Sunday, October 30, 2011

Until Next Season...

"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."

--Rogers Hornsby (St. Louis Cardinals from 1915-1926, 1933)

Friday, October 21, 2011

Math and engineers

A logician, a physicist, a statistician, and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd integers are prime.

The logician argues: "3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime. Therefore, by induction, all odd numbers are prime."

It's the physicist's turn: "3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime, 11 is a prime, 13 is a prime. Within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime."

The statistician states: "Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... our sample shows that all odd numbers are prime."

The engineer responds: "We just need to run a test, starting with the largest odd number and working backwards..."


(A lawyer puts forward that it is impossible to determine whether 1 is a prime or not, therefore we need not reach a result on 3, 5, 7, or 9)

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Yes, oops.

"The Internet has brought many new things into our lives, including the opportunity to display poor judgment on a global basis in nano-seconds."

--Loudoun Sheriff candidate Ron Speakman, regarding his forwarding a definitively male picture to a campaign volunteer.