## 6. THE MATHEMATICIAN, THE PHYSICIST AND THE ENGINEER (AND OTHERS)

#### Subsections

- 6. the mathematician, the physicist and the engineer (and others) - general
- 6.1 the locked room and the tin can
- 6.2 fire

### 6.2 FIRE

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mathematics physics engineering
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    An engineer, physicist, and mathematician are all challenged with a
    problem: to fry an egg when there is a fire in the house.  The
    engineer just grabs a huge bucket of water, runs over to the fire, and
    puts it out.  The physicist thinks for a long while, and then measures
    a precise amount of water into a container.  He takes it over to the
    fire, pours it on, and with the last drop the fire goes out. The
    mathematician pores over pencil and paper.  After a few minutes he
    goes "Aha!  A solution exists!" and goes back to frying the egg.

    Sequel:  This time they are asked simply to fry an egg (no fire).  The
    engineer just does it, kludging along; the physicist calculates
    carefully and produces a carefully cooked egg; and the mathematician
    lights a fire in the corner, and says "I have reduced it to the
    previous problem."

mathematics physics engineering
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    An engineer, a mathematician, and a physicist are staying in three
    adjoining cabins at a decrepit old motel.

    First the engineer's coffee maker catches fire on the bathroom vanity.
    He smells the smoke, wakes up, unplugs it, throws it out the window,
    and goes back to sleep.

    Later that night the physicist smells smoke too.  He wakes up and sees
    that a cigarette butt has set the trash can on fire.  He says to
    himself, "Hmm. How does one put out a fire?  One can reduce the
    temperature of the fuel below the flash point, isolate the burning
    material from oxygen, or both.  This could be accomplished by applying
    water."  So he picks up the trash can, puts it in the shower stall,
    turns on the water, and, when the fire is out, goes back to sleep.

    The mathematician, of course, has been watching all this out the
    window.  So later, when he finds that his pipe ashes have set the
    bedsheet on fire, he is not in the least taken aback.  He immediately
    sees that the problem reduces to one that has already been solved and
    goes back to sleep.

mathematics physics engineering
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    From: dhein@onramp.net
    An Engineer, a Physicist, and a Mathematician all go the same
    Conference.  University budgets being what they are, they all stay in
    the same cheap hotel.  Each room has the same floor plan, has the same
    cheap TV, the same cheap bed, and a small bathroom.  Instead of
    a sprinkler system, the hotel has opted for Fire Buckets.

    The Engineer, Physicist, and Mathematician are all asleep in bed.  At
    about 2AM, the Engineer wakes up because he smells smoke.  He looks in
    the corner of the room and sees that the TV set is on fire!  He dashes
    into the bathroom, fills the Fire Bucket to overflowing with water, and
    drenches the TV set.  The fire goes out, and the Engineer goes back to
    sleep.

    A little while later, the Physicist wakes because he smells smoke.  He
    looks in the corner and sees that the TV set is on fire.  He grabs a
    handy envelope, estimates the BTU output of the fire, scribbles a quick
    calculation, then dashes into the bathroom and fills the Fire Bucket
    with just enough water to douse the flames.  He puts the fire out and
    goes back to sleep.

    In a little while, the Mathematician wakes up to the smell of smoke.
    He looks in the corner and sees the TV on fire.  He looks into the
    bathroom and sees the Fire Bucket.  Having determined that a solution
    exists, he goes back to sleep.

mathematics physics engineering
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    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.

mathematics engineering
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    From: levd@alien (Lev Desmarais)

      The difference between an Engineer and a Mathematician :

      The Engineer walks in her office and finds her trash can on fire.  She
    gets the fire extinguisher and puts out the fire.

      The Mathematician walks in his office and finds his trash can on fire.
    He gets the fire extinguisher and puts out the fire.

      The following day :

      The Engineer walks in her office and finds the trash can on fire on
    top of her desk.  She gets the fire extinguisher and put out the fire.

      The Mathematician walks in his office and finds the trash can on fire
    on top of his desk.  He takes the trash can and puts it on the floor.
    He has reduced the problem to a previously solved state.  Too solve it
    again would be redundant.

mathematics physics
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    A physicist and a mathematician setting in a faculty lounge.
    Suddenly, the coffee machine catches on fire.  The physicist grabs a
    bucket and leaps towards the sink, fills the bucket with water and
    puts out the fire.  The second day, the same two sit in the same
    lounge.  Again, the coffee machine catches on fire.  This time, the
    mathematician stands up, gets a bucket, hands the bucket to the
    physicist, thus reducing the problem to a previously solved one.

mathematics physics engineering
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    From:         iwaki <iwaki@gte.net>
    An engineer, physicist, and mathematician were playing cards in a parlor.
    A fire breaks out.  The engineer start to calculate how much water it takes
    to put out the fire.  The physicist figures out the best theory on how to
    put out the fire. The mathematician tries to prove the fire doesn't exist.

mathematics physics engineering
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    An engineer, a physicist, a mathematician, and a statistician are taken,
    one at a time, into a room to undergo a psychological test. In the room is
    a table (upon which is a pad and pencil), a chair, a bucket of water, and a
    waste basket rigged so that it can be set ablaze from an adjacent room in
    which the psychologists watch.

    The engineer is first, and the basket is set ablaze. The engineer
    immediately jumps up, grabs the bucket of water and dashes the entire thing
    onto the fire, flooding the entire room and extinguishing the fire.

    The physicist is next. The basket ignites, the physicist quickly calculates
    exactly how much water is required to extinguish the flames and pours
    exactly that amount, neatly extinguishing the flames.

    The mathematician next. The basket blazes up, the mathematician calculates
    exactly how much water is required to put out the fire, and then walks out
    of the room.

    The statistician is last. The basket is ignited. He grabs the bucket, pours
    half on one side, half on the other, and announces, "It's out."

mathematics physics chemistry engineering
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    From: Alison Reeve <e9329216@student.uq.edu.au> & unknown.

    Four professors (An engineer, a physicist, a chemist, and a statistician)
    are called in to see their dean. Just as they arrive the dean is called out
    of his office, leaving the three professors there. The professors see with
    alarm that there is a fire in the wastebasket.

    "Brute force is the answer" says the engineer.  "If we hit it enough we can
    put it out".

    The physicist says, "I know what to do! We must cool down the materials
    until their temperature is lower than the ignition temperature and then the
    fire will go out."

    The chemist says, "No! No! I know what to do! We must cut off the supply of
    oxygen so that the fire will go out due to lack of one of the reactants."

    While they debate what course to take, they are alarmed to see the
    statistician running around the room starting other fires. They both
    scream, "What are you doing?"

    To which the statistician replies, "Trying to get an adequate sample size."

mathematics engineering
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    From: Omar Lakkis <omar@sam.math.ethz.ch>
    Institute of technology is burning.

     Engineers realize they should pour some water
    on the fire to stop it. As usual they make a
    rather rough "calculation" on the amount of
    water and pour too much of it. They destroy
    the whole departement but manage to save their lives.
     Applied Mathematicians, using an brand-new UFWT
    (Ultra fast wavelet transform) technique calculate
    with a high degree of accuracy the ammount
    of water required and so, they save their lives
    AND the whole departement of applied mathematics.
     Pure Mathemticians are all dead! Why?

     Well, in 2 minutes they found a very simple proof
    for the existence of the solution... they lost then
    3 hours trying to prove unicity.

mathematics physics
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    A mathematician and a physicist were asked the following question:

            Suppose you walked by a burning house and saw a hydrant and
            a hose not connected to the hydrant.  What would you do?

    P: I would attach the hose to the hydrant, turn on the water, and put out
       the fire.

    M: I would attach the hose to the hydrant, turn on the water, and put out
       the fire.

    Then they were asked this question:

            Suppose you walked by a house and saw a hose connected to
            a hydrant.  What would you do?

    P: I would keep walking, as there is no problem to solve.

    M: I would disconnect the hose from the hydrant and set the house on fire,
       reducing the problem to a previously solved form.

mathematics physics engineering
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    From: bhurt@subzero.winternet.com (Brian Hurt)

    A company was going to hire someone to do a job.  Given the circumstances,
    and the nature of the job, they were not sure if they needed an engineer,
    a scientist, or a mathematician.  So the manager devised a test
    to decided which one to hire (I know- a manager with imagination
    is kind of hard to swallow, but bear with me).

    First, the manager brought in he engineer.  Without warning, the
    manager tossed a lit match into the waste paper basket, causing an immediate
    conflagration.  "Oh my ghod!" shouted the engineer, who the promptly ran
    out to the hall, returning with a fire extinguisher he had noticed there
    (having broken the glass with his slide rule- who says those things are
    worseless?).  Several seconds later, the fire was out, with bits of burned
    paper are fire extinguisher foam everywhere.

    After the engineer had left, the manager brought in the scientist.  Once
    again, the basket of waste organocarbon films were induced to exothermically
    react with the di-oxygen molcules in the atmosphere (whoosh).  "Oh my" the
    scientist caused to vibrate in the atmospheric substrate.  The scientist
    then proceeded to make several measurements of the rapidly occurring
    excthermic reactions, related mainly to the rate of said reactions, and
    then caused said reactions to cease with a controlled flow of
    dihydrooxygen obtained from the faucet in the mens room.  This caused
    another data point to be graphed in the experiment the manager was
    performing.

    After the scientists had left, the mathematician was brought in.  Once
    again, the manager caused a graduate thesis to be throughly reviewed
    (whoosh).  Upon viewing the nature of the problem, the mathematician
    said "The problem is obviously trivial, and will be left as an
    exercise to the student."

    The first round of tests being completed, the manager was still left
    undecided as to which to hire (that should make the manager more
    believable).  So another round was decreed, but this time there would
    be a twist.  Before being lit, the recycling container would first be
    put underneath a horizontal workarea ("desk"), preferably of wooden
    construction, so as to add a greater sense of urgency (the possibilty
    of said horizontal work-area itself catching fire) and greater
    difficulty (the horizontal work area restricting access to the
    recycling bin).

    Once again, the engineer was brought in, and the waste paper basket
    lit.  Once again, the engineer retrieved the fire extinguisher from
    the hall, removed the danger of the desk catching fire and the
    interference of his aim by desk by kicking said desk over, and put the
    fire out.  The engineer then left to post several flames to usenet
    anout people who post long, stupid jokes to alt.folore.computers.

    Once again, the scientist was brought in, and the exothermic reaction
    resumed.  Once again, said reaction was dampened by the measured application
    of dihydro-oxygen, once said reaction was removed from underneath the
    desk.  The scientist left to write a paper entitle "On the effects of
    the application of dihydro-oxgen to the continuing exothermic reactions
    of dioxygen and organocarbon polymers."

    Once again, the mathematician was brought in, and the thesis reviewed.
    Sensing a punchline in the offing, the mathemitican removed the reviewing
    thesis from underneath the desk, whereupon he stated "I have reduced
    the problem to a trivial problem", and left.

next page | Index | Comments and Contributions

#### Subsections

- 6. the mathematician, the physicist and the engineer (and others) - general
- 6.1 the locked room and the tin can
- 6.2 fire

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