A Note on Mathematical Rigor

As a biologist, a physicist, and a mathematician were riding on a train moving through the countryside, all see a brown cow. The biologist innocently remarks 1 see cows are brown. The physicist corrects him That s too broad a generalization, you mean some cows are brown. Finally, the mathematician provides the definitive analysis There exists at least one cow, one side of which is brown.  

Just in case we have missed offending any reader, let us close with a quote from David Wells, The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting 

Mathematicians have always considered themselves superior to physicists and, of course, engineers. A mathematician gave this advice to his students If you can understand a theorem and you can prove it, publish it in a mathematics journal. If you understand it but can t prove it, submit it to a physics journal. If you can neither understand it nor prove it, send it to a journal of engineering.  

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