Teakettle principle

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The teakettle principle is a colloquialism used among certain communities of mathematicians. It refers to the practice, common among mathematicians, of reducing a given problem to one that has been solved previously. The name itself arises from a long-running joke in the mathematical community involving a mathematician and an engineer.^[1]

The joke involves a mathematician and an engineer arriving in the kitchen to make tea; both fill a pot with water, put the pot on the stove and boil water. Not a big problem to solve. The next day, they go to make tea again, but find that the pot is already full of water. The engineer will put the pot on the stove; the mathematician will throw out the water - "reducing the problem to a previously solved problem".

[edit] See also

• Mathematical joke

[edit] References

1. ^ Lawler, Eugene [1976] (2001). Combinatorial Optimization: Networks and Matroids. Dover Publications, p. 13. ISBN 0486414531. 

[edit] External links

• Same statement (with joke) at everything2.com, claiming to be a citation from the book Combinatorics by N Ya. Vilenkin. (accessed on 2007-02-04)