The physicist says, "He's out because I calls 'em as I sees 'em."                  

        The engineer says, "He's out because I calls 'em as they are."  

        The mathematician says, "He's out because I called him out."  

        Three statisticians go out hunting together.

        After a while they spot a solitary rabbit.
 
        The first statistician takes aim and overshoots.
 
        The second aims and undershoots.
 
        The third shouts out "We got him!"  

 

       TOP TEN EXCUSES FOR NOT DOING THE MATH HOMEWORK  
 

1. I accidentally divided by zero and my paper burst into flames.
2. Isaac Newton's birthday.
3. I could only get arbitrarily close to my textbook. I couldn't actually reach it.
4. I have the proof, but there isn't room to write it in this margin.
5. I was watching the World Series and got tied up trying to prove that it converged.
6. I have a solar powered calculator and it was cloudy.
7. I locked the paper in my trunk but a four-dimensional dog got in and ate it.
8. I couldn't figure out whether i am the square of negative one or i is the square root of negative one.
9. I took time out to snack on a doughnut and a cup of coffee.
10. I spent the rest of the night trying to figure which one to dunk.
11. I could have sworn I put the homework inside a Klein bottle, but this morning I couldn't find it.

        HUNTING AN ELEPHANT                                                    

 
 
 Mathematicians hunt elephants by going to Africa,
throwing out everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left.  

 
 Experienced mathematicians will attempt to prove the existence of at least one unique elephant before proceeding to step 1 as a subordinate exercise.  

 
 Professors of mathematics will prove the existence of at least one unique elephant
and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant as an exercise for their graduate students.
 

  Computer scientists hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm A:  

1. Go to Africa.
2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope.
3. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent alternately east and west.
4. During each traverse pass,
• Catch each animal seen.
• Compare each animal caught to a known elephant.
• Stop when a match is detected.

 
 Assembly language programmers prefer to execute Algorithm A on their hands and knees.  

 
 Engineers hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray animals at random,
and stopping when any one of them weighs within plus or minus 15 percent of any previously observed elephant.  

 
 Economists don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are paid enough, they will hunt themselves.  

 
 Statisticians hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an elephant.  

 
 Consultants don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do.  

 
 Operations research consultants can also measure the correlation of hat size and bullet color to efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else will only identify the elephants.  

 
 Politicians don't hunt elephants, but they will share the elephants you catch with the people who voted for them.  

 
 Lawyers don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around arguing about who owns the droppings.  

 
 Software lawyers will claim that they own an entire herd based on the look and feel of one dropping.  

 
 Vice presidents of engineering, research and development try hard to hunt elephants, but their staffs are designed to prevent it. When the vice president does get to hunt elephants, the staff will try to ensure that all possible elephants are completely nonprehunted elephant, the staff will (1) compliment the vice president's keen eyesight and (2) enlarge itself to prevent any recurrence.  

 
 Senior managers set broad elephant-hunting policy based on the assumption that elephants are just like field mice, but with deeper voices.  

 
 Quality assurance inspectors ignore the elephants and look for mistakes the other hunters made when they were packing the jeep.  

 
 Sales people don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling elephants they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens.  

 
  Software sales people ship the first thing they catch and write up an invoice for an elephant.  

 
 Hardware sales people catch rabbits, paint them gray, and sell them as desktop elephants.