Geek and Nerd Humor

A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer are riding a train through Scotland.

The engineer looks out the window, sees a black sheep, and exclaims, "Hey! They've got black sheep in Scotland!"

The physicist looks out the window and corrects the engineer, "Strictly speaking, all we know is that there's at least one black sheep in Scotland."

The mathematician looks out the window and corrects the physicist, " Strictly speaking, all we know is that is that at least one side of one sheep is black in Scotland."

Oh...the strain. Makes me wish I had taken more math courses...and paid attention.

I'm sure I would love this one...if I could only understand it.

Here's hoping Lustig comes back and 'splains it.

She asks for the number of wishes to be thought of in terms of its absolute value, so -1000 wishes count as 1000, because the absolute value of -1000 is 1000. When she wishes for her wish count to go down by 1000 at the end that takes her wish count from 0 to -1000. But the genie has already granted that -1000 wishes count as 1000, so she ends up with 1000 more wishes.