Working with the set of real numbers (was: Finding size of Variable)

[Roy Smith]

In article <5317e640$0$29985$c3e8da3$5496439d at news.astraweb.com>,
 Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:

> On Wed, 05 Mar 2014 21:31:51 -0500, Roy Smith wrote:
> 
> > In article <53176225$0$29987$c3e8da3$5496439d at news.astraweb.com>,
> >  Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
> > 
> >> Physics is the fundamental science, at least according to the
> >> physicists, and Real Soon Now they'll have a Theory Of Everything,
> >> something small enough to print on a tee-shirt, which will explain
> >> everything. At least in principle.
> > 
> > A mathematician, a chemist, and a physicist are arguing the nature of
> > prime numbers.  The chemist says, "All odd numbers are prime.  Look, I
> > can prove it.  Three is prime.  Five is prime.  Seven is prime".  The
> > mathematician says, "That's nonsense.  Nine is not prime".  The
> > physicist looks at him and says, "Hmmmm, you may be right, but eleven is
> > prime, and thirteen is prime.  It appears that within the limits of
> > experimental error, all odd number are indeed prime!"
> 
> They ask a computer programmer to adjudicate who is right, so he writes a 
> program to print out all the primes:
> 
> 1 is prime
> 1 is prime
> 1 is prime
> 1 is prime
> 1 is prime
> ...

So, a mathematician, a biologist, and a physicist are watching a house.  
The physicist says, "It appears to be empty".  Sometime later, a man and 
a woman go into the house.  Shortly after that, the man and the woman 
come back out, with a child.  The biologist says, "They must have 
reproduced".  The mathematician says, "If one more person goes into the 
house, it'll be empty again".