I’ve Gotta Get Out of This Place…

A physicist was arrested for conducting experiments deemed unethical by authorities. He was thrown in jail, and he learned that his cellmate was a mathematician.

“I have to get out of here,” said the physicist. “Is there any way to escape?”

“Sure,” said the mathematician. “There’s a large water pipe in the laundry room that leads past the walls of the prison. You can escape through that pipe.”

Within a week, the physicist escaped through the pipe, just as the mathematician had told him. Unfortunately, it led to the middle of a burning desert, hundreds of miles from anywhere. The physicist wandered through the desert for a few days, but sunburned, parched and hungry, he walked back to the prison and turned himself in. The guards returned him to his cell.

Upon seeing him, the mathematician said, “I could have told you that escaping by foot was impossible.”

The frustrated physicist yelled, “What? Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?”

The mathematician just shrugged and asked, “Who publishes negative results?”