Fun_People Archive
17 Oct
The difference between engineers and mathematicians.

Date: Tue, 17 Oct 95 15:17:03 -0700
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: The difference between engineers and mathematicians.

Forwarded-by: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: Mike Olson <mao@illustra.com>
Forwarded-by: George Hartzell <hartzell@postgres.Berkeley.EDU>
Forwarded-by: "Barbara L. Dijker" <barb.dijker@labyrinth.com>

A math/engineering convention was being held.  On the train to the
convention, there were a bunch of math majors and a bunch of engineering
majors. Each of the math majors had his/her train ticket.  The group of
engineers had only ONE ticket for all of them.  The math majors started
laughing and snickering.

Then, one of the engineers said "here comes the conductor" and then all of
the engineers went into the bathroom.  The math majors were puzzled.  The
conductor came aboard and said "tickets please" and got tickets from all
the math majors. He then went to the bathroom and knocked on the door and
said "ticket please" and the engineers stuck the ticket under the door.
The conductor took it and then the engineers came out of the bathroom a few
minutes later.  The math majors felt really stupid.

So, on the way back from the convention, the group of math majors had one
ticket for the group.  They started snickering at the engineers, for the
whole group had no tickets amongst them.  Then, the engineer lookout said
"Conductor coming!".  All the engineers went to one bathroom.  All the math
majors went to another bathroom.  Then, before the conductor came on board,
one of the engineers left the bathroom, knocked on the other bathroom, and
said "ticket please."

© 1995 Peter Langston