Another mathematician joke: Interviewer -- "Consider a situation where you are in your office and there is a fire outside in the hall. There is a fire escape o

Another mathematician joke: Interviewer -- "Consider a situation where you are in your office and there is a fire outside in the hall. There is a fire escape outside your window but you can't reach it because the window is stuck. However, there is a hammer on the table. What do you do?" Physicist -- "I use the hammer to break the window, allowing me to get out to the fire escape." Interviewer -- "Now consider the same situation except that the hammer is on the floor. What do you do?" Mathematician -- "I move the hammer from the floor to the table, thereby reducing it to the previously solved problem."