{"id":23207,"date":"2021-04-16T11:54:20","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T16:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=23207"},"modified":"2021-04-16T11:54:20","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T16:54:20","slug":"two-scientists-walk-into-a-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=23207","title":{"rendered":"Two scientists walk into a bar"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read an essay today that started with the line “Two scientists walk into a bar.” The author then goes on to describe a vast diversity among the sciences. Whereas some sciences focus on very concrete studies of data, others are built around a very high level of abstraction.<\/p>\n

There is a sort of continuum at work here. Biologists deal with concrete data, while chemists work at a more abstract level. Physics is even more abstract, and mathematics is the most abstract of all.<\/p>\n

I was disappointed to see that the essay did not actually contain a “two scientists walk into a bar” joke. I thought the essay would be stronger if there were an actual joke that proved its point.<\/p>\n

So I wrote one:<\/p>\n

\n

A mathematician and a biologist walk into a bar.<\/p>\n

“Why are you and I hanging out together?” the mathematician asks. “Of all the scientific fields, mine is the most abstract, and yours is the most concrete.”<\/p>\n

“That’s true,” the biologist replies, “but we have Chemistry between us.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read an essay today that started with the line “Two scientists walk into a bar.” The author then goes on to describe a vast diversity among the sciences. Whereas some sciences focus on very concrete studies of data, others are built around a very high level of abstraction. There is a sort of continuum … Continue reading “Two scientists walk into a bar”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23207"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23208,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23207\/revisions\/23208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}