29 March 2011

Prime or Not?

I came across this on the intertubes earlier. It may amuse those of a more scientific bent ...

Several people are asked to prove that all odd integers greater than 2 are prime.
• Post-graduate mathematician: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is not prime. Ha! A counterexample.
• Undergraduate mathematician: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime… so by induction, all subsequent odd integers are prime.
• Statistician: Let’s verify this on several randomly selected odd numbers, say, 23, 47, and 83.
• Computer scientist: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, segmentation fault?
• Computer programmer: 3 is prime, 3 is prime, 3 is prime, 3 is prime…
• Physicist: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is prime…
• Mechanical engineer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is approximately prime, 11 is prime…
• Civil engineer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime…
• Biologist: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is… still awaiting results…
• Psychologist: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime but suppresses it, 11 is prime…
• Economist: 2 is prime, 4 is prime, 6 is prime…
• Politician: Shouldn’t the goal really be to create a greater society where all numbers are prime?
• Sarah Palin: What’s a prime?

I especially like the Physicist and Mechanical Engineer ones.