Proving All Odd Numbers are Prime

[arcnets]

Problem: Prove that all odd numbers are prime.

Mathematician: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, the rest follows from induction.

Physicist: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9...that's probably an experimental error..., 11 is prime, 13 is prime. The law of nature in question is backed-up by experiment well enough.

Engineer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime...

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

An Engineering Student, a Physics Student, and a Mathematics student were
each given $150 dollars and were told to use that money to find out exactly
how tall a particular hotel was.
All three ran off, extremely keen on how to do this. The Physics
student went out, purchased some stopwatches, a number of ball bearings,
a calculator, and some friends. He had them all time the drop of ball
bearings from the roof, and he then figured out the height from the time
it took for the bearings to accelerate from rest until they impacted with
the sidewalk.
The Math student waited until the sun was going down, then she
took out her protractor, plumb line, measuring tape,and scratch pad,
measured the length of the shadow, found the angle the buildings roof
made from the ground, and used trignometry to figure out the height of
the building.
These two students bumped into the Engineering student the next
day, who was nursing a really bad hangover. When asked what he did to
find the height of the building he replied:
"Well, I walked up to the bell hop, gave him 10 bucks, asked him
how tall the hotel was, and hit the bar inside for happy hour!"

 

[Hurkyl]

A mathematician, physicist, and engineer were asked when one can use an infinite series to represent a number.

The mathematician responds "When the limit of the partial sums exists"

The physicist responds "When the limit of the terms goes to zero"

The engineer responds "When the first term is finite"

 

[Sting]

A Chemical Engineer, a Mechanical Engineer, an Electrical Engineer, and a Computer Engineer were all riding in an SUV when the SUV breaks down.

The Chemical Engineer goes: "The way how it sputtered, I think there is something wrong with the fuel intake."

The Mechanical Engineer goes: "No no, I think a rod broke."

The Electrical Engineer goes: "No, I think there is something wrong with the battery."

All turn to the Computer Engineer and finally the Mechanical Engineer goes: "What do you think?"

Computer Engineer goes: "I think we should all get out and then get back in."

 

[quartodeciman]

This was told to me by a friend many years ago. I wasn't there to confirm its truth, but here is how the story goes:

My friend was hired for a Summer job by an aircraft design company to perform by-the-book computations. All one had to do is find the right page in an enormous procedures manual and start calculating as directed. This one particular day my friend was told to prove that a structure already designed would withstand all the expected stresses, as spelled out in the procedures manual. He found the place in the book, then began to think. He decided to double the precision of all the computation steps, carrying as many decimal digits as he could handle. He wanted to do a superior job. He performed all the computations and doublechecked and triplechecked his work. He reported back to the boss that it wouldn't work. The structure was too flimsy. "You don't understand!", growled the boss. "Your job is to prove that it WILL work. Go back and try again." This time my friend used only standard precision as prescribed by the book. He dropped and altered final digits here and there, willy nilly, and, lo and behold, the answer came out as desired.

 

[Sting]

My friend was hired for a Summer job by an aircraft design company to perform by-the-book computations. All one had to do is find the right page in an enormous procedures manual and start calculating as directed. This one particular day my friend was told to prove that a structure already designed would withstand all the expected stresses, as spelled out in the procedures manual. He found the place in the book, then began to think. He decided to double the precision of all the computation steps, carrying as many decimal digits as he could handle. He wanted to do a superior job. He performed all the computations and doublechecked and triplechecked his work. He reported back to the boss that it wouldn't work. The structure was too flimsy. "You don't understand!", growled the boss. "Your job is to prove that it WILL work. Go back and try again." This time my friend used only standard precision as prescribed by the book. He dropped and altered final digits here and there, willy nilly, and, lo and behold, the answer came out as desired.

A little off topic but it reminds me of that road in Georgia that just stopped for seemingly no apparent reason. Truth was that the engineer rounded...

Thank God I changed my major...

 

[eNtRopY]

A priest, a doctor and an engineer were out playing golf one morning. They had to wait for a particularly slow group of golfers playing ahead of them, and they became quite pissed off.

The engineer said, "What's with these motherfvckers?! We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!"

The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but these @ssholes must really be inept!"

The priest said, "Here comes that good-for-nothing groundskeeper. I'm going to give that dipsh:t a piece of my mind."

Before the three could say anything to the groundskeeper, he informed them that a group of blind firefighters was playing ahead of them. They had all lost their sight while saving an orphanage from a fire the previous year; so, to honor these heros, the golf club always let's them play for free.

The group was silent for a moment.

The priest said, "Oh, that's too bad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight."

The doctor said, "I'm going to contact an ophthalmologist and see if there's anything he can do for them."

The engineer said, "Why can't they play at night?"


eNtRopY

 

[arcnets]

Debugging

I once asked a software engineer what is meant by 'debugging'.
Software guy: "The whole job is debugging"
Me: "Why?"
Software guy: "Before you start writing some software, you decide what you want your computer to do. But your computer is not able to. That's a bug. A serious one! So you start debugging..."

 

[Artman]

An engineer died and, although he was supposed to go to heaven, he was sent to hell.

He was in hell several weeks before the mistake was discovered. God picked up the hot line and called the devil and said "Hey, I hear that you got one of my people by mistake. An engineer. Send him on up."

The devil said, "I've decided to keep him. So far he has designed a high speed elevator to the surface, redesigned the plumbing system, and next week we start construction on the new air conditioning system he planned."

God was pretty upset. He said, "Look I want him up here now, or I'll sue!"

The devil said, "Oh yeah? Where are you going to get a lawyer?"

 

[Esoteric]

Originally posted by Artman
An engineer died and, although he was supposed to go to heaven, he was sent to hell.

He was in hell several weeks before the mistake was discovered. God picked up the hot line and called the devil and said "Hey, I hear that you got one of my people by mistake. An engineer. Send him on up."

The devil said, "I've decided to keep him. So far he has designed a high speed elevator to the surface, redesigned the plumbing system, and next week we start construction on the new air conditioning system he planned."

God was pretty upset. He said, "Look I want him up here now, or I'll sue!"

The devil said, "Oh yeah? Where are you going to get a lawyer?"

lmao

 

[Sonty]

Originally posted by arcnets
Problem: Prove that all odd numbers are prime.

Mathematician: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, the rest follows from induction.

Physicist: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9...that's probably an experimental error..., 11 is prime, 13 is prime. The law of nature in question is backed-up by experiment well enough.

Engineer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime...

I thought it was like this:

Engineer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 may be approximated as prime, 11 is prime...

and I should add:
Salesman: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime...
Software developer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be prime in a future emproved version, 11 is prime, 13 is prime...

 

[Njorl]

An engineer and a physicist want to get milk from a cow. The physicist rushes to his blackboard, and the engineer starts fiddling with the cow. He cranks the tail, squeezes the horns, slaps it on the back etc. Just as he reaches for the udder, he hears the physicist yelling excitedly, "I've got it!" He rushes in, and the physicist, pointing to his calculations, explains, "First, assume a spherical cow..."