How many (________) does it take to screw in a light bulb?

medical students
Five. One to screw in the bulb and four to yank the ladder out from under him.

graduate students
One---but it takes him nine years.

car mechanics
Two. One to screw in the wrong-sized bulb and one to replace the burned-out socket.

feminists
That's not funny!

college girls
That's *women*, and that's not funny either.

nuclear engineers
Seven. One to install the new bulb, and six to figure out what to do with the old one for the next ten thousand years.

morons
Ten. One to hold the bulb, nine to rotate the ladder.

WASPs (or Yuppies)
Two. One to mix the drinks and one to call the electrician.

Christian Scientists
One. To sit and pray for the old one to go back on.

Jews
Three. One to call the cleaning woman and two to feel guilty about calling the cleaning woman.

Jewish mothers
None. No, it's okay, I'll sit in the dark.

Zen Masters
Two. One to screw in the bulb and one not to screw in the bulb.

psychiatrists
Only one, but the bulb really has to want to change.

Marxists
None. The old light bulb contains the seeds of its own revolution.

surrealists
Two. One to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored bicycles.

lawyers
can you afford?

politicians
Just one. He holds the bulb and the universe revolves around him.

anti-abortionists
Six. One to screw in the bulb, and five to testify that it was lit from the moment they began screwing.

country singers
Four. One to screw it in and three to write about the old one.

public-servant
One to spot the burned-out bulb, his supervisor to authorize a requisition, a requisition typist, three clerks to file requisition copies, a mail clerk to deliver the requisition to the perchasing department, a purchasing agent to order the bulb, a clerk to forward the purchasing order, a receiving clerk to....

big black monoliths
Sorry, light bulbs are an evolutionary dead end.

light bulbs
One, if it knows its own Goedel number.

dadaists
To get to the other side.

consultants
We don't know. They never get past the feasibility study.

Ukrainians
They don't need to, they glow in the dark.

poets
Three. One to curse the darkness, one to light a candle ... and one to change the bulb.

stock brokers
Two. One to take out the bulb and drop it, and the other to try and sell it before it crashes (knowing that it's already burned out).

aides
None, they like to keep him in the dark.

magicians
Depends on what you want to change it into.

missionaries
101. One to change it and 100 to convince everyone else to change light bulbs too.

Macintosh users
None. You have to replace the whole motherboard.

Californians
Six. One to turn the bulb, one for support, and four to relate to the experience.

Oregonians
Five. One to change the bulb and four more to chase off the Californians who have come up to relate to the experience.
Nine. One to change the bulb, and eight to protest the nuclear power plant that generates the electricity that powers it.

New Yorkers
None 'o yo' business!
50. 50? Yeah 50; its in the contract.

WASPs
Two. One to call the electrician and one to mix the martinis.

Psychiatrists
Only one, but the bulb has got to really WANT to change.
None; the bulb will change itself when it is ready.

software people
None. Thats a hardware problem.
One, but if he changes it, the whole building will probably fall down.
Two. One always leaves in the middle of the project.

hardware folks
None. That's a software problem.
None. They just have marketing portray the dead bulb as a feature.

FSE's
Who can tell. FSE's are always in the dark.
One to hold the bulb and one to pound it in (etc)

How long will it take?
That's indeterminate. It depends on dead bulbs they've brought with them.

What if you have *two* dead bulbs?
They replace your fuse box.

Unix computer hacks
As many as you want; they're all virtual, anyway.

Bell Labs Vice Presidents
That's proprietary information. Answer available from AT&T on payment of license fee (binary only).
Nearly unanswerable, since the one who tries to change it usually drops it, and the others call for a planning session.
Three. One to get the bulb and two to get the phone number of one of their subordinates to actually change it.

graduate students
Only one, but it may take upwards of five years for him to get it done.

`Real Men'
None: `Real Men' aren't afraid of the dark.
None of your d*** business!

`Real Women'
None: A 'Real Woman' would have plenty of real men around to do it.

mice
Only two, but the hard part is getting them into the light bulb.

Polacks
Just one, but you need 6000 Russian troops in case he goes on strike!

Marxists
None: The light bulb contains the seeds of its own revolution.

Generals/Politicians
1,000,001: One to change the bulb and 1,000,000 to rebuild civilization to the point where they need light bulbs again.

survivors of a nuclear war
None, because people who glow in the dark don't need light bulbs.

Zen masters
A tree in a golden forest.
Two: one to change the bulb and one not to change it. One to change and one not to change is fake Zen. The true Zen answer is Four. One to change the bulb.
None. Zen masters carry their own light.

Carl Sagans
Billions and billions.

folk singers
Two. One to change the bulb, and one to write a song about how good the old light bulb was.

surrealists
Two, one to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools.

gorillas
Only one, but it sure takes a heck of a lot of light bulbs!

doctors
Three. One to find a bulb specialist, one to find a bulb installation specialist, and one to bill it all to Medicare.

[IBM] Technical Writers
100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20% of the definitions are of the form "A:...... consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks".
Just one, provided there's an engineer around to explain how to do it.

Bratzlaver Chassidim
None. They will never find one that burned as brightly as the first one.

professors
Only one, but they get three tech. reports out of it.

people from New Jersey
Three. One to change the light bulb, one to be a witness, and the third to shoot the witness.

psychics
---- You should have hit "n"!

sorority sisters
51. One to change the bulb, and fifty to sing about the bulb being changed.

frat guys
Three: One to screw it in, and the other two to help him down off the keg.
Five: One to hold the bulb, and four to guzzle beer until the room spins.

Harvard students
Just one. He grabs the bulb and waits for the world to revolve around him.

bureaucrats
Two. One to assure the everything possible is being done while the other screws the bulb into the water faucet.

board meetings
This topic was resumed from last week's discussion, but is incomplete pending resolution of some action items. It will be continued next week. Meanwhile...

brewers
About one third less than for a regular bulb.

WASP Princesses
Two. One to get a Tab and one to call Daddy.

accountants
What kind of answer did you have in mind?

civil servants
45. One to change the bulb, and 44 to do the paperwork

Russian leaders
Nobody knows. Russian leaders don't last as long as light bulbs.

nuclear engineers
Seven. One to install the new bulb and six to figure out what to do with the old one for the next 10,000 years.

pre-med students
Five: One to change the bulb and four to pull the ladder out from under him.

Christians
Three, but they're really only one.

Christian Scientists
None, but it takes at least one to sit and pray for the old one to go back on.

jugglers
One, but it takes at least three light bulbs.

Feminists
Thats not funny!!!

Cliffie girls
It's "Radcliffe Women" and it's not funny!

economists
Two. One to assume the ladder and one to change the bulb.
None. If the government would just leave it alone, it would screw itself in.

Valley Girls
Oooh, like, manual labor? Gag me with a spoon! For sure.

database people
Three: One to write the light bulb removal program, one to write the light bulb insertion program, and one to act as a light bulb administrator to make sure nobody else tries to change the light bulb at the same time.

Windows programmers
472. One to write WinGetLightBulbHandle, one to write WinQueryStatusLightBulb, one to write WinGetLightSwitchHandle...

managers
We've formed a task force to study the problem of why light bulbs burn out, and figure out what, exactly, we as supervisors can do to make the bulbs work smarter, not harder.

IUS folks
IUS has received your request concerning your hardware problem, and has assigned your request Ticket Number 39712. Please use this number for any future reference to this light bulb issue. As soon as a technician becomes available, you will be contacted.

Tech Support folks
We have an exact copy of the light bulb here, and it seems to be working fine. Can you tell me what kind of system you have? Ok. Now, exactly how dark is it? Ok, there could be four or five things wrong . . . have you tried the light switch?

Microsoft technicians
Three: two holding the ladder and one to screw the bulb into a faucet.

Microsoft vice presidents
Eight: one to work the bulb and seven to make sure Microsoft gets $2 for every light bulb ever changed anywhere in the world.

testers
We just noticed the room was dark; we don't actually fix the problems.

developers
The light bulb works fine on the system in my office . . .

C++ programmers
You're still thinking procedurally. A properly designed light bulb object would inherit a change method from a generic light bulb class, so all you'd have to do is send a light bulb change message.

shipping dept. personnel
We can change the bulb in 7-10 working days; if you call before 2pm and pay an extra $15 we can get the bulb changed overnight. Don't forget to put your name in the upper right hand corner of the light bulb box.

How long does it take a DEC repairman to change a light bulb?
It depends on burnt-out lightbulbs he brought with him.

Windows users
One, but she/he'll swear up and down that it was JUST as easy for him as it would be for a Macintosh user.

Newtons
Foux! There to eat lemons, axe gravy soup.

Microsoft engineers
None, Bill Gates will just redefine Darkness(tm) as the new industry standard.

mathematicians
None. It's left to the reader as an exercise.
One. He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem to an earlier joke.
One. He gives it to five Oregonians, thereby reducing the problem to an earlier joke.
If k mathematicians can change a light bulb, and if one more simply watches them do it, then k+1 mathematicians will have changed the light bulb. Therefore, by induction, for all n in the positive integers, n mathematicians can change a light bulb.

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