7 ms·
A mathematician and an engineer agreed to take part in an experiment. They were both placed in a room and at the other end was a beautiful naked woman on a bed.
by asperous 13y ago
A mathematician and an engineer agreed to take part in an experiment. They were both placed in a room and at the other end was a beautiful naked woman on a bed. The experimenter said every 30 seconds they would be allowed to travel half the distance between themselves and the woman. The mathematician said "this is pointless" and stormed off". The engineer agreed to go ahead with the experiment anyway. The mathematician exclaimed on his way out "don't you see, you'll never actually reach her?". To which the engineer replied, "so what? Pretty soon I'll be close enough for all practical purposes!".
- biggfoot 13y agoGood Sir! That's the fuckin' funniest thing I've read in a while.
- Jach 13y agoThat's pretty funny, but the mathematician must be one who lived before the invention of calculus, which resolves such paradoxes. (With either infinitesimals or limits.)
- ajuc 13y agoI think mathemathician considered getting there after inf * 30 seconds to be "never". The important difference between this and Zeno paradox is - in Zeno paradox time is also divided.
- phaemon 13y agoNot in this case. In Zeno's paradox, as the distance halves, so too does the time. In this case, the time for each halving is constant at 30 seconds. This means the mathematician is right and theoretically they'll never reach the woman (except practically, as pointed out).
- Jach 13y agoGood point, I guess I can see in this case the mathematician might realize that while he can cross the full distance easily enough with infinite time, he might not want to wait around for infinite time...
- pygy_ 13y agoThey could ask the woman to come to them.
- pekk 13y agoIt's a lame enough joke that I wonder whether it was really necessary to drag it out again, considering how it is likely to make many female visitors to the site uncomfortable.
- 1_player 13y agoI'm all for avoiding sexist jokes and comments, but I can't really see what's wrong with this. Are we becoming so puritanical we can't even admit that a male person is attracted to a "naked beautiful woman"?
- jpttsn 13y agoI like the joke, but to play the devil's advocate it's slightly sexist to assume the mathematician and the engineer are both male.
- 1_player 13y agoNo it's not. If one were male and the other were female, the joke wouldn't work. If both were female it wouldn't work, as (if you're male like me) you're aware of our inherent and unfortunate sexism (our rational brain shuts down upon viewing an attractive female). The difference between sexism and acceptable behaviour is knowing this limitation of our selves and acting respectfully with the other sex.
- jpttsn 13y agoI chose my words poorly; I didn't mean "assume" in the interpretation of the joke, I meant the joke writer was presumptive in using gender roles like that.
- krichman 13y agoThe original assumption that the joke is sexist relies on presuming that the joke makes women into objects used only for sex, but not vice-versa for men. So by claiming that the joke is sexist I think we can reasonably assume the person making the claim believes the engineer and the mathematician to be male.