The Black Sheep
An astronomer, an engineer, and a mathematician were riding on a train from London to Scotland when they spotted a black sheep atop a hill near the tracks.
"Aha!" said the astronomer. "Now we know that all the sheep in Scotland are black!"
"Nonsense," said the engineer. "We only know that at least one sheep in Scotland is black."
"Ridiculous," said the mathematician. "All we can really say is that at least one half of one sheep in Scotland is black."
The Glass
A pessimist says the glass is half-empty. An optimist says the glass is half-full. An engineer recognizes that the glass is simply too big.
Some other ones tha thave been passed through the email:
Three engineers were sitting around talking between classes, when one brought up the question of who designed the human body.
One of the students insisted that the human body must have been designed by an electrical engineer because of the perfection of the nerves and synapses.
Another disagreed, and exclaimed that it had to have been a mechanical engineer who designed the human body. The system of levers and pullies is ingeniuos.
"No," the third student said "your both wrong. The human body was designed by a civil engineer. Who else but a civil engineer would have put a toxic waste line through a recreation area?"
An engineering student is walking along when a fellow student arrives on a new bicycle. Impressed, he asks, "Where did you got this beautiful bicycle?"
"Well," the second engineering student says, "A couple of days ago I was just walking along when this georgeous blonde pulls up, hops off the bike, rips off all her clothes, and says 'take what you want'."
The other engineering student nods and says "Good choice. The clothes probably wouldn't have fit."
A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers.
Engineer: What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!
Doctor: I don't know but I've never seen such ineptitude!
Priest: Hey, here comes the greenskeeper. Let's have a word with him.
Priest: Hi George. Say George, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow aren't they?
George: Oh yes. That's a group of blind fire fighters. They lost their sight hile saving our club house last year. So we let them play here anytime free of charge!
Priest: That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.
Doctor: Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them.
Engineer: Why can't these guys play at night?
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 an enduring relationship.
The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there. The engineer said, "I like both."
"Both?"
Engineer: "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the lab and get some work done."
I wonder how many engineers respond to the one about the blind golphers the way I did. Long before I got to the punch line, I was thinking, "this joke doesn't make any sense. If they were blind they would play at night and not hold up the other golphers" :-)
A physicist, an engineer, and a mathematician were stranded on a desert island. They were discovered by a passing airplane, but could not be rescued except by helicopter, so the airplane dropped a wooden crate of food and supplies to hold them over until the helicopter could get there. The three eagerly opened the crate, but unfortunately the food was canned and whoever packed the crate neglected to include a can opener. So the three thought hard to devise a scheme to open the cans.
The physicist spoke first. He said, "We could take these cans over to the cliffs at the other side of the island and drop them off. The cliffs are tall enough that the cans should break open on the sharp rocks below."
"I don't like that idea," said the engineer. "Those rocks are covered in guano. We'd have to lick the food off of them." "Do you have a better idea?" asked the physicist. "Let me think," said the engineer.
After a few minutes the engineer said, "We could empty out the crate and take the lid supports off the inside. Then we could put one can inside, put the lid on top of it, and weight it down with rocks until the pressure makes the can break open. The food would still splatter, but it would be on the inside of the clean crate."
"I don't like that idea," said the mathematician. "We'd have to lick the food off the crate, and we'd get splinters in our tongues." "Do you have a better idea?" asked the engineer. "Let me think," said the mathematician.
The mathematician thought and thought for hours. He got a stick and wrote calculations in the sand of the beach. Finally he said, "I've got it! Assume the can is open..."