These are some engineer jokes I have collected over several years on the Net. I do apologize I haven't saved the references where I encountered them. Thanks a lot to all who has contributed.
An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician are on a train trip through Scotland, when they see a black sheep through the window. The engineer says "From this we can conclude that all Scottish sheeps are black!" "No!" says the physicist "From this we can conclude that there is at least one Scottish sheep which is black!" "No, no!" says the mathematician "From this we can conclude that there is at least one Scottish sheep which is black at least on one side!"
An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician are on a vacation. They went to spend their holiday in a mountain cottage. One night they went to bed and were soon sound asleep.
In the middle of the night the engineer wakes up beacause there is a small fire in his bed. He rushes out to the kitchen, fetches a bucket full of water, rushes back to his bed and kills the fire by splashing the water on it. Then he falls asleep and sleeps wet.
An hour later the physicist wakes up due to a fire in his bed - he grabs a pen and does some paper calculations a few minutes, walks out to the kitchen, measures accurately 0.67 l of water, walks back to his bed, pours the water on the fire and with the last drop he kills the fire. He falls asleep and sleeps dry.
An hour later the mathematician wakes up due to a fire in his bed - he too grabs pen and paper and starts calculating and while the fire grows he uses more and more paper, and then after almost an hour of calculus he shouts: "Yes! There is an exact solution!"
One day an engineer and a mathematician walk around and meet a very rich man who tells them that if they can get all the way over to it, they are allowed to take the sack, filled with gold, standing on the ground 20 m away - but they are only allowed to take steps of a length of maximum half the remaining distance. The mathematician knows that it isn't possible to get to the sack on those conditions, so he does nothing, but then he sees that the engineer walks all the way to the sack, with normal sized steps, grabs it and walks back. "But, ..." he says "... how ...?" "Measurement insecurity!" says the engineer.
How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime.
Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime."
Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime."
Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime."
A holy man, an average joe, and an engineer are all about to be executed by guillotine. The holy man goes first, the executioner asks, "would you like to face up and see it coming or face down?" He thinks a minute and says "Face up." He lies down and just as the blade is about to end his life, the blade stops, 4 inches from his throat! The holy man is let go due to divine intervention.
The average joe goes next, and given the same choice, he faces up. Again the blade stops just 4 inches from his throat. He too, is let go.
Finially the engineer steps up and chooses face up. Just as the blade is about to be set loose on his neck, he yells "STOP! I think I see your problem!"
A promising graduate student was taking his PhD finals. He proceeded through a derivation of this thesis and ended up with something like
F = -ma
Naturally, he was embarassed, his supervising professor was embarassed,
and the rest of the committee was embarassed. The student coughed and
said, "I seem to have a slight error back there somewhere."
One of the mathematicians observed dryly, "Either that, or an odd number of them!"
There was a town whose main industry was a chicken processing plant out at the edge of town. One day the chickens just weren't coming out right and no one at the plant had any idea what was wrong. They had checked everything. In desperation, they went to the dean of the local college and asked if he could recommend a consultant. He answered, "Oh, I'd recommend Dr. Von Herrin of the Process technology department. He's our best man. If you can be helped, he can help you."
So they contacted Dr. Von Herrin and explained their problem. He agreed to help and said he would come out the next day to collect data. They said they would cooperate completely.
The next day they showed him around the plant. He asked a few questions and took lots of notes in his little notebook. The next afternoon, he called and said he had a few more questions and would be out in the morning. Dr. Von Herrin arrived in the morning, asked a few more questions and they supplied the answers. As it was Friday, he said that he would have his analysis completed over the weekend and to schedule a meeting for 10 am Monday.
Promptly at 10, Dr. Von Herrin arrived. All the managers were eagerly waiting to hear his results. Standing at the blackboard, Dr. Von Herrin began his lecture. "Before you can understand the solution to a problem, you must first know exactly what assumptions went into the solution. First, assume a homogeneous spherical chicken."
What is the value of PI?
How they knew it was a deer:
A mathemetician and an engineer attend a lecture by a physicist. The topic concerns Kulza-Klein theories involving physical processes that occur in spaces with dimensions of 9, 12 and even higher. The mathemetician is sitting, clearly enjoying the lecture, while the engineer is frowning and looking generally confused and puzzled. By the end the engineer has a terrible headache. At the end, the mathemetician comments about the wonderful lecture. The engineer says "How do you understand this stuff?" The mathematician replies: "I just visualize the process." But the engineer isn't satisfied: "How can you POSSIBLY visualize something that occurs in 9-dimensional space?" "Ah," says the mathematician, "it's easy, really. First visualize it in N-dimensional space, then let N go to 9."
From newsgroup alt.sysadmin.recovery
In article
"Alan P. Branch"
[Alan]
I have come to the conclusion that end users do not come equipted with natural processors (BRAINS). I had one call me into the office today to trouble shoot a Monitor that was not turned ON. This user only sports a PhD shingle on his door. I wonder what it stands for.
[Geoff replies]
I had a professor complain that his new HP workstation had a problem with the monitor -- the image was all jittery. So, I went down to his office (he wasn't there). There's a UPS sitting next to the monitor, and the jitters on the monitor look suspiciously like they're being caused by EMI.
So, I move the UPS away from the monitor. No jitters. Move the UPS back. Jitters. Hmm... Even I can figure this one out.
So, I send the professor email to tell him what the problem is. He was really embarrassed and apologized for bothering me with something so stupid.
The punchline? This professor's area of specialty is Electromagnetics.
Geoff
This one I received from "Bill the Troublesome Terrier":
A young engineering student is walking along in the country one day. A frog hops up to him and says, "Kiss me. I'm really a princess".
The young man picks up the frog and looks at it. He then puts it in his pocket.
After a while, the frog starts to move around. He takes it out and looks at it. The frog says, "If you kiss me I will turn into a princess and I will stay with you". He ignores the frog, but keeps it and goes on walking.
Next, the frog says, "If you kiss me I will turn into a princess and I will stay with you and do anything you want". Prior to putting the frog back in his pocket, the fellow replies, "Look frog, I'm an engineering student and I'm very busy. I don't have time for a girlfriend. But a talking frog...now that's cool!".
From the Norwegian "Teknisk Ukeblad" (Weekly Technical Magazine) 46/2000:
An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for a lasting relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress because of the passion and mystery he found there. The engineer said he like both.
- "Both?" said the other two guys.
- "Yes. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will both assume you
are spending time with the other woman, so you can go to your lab and
get some work done."