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Highbrow Jokes

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Good link!

I think for # 12 maybe they meant a computer or software engineer. Programmer would have made more sense, though.

I really like #5. I am an engineer, but have plenty of math major friends. We always bust each other's chops over things exactly like that joke!
 
Mr.Peabody said:
Good link!

I think for # 12 maybe they meant a computer or software engineer. Programmer would have made more sense, though.

I really like #5. I am an engineer, but have plenty of math major friends. We always bust each other's chops over things exactly like that joke!
Click to expand...


Again though, shouldn't #5 be between a physicist and an engineer? Zeno's paradox has always struck me as more of a physics problem than a mathematical one. Although maybe the problem is in the math, the solution in the physics?

Man I am a geek today... :)

JBArk
 
I think the contention is between the math of the situation and the physical world. Mathematically one cannot make it to the end of any specified distance by crossing by halves, only infinitely close. This happens a lot in engineering, but engineers are only concerned with the practical applications of math. So, "good enough" is how the engineer's brain solves problems.

I suppose it would still make sense if it were a physicist and an engineer. Physicists are more like mathematicians than engineers, and live in the more theoretical, and abstract.
 
Mr.Peabody said:
I think the contention is between the math of the situation and the physical world. Mathematically one cannot make it to the end of any specified distance by crossing by halves, only infinitely close. This happens a lot in engineering, but engineers are only concerned with the practical applications of math. So, "good enough" is how the engineer's brain solves problems.

I suppose it would still make sense if it were a physicist and an engineer. Physicists are more like mathematicians than engineers, and live in the more theoretical, and abstract.
Click to expand...

On second thought, physicist works but I think mathematician works better for the joke. I guess I associate Zeno's paradox with my father, a physicist, who first described it to me when I was a boy. But it is the mathematics of it, as you point out, that lead to the paradox. A physicist, for all practical purposes and as far as the joke is concerned, lies half way between a mathematician and an engineer.

Yes, yes, stupid joke fully intended. :)

JBArk
 
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