An engineer and a mathematician...

An engineer and a mathematician are subjects of a behavioral test. The engineer is led into a room where there is a faucet, an empty bucket, and a trash can on fire. She fills the empty bucket from the faucet and dumps it into the burning trash can, extinguishing the fire. The technicians reset the room and the mathematician is led into the room. He sees the same situation as the engineer and takes the same course of action: extinguishing the fire with the bucket and water from the faucet. The engineer is then led into a second room which is identical to the first, except that the bucket is already filled with water. She takes the already filled bucket, dumps it into the trashcan, and extinguishes the fire. The room is reset and the mathematician is led in. He picks up the bucket, upends it immediately into the floor and announces “thus reducing it to a problem previously solved.”

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