near zero - Mander

A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are led into a long room. At the other end stands a beautiful naked woman. “When I ring this bell,” she says" you may cross half the space between us. When I ring the bell again, you may again cross half the space between us." Both the mathematician and physicist groan and wander off. “Ah, it’s Zeno’s paradox, we can never actually reach her.” The engineer, waiting for the bell, says “I think I can get close enough.”
why is there a naked woman?
For the joke to work.
i still don’t see what the point is.
Because a sexual relationship requires 2 people to touch, so it is a relatable setup.

yeah but like, you don’t need to specify that one individual is naked. If that’s a required factoid of the statement, the engineer, mathematician, and physicist should also be naked. But there’s no mention of that.

Now i don’t have much experience in relationships, particularly inter personal ones, but to my knowledge, you are generally clothed most of the time.

You are overthinking it. This is just a premise to setup the joke that an engineer deals with approximation while the other two give up because they’ll never reach 0.

It could be a bowl of ice cream for all that matters, but people like corny jokes, so that’s it.

no i understood that part. Unless the naked woman has something to do with that part of the joke itself, then i don’t know why it’s mentioned.