April 26, 2006
The Engineering Joke
Mike’s talk of FORTRAN modeling in this comment brought a joke to mind… You don’t need FORTRAN modeling when a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation will do!
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Psychology professors bring in a mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer for an experiment. At one end of a long room lies a beautiful, sultry naked woman. The three subjects sit at the other end. The professors tell the subjects:
“If you reach that woman at the other end of the room, you will be allowed to have sex with her. But the catch is that you can only move every 10 minutes, and each move will be only half the distance from you to the woman.”
Well, the mathematician pulls out his notebook, sits down scribbling furiously for a few minutes. He gets up and walks out. At the door, the professors ask him why he’s leaving. “It’s a simple problem. No matter how many iterations of the 10 minutes occur, I will never reach that woman.”
The physicist, of course, is a born empiricist. He moves halfway across the room, measuring as he goes. 10 minutes later, he moves another half the distance. 10 minutes later, he moves again. The whole time, he’s also furiously scribbling into his notebook. After 30 minutes, he decides it’s time to leave the room. At the door, the professors ask why he’s leaving. “I’ve done some experiments, and my findings are exactly those predicted by the mathematician’s theory. No matter how many times I proceed, I’ll never reach that woman.”
The engineer, this whole time, has been advancing every 10 minutes. After the physicist leaves, an hour passes. He’s still advancing. Another hour passes, and he’s still advancing. The naked woman (who didn’t sign on for this possibility) is starting to get concerned, cautiously eyeing his protruding— pocket protector. The professors, unsure of how to proceed, ask the engineer what’s going on. “After all,” they say, “the mathematician and physicist have both shown that it is impossible for you to ever reach that woman!”
The engineer smiles, and replies, “True. Very true. But pretty soon, I’ll be close enough for all practical purposes.”
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