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An engineer, a mathematician, and an analytical chemist.

An engineer, a mathematician, and an analytical chemist all live next to each other. One night, the engineer's
house catches on fire. He calls the fire dept., but they don't respond.

So he says, "Well, all I have to do is to come up with some device to deliver the maximum amount of water
to the fire in the minimum amount of time. No problem!" And so he succeeds in putting out the fire.

However, he inundated his house with so much water that all of his belongings were destroyed by water damage.
The next night, oddly enough, the mathematician's house catches on fire and the fire dept. still won't respond.

But this time, the mathematician had learned from his friend the engineer's mistake. So he says, "All I
have to do is calculate, making a few quite estimates as to the heat, oxygen concentration, and amount of combustible
material, I should be able to calculate exactly how much water I need to put out the fire without causing water
damage. So he gets a pencil and a pad of paper and sets to work.

Several hours later, he finally comes up with the answer.

Unfortunately, by then, he had no house to save; it was a pile of ashes. Sure enough, the next night, the analytical
chemist's house caught on fire. He surveys the situation, thinks for a moment, then whips out one enormous burette,
fills it with water, and begins to titrate his house fire. Thus, he was able to quickly deliver enough water to
the fire without going over the endpoint and causing water damage.

The engineer and the mathematician looked on in awe.

When the last drop of water extinguished the last glowing ember, the analytical chemist proceeded to dump kerosene
all over his house and set it alight. "What the hell are you doing?!" cried the engineer and the mathematician.
"Well," says the analytical chemist, "I wanted to see if the data was repeatable.