting-students (scribbling): `Till tomorrow?'

The laws-students answer: `We already have.'

The medicine-students ask: `Should we start on the Yellow Pages?'

A Physicist, an astronomer and a mathematician are walking one day through the Scottish Highlands, when they chance to see a black sheep.

"Ah!" says the astronomer, "that shows that scottish sheep are black."

"No, come on, you can't say that from a single observation," says the physicist, "all you can say is that black sheep are found in Scotland."

"No," says the mathematician, "all you can say from this observation is that from the angle we are looking at it, at this point in time, this particular sheep, APPEARS to be black."

Three men with degrees in mathmatics, physics and biology are locked up in dark rooms for research reasons.

A week later the researchers open the a door, the biologist steps out and reports: `Well, I sat around until I started to get bored, then I searched the room and found a tin which I smashed on the floor. There was food in it which I ate when I got hungry. That's it.'

Then they free the man with the degree in physics and he says: `I walked along the walls to get an image of the room's geometry, then I searched it. There was a metal cylinder at five feet into the room and two feet left of the door. It felt like a tin and I threw it at the left wall at the right angle and velocity for it to crack open.'

Finally, the researchers open the third door and hear a faint voice out of the darkness: `Let C be an open can.'

It takes two general relativists to change a light bulb. One holds the bulb, while the other rotates the universe.

How do you prove that all odd numbers are prime ? Depends who you ask ...

Logician:

Hypothesis: All odd numbers are prime

Proof:

1) If a proof exists, then the hypothesis must be true

2) The proof exists; you're reading it now.

From 1 and 2 follows that all odd numbers are prime

Physicist:

3 is a prime

5 is a prime

7 is a prime

9 is not prime, experimental error

Mathematician:

3 is a prime

5 is a prime

7 is a prime

by induction all the rest are prime

Engineer:

3 is a prime

5 is a prime

7 is a prime

9 is a prime

Organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds, biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that wriggle.

Ivan Ivanovich, great russian Scientist does an experiment. He wants to know how fast a thermometer falls down. He takes a thermometer and a light, a candle light.

He drops both from the 3rd floor and recognices that they are reaching the ground at the same time. Ivan Ivanovich, great russian scientific writes in his book: A theomometer falls with the speed of light.

In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi, junior, what are you up to?"

"I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the rabbit.

"Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible!"

"Well, follow me and I'll show you."

They both go into the rabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfied expression on his face.

Along comes a wolf. "Hello, what are we doing these days?"

"I'm writing the second chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits devour wolves."

"Are you crazy? Where is your academic honesty?"

"Come with me and I'll show you." ......

As before, the rabbit comes out with a satisfied look on his face and this time he has a diploma in his paw.

The camera pans back and into the rabbit's cave and, as everybody should have guessed by now, we see an enourmous mean-looking lion sitting next to the bloody and furry remains of the wolf and the fox.

The moral of this story is: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important - it's your PhD advisor that counts.

The engineer thinks of his equations as an approximation to reality.

The physicist thinks reality is an approximation to his equations.

The mathematician doesn't care.

A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it.

A student is sitting his Physics exam, and quite an important one at that - maybe his final degree paper or his Oxford Entrance.

Anyway, one of the questions on the paper was to the effect of:

``Q: How could one measure the height of a building using a barometer?''

Being a wit, in the exam this chap puts:

``A: Drop the barometer from the top of the building and time its descent. Using the formula `s = ut + a(t^2)/2' and knowing `a' which is `g' we can calculate the height of the building with reasonable accuracy.'' He then goes on to describe in more detail the method he would use.

The examiners were a little concerned. Here was one of their star students giving an answer they hadn't at all expected. So they decided to call him in and give him an oral test to decide whether or not to allow the answer which they did admit was perfectly valid. So they called him in and told him he had 15 minutes to make his case. For ten minutes he said nothing but scribbled away furiously. After these ten minutes the atmosphere was getting a little tense - this was meant to be an oral after all, and his degree (or whatever) depended on it. When they pointed this out to him he said that he was just trying to get his thoughts in order as there were so many possible solutions. Here are some of the ones he came up with:

1: What you wanted me to do, of course, was measure air pressure at the top and bottom of the building, and from the difference and knowing the pressure exerted by a column of air of unit height I should be able to calculate the height of the building. But I thought that would be terribly inaccurate and the answer I gave in the exam and the following ones are all potentially more accurate.

2: Measure the length of shadow cast by the bulding and by the barometer on a sunny day. Knowing the actual height of the barometer one can compute the height of the building.

3: Tie the barometer to the end of a long bit of string and lower the barometer from the top of the building to the ground. Measure the amount of string payed out and you have the height of the building.''

He then gave several more but ended with:

The best method by far, though, would be to go to the building's janitor and say ''If I give you this shiny new scientific barometer will you tell me how high this building is?"

The student passed his exam.

Logic is a systematic method for getting the wrong conclusion... with confidence.

Heisenberg might have slept here.

Moebius always does it on the same side.

Statisticians probably do it

Algebraists do it in groups.

(Logicians do it) or {not (logicians do it)}.

Mathematics is the systematic misuse of a nomenclature developed for that specific purpose.

Three men, a physicist, a engineer and a computer scientist, are travelling in a car. Suddenly, the car starts to smoke and stops. The three atonished men try to solve the problem:

The physicist says: This is obviously a classic problem of torque. It has overloaded the elasticity limit of the main axis.

Engineer says : Let's be serious! The matter is that it has burned the spark of the connecting rod to the dynamo of the radiator. I can easily repair it by hammering.

Computer scientist says : What if we get off the car, wait a minute, and then get in and try again?

TWO sodium atoms are walking down the road chatting. All of a sudden, one stops and turns to its friend looking worried:

Na(1)- "Oh No... I think I've lost an Electron!"

Na(2)- "What... are you sure?"

Na(1)- "Yes, I'm Positive!"

A mathematician and a physicist agree to a psychological experiment. The mathematician is put in a chair in a large empty room and a beautiful naked woman is placed on a bed at the other end of the room. The psychologist explains, "You are to remain in your chair. Every five minutes, I will move your chair to a position halfway between its current location and the woman on the bed." The mathematician looks at the psychologist in disgust. "What? I'm not going to go through this. You know I'll never reach the bed!" And he gets up and storms out. The psychologist makes a note on his clipboard and ushers the physicist in. He explains the situation, and the physicist's eyes light up and he starts drooling. The psychologist is a bit confused. "Don't you realize that you'll never reach her?" The physicist smiles and replied, "Of course! But I'll get close enough for all practical purposes!"

Dean, to the physics department. "Why do I always have to give you guys so much money, for laboratories and expensive equipment and stuff. Why couldn't you be like the math department - all they need is money for pencils, paper and waste-paper baskets. Or even better, like the philosophy department. All they need are pencils and paper."

When considering the behaviour of a howitzer:

A mathematician will be able to calculate where the shell will land.

A physicist will be able to explain how the shell gets there.

An engineer will stand there and try to catch it.

A Limerick: ((12 + 144 + 20 + (3 x 4^(1/2))) / 7) + (5 x 11) = 9^2 + 0

Translation: A Dozen, a Gross and a Score, plus three times the square root of four, divided by seven, plus five times eleven, equals nine squared and not a bit more.

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..."

A statistician can have his head in an oven and his feet in ice, and he will say that on the average he feels fine.

Einstein dies and goes to heaven only to be informed that his room is not yet ready. "I hope you will not mind waiting in a dormitory. We are very sorry, but it's the best we can do and you will have to share the room with others." he is told by the doorman (say his name is Pete). Einstein says that this is no problem at all and that there is no need to make such a great fuss. So Pete leads him to the dorm. They enter and Albert is introduced to all of the present inhabitants.

"See, Here is your first room mate. He has an IQ of 180!"

"Why that's wonderful!" Says Albert. "We can discuss mathematics!"

"And here is your second room mate. His IQ is 150!"

"Why that's wonderful!" Says Albert. "We can discuss physics!"

"And here is your third room mate. His IQ is 100!"

"That's Wonderful! We can discuss the latest plays at the theater!"

Just then another man moves out to capture Albert's hand and shake it.

"I'm your last room mate and I'm sorry, but my IQ is only 80."

Albert smiles back at him and says, "So, where do you think interest rates are headed?"