From: utzoo!decvax!microsof!fluke!witters Newsgroups: net.jokes Title: Re: mathematician, physicist, engineer Article-I.D.: fluke.670 Posted: Thu Jan 20 08:32:14 1983 Received: Fri Jan 21 03:02:22 1983 References: rabbit.1068 As long as these jokes are popular, I'll submit one I heard from an Electrical Engineering Professor. A mathemetician, an engineer, and a physicist were challenged to measure the height of a building. The most accurate measure would win a prize. They were each given a ball of string, a meter stick, and a stopwatch. The mathemetician went to the top of the building, lowered the string over the side, and measured its length with the meter stick. The physicist attached a weight to the string, lowered it over the side, started it swinging, and measured the period with the stopwatch. She then calculated the length of the string from the period. The engineer went to the building's archetect and said "I'll give you this ball of string, this meter stick, and this really nice stopwatch if you tell me how tall the building is". The Professor went on to give a moral about not re-inventing the wheel.