Economists, engineers, psychologists, ...
A physicist, an economist, and an engineer are on a train in Ireland.
- The engineer is looking out of the window and says: "Look there are also black sheep in ireland."
- The physicist takes a look and replies: "Well, there is at least ONE black sheep in ireland."
- The economist takes a look and says: "Well, at least ONE sheep that is black on at least ONE side."
An engineer, a physicist and an economist are all recruited by a farmer to determine the maximum amount of area they can fence in his cattle with, by using the smallest amount of fencing. The engineer, physicist and economist run off to solve this problem.
- The engineer commissions a surveying crew, and launches a copy of AutoCAD.
- The physicist is bouncing lasers off of the ground in front of him, and at detectors he's placed about.
- The economist stands inside the smallest circular shape the fencing will take and proclaims "I declare myself to be on the OUTSIDE of this fence!"
A chemist, a physicist and a biologist are walking along the beach.
- The physicist stops, looks out at the ocean and says "I just have to understand the motion of the waves better" and walks into the sea and never returns.
- The biologist looks out to the sea and says "I just have to understand the sea creatures better" and walks out into the ocean and never returns.
- The chemist pulls out a notebook and writes "Physicist and biologist both soluble."
A behavioral economist and a theoretical economist are having dinner together, and the experimentalist is describing his most recent results. "And so in the end, we found the effect was stronger for condition A than condition B!" The theoretician shook his head sadly. "You wasted your time," he informed his colleague, "it was obvious from the mathematics that A was going to be stronger than B." At this, the experimentalist frowned. "Did I say A bigger than B. My mistake, sorry? It was B stronger than A." "Oh, my dear fellow." The theoretician smiled. "That makes even more sense."
Two job candidates, an economist and an engineer, are asked the same question: "What is one third plus two thirds?"
- The economist: "It's one."
- The engineer, with the aid of his pocket calculator: "It's 0.999999999."
As a psychological experiment, an engineer, a chemist, and a theoretical economist are each locked in separate rooms and told they won't be released until they paint their entire room. They are each given a can of blue paint which holds about half the paint necessary to paint the room and then left alone. A few hours later the psychologist checks up on the three subjects.
- The engineer's walls are completely bare. The engineer explains that he had worked out that there wasn't enough paint to cover all the walls so he saw no point in starting.
- The chemist's room is painted in faded, streaky blue. "There wasn't enough paint, so I diluted it," she explains.
- In the economist's room, the floor and the ceiling are completely blue, and there's a full can of paint still sitting on the floor. The experimenter is shocked and asks how the economists managed to paint everything. The economist explains, "Oh, I just painted the rational points."
An infinite number of economists walk into a bar. The first orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third orders a quarter of a beer. Before the next one can order, the bartender says, "You're all assholes," and pours two beers.
Several academics are asked whether all odd numbers are prime.
- The economist says, "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is not prime, so no."
- The mathematician says, "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, so, yes, by induction."
- The physicist says, "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is -- experimental error, 11 is prime, 13 is prime, ..."
- The engineer says, "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime ..."
- The marketing professor says, "2 is prime, 4 is prime, 6 is prime, 8 is prime, ..."
Two game theorists are introduced to the game of chess. They sit across from each other, carefully study the game for several hours, and declare a stalemate.
One engineer is relating a story to another engineer. The first engineer says, "So I was walking along campus and suddenly this really hot girl comes cycling up to me. She stops, throws her bike to the ground, takes off all her clothes and throws them on the ground as well, then says, 'You can take anything you see home with you!' So I took the bike and rode off." The other engineer says, "Good call, there's no way those clothes would have fit you."
A computer science professor just accepted a new position at a university in another city and has to move. He and his wife pack all their belongings into cardboard boxes and have them shipped off to their new home. To sort out some family matters, the wife stays behind for a few more days while her husband has already left for their new residence. The boxes arrive when the wife still hasn't rejoined her husband. When they talk on the phone in the evening, she asks him to count the boxes, just to make sure the movers didn't loose any of them. "Thirty nine boxes altogether", says the prof on the phone. "That can't be", the wife exclaims. "The movers picked up forty boxes at our old place." The prof counts once again, but again his count only reaches 39. The next morning, the wife calls the moving company and complains. The company promises to check; a few hours later, someone calls back and reports that all forty boxes did arrive. In the evening, when the prof and his wife are on the phone again, she asks: "I don't understand it. When you count, you get 39, and when they do, they get 40. That's more than strange..." "Well", the prof says. "stay on the line and count with me: zero, one, two, three,..."
At a conference of professors of marketing, the keynote speaker is an eminent economist. The conference chairman says, "I would like to introduce my eminent colleague and friend. He's an economist, one of those people who turn random numbers into mathematical laws." The economist, not to be outdone, replies, "My friend, here, is a marketer. They reverse the process."
Some kids were in the habit of teasing one of their group by repeatedly offering him a choice between a nickel and a dime. He always chose the nickel, "because it's bigger." One day, a friend took him aside and asked, "Don't you know that a dime's worth more than a nickel?" The kid answered, "Yeah, but if I picked the dime they'd stop doing it!"