Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Tuesday Coffee and Donuts
Bill Earl
A graduate student gets a part-time job in a coffee shop. The customers start complaining because sometimes they get coffee poured on their donuts instead of in the cup. After several warnings and no improvement, the manager has to let the student go.
What was the student's field of study?
Re: Tuesday Coffee and Donuts
John Veerkamp
Dunkology?
Re: Tuesday Coffee and Donuts
Larry Barrett
Sounds like a parallax problem. Maybe astronomy or microbiology?
Re: Tuesday Coffee and Donuts
Alex Y
Top o' the morning to you, Bill. I'll hold off on the answer, but thanks for the question.
Hint
Bill Earl
Larry is right in that it is a perception problem. But it is not an optical one.
Hint 2
Bill Earl
This student might argue that the coffee cup and the donut are theoretically equivalent.
Re: Hint 2
Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level
I don't know the answer but I can safely say that I will never let that student use the bathrooms in my house.
T.
Re: Hint 2
Larry Barrett
Even with two hints and one correct response, I can't top Thomas' clever response.
Tuesday Answer *LINK*
Bill Earl
The student was a topologist. In topological terms, the donut and the coffee cup are homeomorphic. And from a topological point of view, filling a coffee cup is just pouring coffee on the surface of a torus. (Topologically, I think a toilet is more akin to a pretzel, but Tom's advice is nevertheless well taken. 
)
The Wikipedia link below has a nice animation of a coffee cup morphing into a donut.
Homeomorphism