Disclosure: I’m a software developer
The mathematician of this joke would scan the edge of the light, finding nothing. Then he would keep lighting little lanterns at the perimeter to make the lighted area larger until finally his keys were within sight.
The physicist in this joke would presumably root around in the dark where she thinks her keys actually were. Upon finding them through brute force and luck, she might think “wow maybe one day this place will be illuminated so I can tell wtf I just did”
[0] Very few practices in English writing are universal.
And annoying certain kinds of pedant is a bonus more than anything.
I call those "monitors."
Disclosure: I'm a software developer.
Mathematician: not yet, but if I wait here long enough someone will come by and drop their keys, which will then be retrieved, proving the possibility of retrieving lost keys when light conditions are optimal.
Physicist drops keys.
Mathematician: Eureka!
on edit: can I stay at your house for a bit while waiting for publication?
Disclosure, I'm a software developer
When the new anti-key-dropping code ships to users, they find they can no longer put down any singular held objects.
Interviewer -- "Consider a situation where you are in your office and there is a fire outside in the hall. There is a fire escape outside your window but you can't reach it because the window is stuck. However, there is a hammer on the table. What do you do?"
Physicist -- "I use the hammer to break the window, allowing me to get out to the fire escape."
Interviewer -- "Now consider the same situation except that the hammer is on the floor. What do you do?"
Mathematician -- "I move the hammer from the floor to the table, thereby reducing it to the previously solved problem."
"Don't use statistics like how a drunkard uses a lamp-post, for support rather than for illumination".
Also, it is unclear if Nasreddin ever actually existed, or if he is purely legendary. Turkish folklore claims he lived in Asia Minor during the Seljuks, but Uzbek folklore claims he was an Uzbek who lived in Uzbekistan. Some Azerbaijani scholars have identified him with the 13th century Persian polymath Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.
In Scotland the train passes a field and there is a single sheep standing in that field. The sheep is black.
The engineer says, "Look! The sheep in Scotland are black!".
The physicist sighs, shakes his head, and says, "No...at least one sheep in Scotland is black".
The mathematician sighs, shakes his head, and rolls his eyes, and says, "No...at least one sheep in Scotland is black on at least one side at least some of the time".
Or one more related to this article: Mathematicians waste time designing the topology of coats for people with 3 arms. Physicists find people like that
Disclosure, I'm a mathematician.