I would have liked to contribute to the bad physics joke contest that I was complaining about the other day… but unfortunately I only know mathematician jokes and engineer jokes. Any physicists that appear in those jokes are incidental. Yes, this is a weird oversight in my education. Frankly, I think I deserve at least a partial tuition refund.

Anyway, in light of recent events, I thought I would share one of my favorite engineer jokes that at least involves a physicist. And hunting!

A biologist, a physicist, and an engineer go duck quail hunting. Suddenly, a single quail gets flushed from the undergrowth.

The biologist, being very familiar with natural quail behavior and quail flight patterns, takes careful aim… BLAM! He just misses, a little to the right.

At almost exactly the same time, the physicist quickly calculates the distance, the velocity of the bullet, the velocity of the quail, corrects for wind and air resistance… BLAM! He just misses, a little to the left.

The engineer starts jumping up and down excitedly. “We got him! We got him!”

But wait! There’s a sequel to this joke!

Miracle of miracles, our hunting party succeeds in downing a duck quail. They return to the campsite, where their philosopher friend has been waiting for them. Triumphant, they show the philosopher the quail.

The philosopher looks up from his book. “Hmmm, well, how do you know it’s a quail?”

The biologist is taken aback. “Well, just look at the morphology,” he says. “It’s got quail feathers, a quail beak, quail wings…”

The physicist doesn’t quite know what to say either. “I guess we could take a DNA sample from the bird and run it to the lab…?”

The engineer just shrugs. “We went hunting for quail. Therefore, it’s a quail.”

Thank you! I’ll be here all the week!