MGTutoring.com. A Rational Perspective on Education.

The optimist sees a glass that’s half full. The pessimist sees a glass that’s half empty. An engineer sees a glass that’s twice as big as it needs to be.

From the Science Jokes page of Mr. Kevin A. Boudreaux, Instructor, Department of Chemistry at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas.

Four engineers were travelling by car to a seminar, when unfortunately, the vehicle broke down. The chemical engineer said, “Obviously, some constituent of the fuel has caused this failure to occur.” The mechanical engineer replied, “I disagree, I would surmise that an engine component has suffered a catastrophic structural failure.” The electrical engineer also had a theory: “I believe an electrical component has ceased to function, thereby causing an ignition malfunction.” The software engineer thought for some time. When at last he spoke he said, “What would happen if we all got out and then got back in again?”

From the Science Jokes page of Mr. Kevin A. Boudreaux, Instructor, Department of Chemistry at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas.

Well…it’s my favorite of the few I’ve heard — i.e., my sample space is small.

An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trash can from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame temperature, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. He goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. He thinks for a moment and then exclaims, “Ah, a solution exists!” and then goes back to bed.

From the Science Jokes page of Mr. Kevin A. Boudreaux, Instructor, Department of Chemistry at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. Due to his page, my sample space is about to increase.

Note: This joke and category had to be established, and quick, due to the hint of a suggestion of an implication of a veiled threat communicated through dark foreboding eyes and tilted head and through a dark menacing voice that said ‘you have to have jokes on your blog. you have them, right…?” And as you might expect — or then again, as you might not expect  — the demand that I have humor on my blog, with threats of who-knows-what lying behind the them, came from someone interested in philosophy as a college major. Geez! Not an Aristotelian advocate of Eudaimonia, that person. (See also the entry on Virture Ethics in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy…which entry I have not read yet…so it might be good, but it might not.) Not an adocate of Lockean rights, that person. (See also the entry on John Locke….or on the IEP.) Maybe a Nihilist? A Machiavellian? A Hobbesian in his/her metaphysics of man (See IEP or SEP)?