Mathematicians

Originally posted by Nordlys
One interesting thing about this is that people have problems with it at all. I think it's a psychological thing - you take some numbers, and they almost add up to some other number, and because it almost fits, you can convince people that it should add up. If you'd tell the story like this, I doubt it would work at all:

"3 men go into a mo ...[text shortened]... R27, add the R7 that the bellboy kept = R34.

Where did those 4 extra Rands come from?"

The mathematical error is to add when you need to subtract. The psychological error is to believe the method when it is being told to you, because you want to believe the person telling you the story is telling you the truth. Which, in answer to the person who was complaining about this being in the spirituality forum, counts as a metaphor for religion for us non-believers.

Originally posted by UmbrageOfSnow
A Mathematician, a Biologist and a Physicist are sitting in a street cafe
watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side
of the street.

First they see two people going into the house. Time passes.
After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house.

The Physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate.".
The Bio e Mathematician: "If now exactly 1 person enters the house then it will be
empty again."

An astronomer, a physicist, and a mathematician are riding in a train through rural Scotland. Looking out the window, they see a black sheep.

"Aha!" says the astronomer. "All the sheep in Scotland are black!"

"No; no." says the physicist. "All we know is that one sheep in Scotland is black."

"You're both wrong." says the mathematician. "All we can say is that in Scotland there exists a sheep, one side of which is black."

----------------------

A biologist, a statistician, and a physicist, are at the racetrack betting on horses. Over the course of the day, the biologist and statistician fare poorly, while the physicist wins repeatedly.

"I don't get it!" says the biologist to the physicist. "I looked at the horses and analyzed their health and endurance, but the ones I picked never won."

"Yeah, what's your secret?" adds the statistician. "I looked up the horses' past records and computed the odds of victory for each, but I still lost. How have you been doing it?"

"Well," says the physicist, "first I assumed that each horse was a spherical rigid body..."

Originally posted by josephw
I still don't get it.

That is because you are stupid.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
If you have problems with this, no wonder you have problems with something complex like abiogenesis or evolution.

One day a group of scientists finally are able to duplicate a life form via abiogenesis. Feeling rather good about themselves they then summons a clergyman who they tell and ask him for a meeting with the Almighty. Once they get their meeting with the Almighty, they then proceed to tell him about their accomplishment. Feeling rather smug the group of scientists then proceed to tell the Almighty that they are now able to create life and think that perhaps science has replaced mankinds need for a God. The scientists then challenge the Almighty to a life making contest. God agrees and then challenges them to create a life form right then and there. Filled with exitement, the scientists then begin to create a list of ingrediants needed to create life and showed it to the clergyman. The clergyman then has a private meeting with God and comes with an answer. He smiles at them, hands them back their list and tells them that God answered their request. God says, "Ingrediants? Tell them to make it themselves."