A use for integer quotients

[Martin Sjögren]

On Thu, Jul 26, 2001 at 10:57:37AM -0500, Skip Montanaro wrote:
> 
>     Tim> A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were each asked to
>     Tim> comment on the assertion "All odd numbers are prime."
> 
>     Tim> The mathematician at once gave a counterexample, 9.
> 
>     Tim> The physicist said "1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime.
>     Tim> Now at nine we see second order effects!"
> 
>     Tim> The engineer said "1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime,
>     Tim> 9 is prime..."
> 
> I remember that last bit as
> 
>     The engineer said "1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime.
>     Therefore, 'all odd numbers are prime' is true."

I thought the physicist said something like "9 is measurement errors, 11
is prime, 13 is prime..."

But then again, it was a long time I heard the joke for the first time,
and there are zillions of versions :-)

How about this one instead? An engineer, a statistican and a mathematician
were out riding a train in Scotland. Suddenly they see a black sheep. The
engineer immediately says "So all sheep in Scotland are black!" The
statistician replies "Actually, we just know that some sheep in Scotland
are black" The mathematician was silent for a while and then said
"Actually, we just know that in Scotland, there is a sheep that is black
on -at least one side-"

-- 
Martin Sjögren
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