Monday, July 04, 2005

Different people and prime numbers

I was google-spell checking the word "ninkampoop" (yeah I do that, I'm illiterate, I know) and found this page. For your lazy asses' convenience, I'll post the text here.

Defining A Prime Number

The physicist says: "3 is prime... 5 is prime... 7 is prime... 9... well,
experimental error. 11 is prime... ..."

The mathematician says: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime... therefore,
by induction on 2n-1, all odd numbers are prime."

The engineer says: "3 is prime... 5 is prime... 7 is prime... 9 is prime...
11 is prime... ..."

The chemist says: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime; well, I guess that's
enough data"

The Biologist says: "What's a prime?"

The programmer says: "Wait a minute, I think I have an algorithm from Knuth
on finding prime numbers... just a little bit longer, I've found the
last bug... no, that's not it... ya know, I think there may be a
compiler bug here - oh, did you want IEEE-998.0334 rounding or not?
- was that in the spec? - hold on, I've almost got it - I was up all
night working on this program, ya know... now if management would
just get me that new workstation that just came out, I'd be done by
now... etc., etc. ..."

The computer scientist says: "3 is prime... 5 is prime... 7 is prime...
7 is prime... 7 is prime... 7 is prime... ..."

The psychologist says: "3 is prime... 5 is prime... 7 is prime... 9 is
latently prime but repressing it... 11 is prime... ..."

The social scientist says: "3 is prime... 5 is prime... 7 is prime...
we'll pretend 9 is prime... 11 is prime... ..."

The statistician says : "3 is prime... 5 is prime... 7 is prime... from
samples surveyed, all odd numbers are prime..."

The politician says : "Some numbers are prime.. but the goal is to create
a kinder, gentler country where all numbers are prime... "


And with reference to the presidential campaign of 1992 :

Bill Clinton : "During the last twelve years, only the larger prime
numbers got the breaks. If you elect me, I'll see that only the prime
numbers over 200000 feel the heat, and the ones between 30000 and 50000
are taxed 13 % less than the difference between the current rate and .... "

George Bush : "Gotta be prime. Not divisible, that kinda thing... but
my opponent wants to be even and still be prime. Can't do that. Or even
the odd thing. Some odds are prime, that's the way it is. Saddam wanted
to be prime... experience with primes, that and character. We have more
primes now than four years ago..."

Ross Perot : "D'ya know how many primes there are in four trillion
dollars ? Let's just count 'em. Now I ran a business where we had a
lot of numbers. I know how to count..."

Dan Quayle : "What's a prime?"

Yoav add: "Therfore, by induction, Dan Quayle is either a biologist... NOT!!!
or a ninkampoop"

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