One does not, by knowing all the physical laws as we know them today, immediately obtain an understanding of anything much.
- Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
This is a collection of my favourite Physics related jokes, e-mail signatures and sayings. Okay, so maybe they're not all to do with physics, but they have a studenty theme. I don't know where many of these came from but where I do know, I have given the original author.
Tips for research work
This is technically not humour, but useful anyaway.
Physics E-mail Signatures
Student E-mail signatures
Cartoon Law I
Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation.
Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second takes over.
Cartoon Law II
Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease.
Cartoon Law III
Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.
Cartoon Law IV
Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it inevitably unsuccessful.
Cartoon Law V
Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight.
Cartoon Law VI
This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A `wacky' character has the option of self-replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required.
Cartoon Law VII
This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting.
This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science.
Cartoon Law VIII
Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives, might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced,splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify.
Corollary: A cat will assume the shape of its container.
Cartoon Law IX
Cartoon Law X
This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of watching it happen to a duck instead.
When poked (usually in the buttocks) with a sharp object (usually a pin), a character will defy gravity by shooting straight up, with great velocity.
Cartoon Law Amendment B
Characters who are intended to be "cool" can make previously nonexistent objects appear from behind their backs at will. For instance, the Road Runner can materialize signs to express himself without speaking.
Cartoon Law Amendment C
They merely turn characters temporarily black and smoky.
Cartoon Law Amendment D
Their operation can be wittnessed by observing the behavior of a canine suspended over a large vertical drop. Its feet will begin to fall first, causing its legs to stretch. As the wave reaches its torso, that part will begin to fall, causing the neck to strech. As the head begins to fall, tension is released and the canine will resume its regular proportions until such time as it strikes the ground.
Cartoon Law Amendment E
The process is analogous to steady-state theories of the universe which postulated that the tensions involved in maintaining a space would cause the creation of hydrogen from nothing. Dynamite quanta are quite large (stick sized) and unstable (lit). Such quanta are attracted to psychic forces generated by feelings of distress in "cool" characters (see Amendment B, which may be a special case of this law), who are able to use said quanta to their advantage. One may imagine C-spaces where all matter and energy result from primal masses of dynamite exploding. A big bang indeed.
Physics Jokes
I didn't write these jokes, they are just picked up from various places around the net.
A physics professor at a state university in Michigan was famous for his animated lectures. He was short and thin with wild white hair and an excited expression. In lecture he would through himself from the top of desks and throw frisbees to students in the back row to illustrate various principles. One day in class he was spinning on an office chair holding weights in each hand when he lost his balance and tumbled into the first row. He apologized to his class for going off on a tangent. From: "Profusions of Puns, Gaggles of Groaners"
Sir Isaac Newton had a theory of how to get the best outcomes in a courtroom. He suggested to lawyers that they should drag their arguments into the late afternoon hours. The English judges of his day would never abandon their 4 o'clock tea time, and therefore would always bring down their hammer and enter a hasty, positive decision so they could retire to their chambers for a cup of Earl Grey. This tactic used by the British lawyers is still recalled as Newton's Law of Gavel Tea. (By Guy Ben Moshe)
Albert Einstein married his cousin. He had tried to date outside his family circle, but he never found any women appealing - especially in the boob department - that weren't within his familial group. He postulated that there is a special attraction to women in one's own family in his Theory of Relative Titty.
(By Guy Ben Moshe) I have an idea for a bumper sticker:
"I abhor M theory with every fiber of my being."
Now I'm thinking maybe it should instead be "I abh^D^D^Dadore M theory with every fiber of my being."
Trying to keep a positive outlook on life ;)
Apparently I get out of touch. What is M theory?
(M theory is a theory that unifies the five different string theories (or so I hear) out there. The M usually seems to stand for 'membrane'.
More info at http://www.ransom.co.uk/universe/press_12.htm
A high school physics teacher had a summer job as a beach lifeguard. He noted that the best tanned babes flirted the most throughout the summer, though they never found steady boyfriends. He theorized that: A body in lotion trends to stray emotion. (By Guy Ben Moshe) From: "Profusions of Puns, Gaggles of Groaners"
OK, here are some Physics Song Titles to guess. Solution after spoiler. Followups over my dead body.
1. zzzzzzz400nm
2. E0
3. L
4. t=0 1.
1. I dream in Infrared (Accept??)
2. High Energy (?)
3. Action (The Sweet)
4. Time's Up! (Living Colour)
From: Monk Jack
4b Surely t=0 is an initial condition, which reminds me of 'In the beginning', 'We've only just begun', 'Begin again', 'Start all over' etc. oh and you've missed off the most obvious:
5. E=mc2
A. E=mc2 (Big Audio Dynamite)
Maybe Schroedinger isn't the best choice, but here it is:
Q: What is Schroedinger's parakeet called?
A: Ein Teilchensittich.
(Kekul, of course, has an orthokeet... as long as the hoop snake didn't get to it.)
Explanation German. Sittich is German for parrot
Wellensittich is German for parakeet
Welle is German for wave.
Teilchen is German for particle.
There is no Sittich.
There is, though, a Wellensittich, which by wave-particle duality becomes a Teilchensittich.
In a class on Modeling and analysis of physical systems....
Potential Sources: There not sources, but they could be.
A neutron walks into a bar. "I'd like a beer" he says.
The bartender promptly serves up a beer.
"How much will that be?" asks the neutron.
"For you?" replies the bartender, "no charge"
Two atoms were walking down the street. One turns to the other and says, "Oh, no! I think I'm an ion!"
The other responds, "Are you sure?!?" "Yes, I'm positive!"
So the 2nd atom aks: "Quantum well - what are ya gunnadoo abootit? and the 1st atom, after having a few, replies: "In principle, I am uncertain about getting charged, maybe its gone off on the great cosmic wave train, or eloped with a stray alpha particle. Maybe I'm just losing my attraction? Maybe I've taken one too many hits from the lab. Maybe I should just decay right here in this bar."
At that moment, a delightful little e- flies through the aether of the inter-atomic realms and settles in a mutually comfortable 1920's eigenstatechair near the virtuous pair, and says to the two atoms: "Hope you guys are not molecular"
So the 1st atom perks up and says: "Naa: just been surfin' and think I lost an electron"
The 2nd atom finishes his drink and leaves, saying: "Gunna split. Gotta DNA contract this evenin'"
And as the sun sets slowly in the west, and the crescent moon rises only just a little faster over the eastern ridges of the atomic horizon, the atom and the electron take a stroll under the emergent stars, and know with a growing certaintly that they are not just some loose charges looking for a little physical action, but in fact the beginning of a newly created completeness in the midst of the cosmic harmony - if only for a picosecond.
A hydrogen atom came running into a police station asking for help....
Hydrogen atom: Someone just stole my electron!!
Policeman: Are you sure?
Hydrogen atom: Yes, I'm positive
Policeman: Oh, I thought you were just being negative again.
Two sodium atoms are flying around a cyclotron.
Suddenly the first atom said to the second, `Hey, I think I've just lost an electron.'
`Are you sure?' asked the second atom. `Yeah,' said the first, `I'm positive.'
Of course, the real joke is that neither sodium atom could have been flying around the cyclotron in the first place, unless they were already ionized. (collapses to the floor, gasping for breath and chuckling hysterically while everyone else in the room edges nervously away)
Ivan Ivanovich, great russian Scientist does an experiment. He wants to know how fast a thermometer falls down. He takes a thermometer and a light, a candle light. He drops both from the 3rd floor and recognices that they are reaching the ground at the same time. Ivan Ivanovich, great russian scientific writes in his book: A theomometer falls with the speed of light.
The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center was known as SLAC, until the big earthquake, when it became known as SPLAC.
SPLAC? Stanford Piecewise Linear Accelerator.
Albert Einstein had been working on his theory of relativity a lot and he was just about finished. He was almost ready to publish his work. However, he was under a lot of stress so he thought he would go on vacation to Mexico. Albert had a glorious two week vacation and was having the time of his life. On the last night he was staying there he decided to take a walk along the beach and watch the sunset. As he watched the sun go down he thought of the light of the sun and then the speed of light. You see, he had been using the speed of light in a lot of his calculations but he didn't decided on what symbol to use for it. Greek had been so overused. Just at that moment Senior Wensez was also walking along the beach in the opposite direction. Albert caught him out of the corner of his eye and remarked suddenly, "Do you not zink zat zee speed of light is very fast?" Senior Wensez paused for a moment and replied, "Si."
Overheard after a student failed a physics test miserably:
Nuclear, Hydrogen, Atomic, My test- They can all be bombs.
Prof: Some people have proposed using Krypton gas in scintillator detectors.
Grad Student: Won't that scare away the superstrings?
What is a quantum particle? The dreams that stuff is made of! -- David Moser
What is JJ coupling? JP Thompson's conception
Did you hear about the French post-doc who went to work at the Fermi Lab, but never went in because the sign over the door always said it was closed.
Are vacuum thermoses formed using a Dewar die?
It is said that the "J", also know as the "psi particle", has zero charm
". I'm sure that's not true ! ( when you get to know it :-)
FRESHMEN in the general-science class at Mark Twain Middle School in Mar Vista, Calif., were studying astronomy. "What do we call a group of stars that makes an imaginary picture in the sky?" the teacher asked. "A consternation," one student replied. --Contributed to "Tales Out of School" by Ralph E. Hedges (c) 1996 The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. All rights reserved.
A Simpleton's Guide to Science (stolen from UK magazine)
Relativity : Family get-togethers at Christmas
Gravity : Strength of a glass of beer
Time travel : Throwing the alarm clock at the wall
Black holes : What you get in black socks
Critical mass: A gaggle of film reviewers
Hyperspace : Where you park at the superstore
From: mgiles@onramp.net (Kristen Giles) An engineer friend of mine told me of a group of scientists that were nominated for a Nobel prize. Using dental tools, they were able to sort out the smallest particles that mankind has yet discovered. The group became known as " the Graders of the Flossed Quark."
Old physicists don't die; their wavefunctions go to zero as time goes to infinity. (You'll understand this joke next semester after taking PH212.)
Rene Descartes is sitting in a bar, doing what he does best--philosophising. he's had a few pints of ale over the course of the evening, and it's now last call. The bartender asks him if he wants another drink. Descartes says, "I think not," and promptly vanishes.
Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change back into a sun in the daytime.
Twinkle, twinkle little star,
I don't wonder what you are
For by the spectroscopic ken
I know that you are hydrogen
- Lewis Fry Richardson
Copernicus' parents: Copernicus, young man, when are you going to come to terms with the fact that the world does not revolve around you?!
Ludwig Wittgenstein: "It is a hypothesis that the sun will rise in the morning. This means we don't know it will rise"
Nikolaus Copernicus: "Actually, now that you come to mention it..."
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night, God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light. -- Alexander Pope
It did not last; the devil howling "Ho! Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo. -- Sir John Collings Squire
One of the best of the many Pauli jokes tells of Pauli's arriving in Heaven and being given, as befits a theoretical physicist, an appointment with God. When granted the customary free wish, he requests that God explain to him why the value of the fine-structure constant, alpha = e2/(hbar*c), which measures the strength of the electric force, is 0.00729735 .... God goes to the blackboards and starts to write furiously. Pauli watches with pleasure but soon starts shaking his head violently...."
- Gross,D.: 1989, Physics Today, (December), page 9.
Einstein dies and goes to heaven only to be informed that his room is not yet ready. "I hope you will not mind waiting in a dormitory. We are very sorry, but it's the best we can do and you will have to share the room with others." he is told by the doorman (say his name is Pete).
Einstein says that this is no problem at all and that there is no need to make such a great fuss. So Pete leads him to the dorm. They enter and Albert is introduced to all of the present inhabitants.
"See, Here is your first room mate. He has an IQ of 180!"
"Why that's wonderful!" Says Albert. "We can discuss science!"
"And here is your second room mate. His IQ is 150!"
"Why that's wonderful!" Says Albert. "We can discuss hockey!"
"And here is your third room mate. His IQ is 100!"
"That's Wonderful! We can discuss the theater and andrij's girth!"
Just then another man moves out to capture Albert's hand and shake it. "I'm your last room mate and I'm sorry, but my IQ is only 80."
Albert smiles back at him and says, "So, where do you think interest rates are headed?"
Asked how his pet parrot died, the mathematician answered, "Polynomial. Polygon."
(apologies to my economists friends) Economist: Someone who is good with numbers but lacks the personality to be an accountant.
My geometry teacher was sometimes acute, and sometimes obtuse, but always, he was right
Old mathematicians never die; they just lose some of their functions.
What's non-orientable and lives in the sea? Mobius Dick.
A bunch of Polish scientists decided to flee their repressive government by hijacking an airliner and forcing the pilot to fly them to a western country. They drove to the airport, forced their way on board a large passenger jet, and found there was no pilot on board. Terrified, they listened as the sirens got louder. Finally, one of the scientists suggested that since he was an experimentalist, he would try to fly the aircraft. He sat down at the controls and tried to figure them out. The sirens got louder and louder. Armed men surrounded the jet. The would be pilot's friends cried out, "Please, please take off now!!! Hurry!!!!!!" The experimentalist calmly replied, "Have patience. I'm just a simple pole in a complex plane."
Pie are not square. Pie are round. Cornbread are square.
Theorem: a cat has nine tails.
Proof: No cat has eight tails. A cat has one tail more than no cat.
Therefore, a cat has nine tails.
Theorem : All positive integers are equal.
Proof : Sufficient to show that for any two positive integers, A and B, A = B.
Further, it is sufficient to show that for all N 0, if A and B (positive integers) satisfy (MAX(A, B) = N) then A = B.
Proceed by induction. If N = 1, then A and B, being positive integers, must both be 1. So A = B. Assume that the theorem is true for some value k. Take A and B with MAX(A, B) = k+1. Then MAX((A-1), (B-1)) = k. And hence (A-1) = (B-1).
Consequently, A = B. 1 + 1 = 3, for large values of 1
There are three kinds of people in the world; those who can count and those who can't.
And the related: There are two groups of people in the world; those who believe that the world can be divided into two groups of people, and those who don't.
And then: There are two groups of people in the world: Those who can be categorized into one of two groups of people, and those who can't.
97.3% of all statistics are made up.
Did you hear the one about the statistician? Probably....
The guy gets on a bus and starts threatening everybody:
"I'll integrate you! I'll differentiate you!!!"
So everybody gets scared and runs away. Only one person stays. The guy comes up to him and says:
"Aren't you scared, I'll integrate you, I'll differentiate you!!!" And the other guy says; "No, I am not scared, I am e to the x"
Engineers and scientists will never make as much money as business executives. A rigorous mathematical proof explains why this is true:
Postulate 1: Knowledge is power.
Postulate 2: Time is money.As every engineer knows:
Power = Work/TimeSince:
Knowledge = Power and Time = MoneyThen:
Knowledge = Work/Money Solving for Money,we get:
Money = Work/Knowledge Thus, as knowledge approaches zero, money approaches infinity regardless of work done.Conclusion: The less you know, the more you make (but you probably knew that already).
-Paul Wesel
integrate: 1 / cabin ----- = log cabin *Oops, you forgot your constant of integration.*
integrate: 1 / cabin ----- = log cabin + C
And, as we all know, log cabin + C = houseboat
"The reason that every major university maintains a department of mathematics is that it is cheaper to do this than to institutionalize all those people."
How can you tell that Harvard was layed out by a mathematician?
The div school [divinity school] is right next to the grad school...
The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center was known as SLAC, until the big earthquake, when it became known as SPLAC.
SPLAC? Stanford Piecewise Linear Accelerator.
It's the Asian Remainder Theorem.
Why do computer scientists confuse Christmas and Halloween? Because Oct 31 = Dec 25
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants.
Isaac Newton: If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders.
Hal Abelson Dean, to the physics department.
"Why do I always have to give you guys so much money, for laboratories and expensive equipment and stuff. Why couldn't you be like the math department - all they need is money for pencils, paper and waste-paper baskets. Or even better, like the philosophy department. All they need are pencils and paper."
One day a farmer called up an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician and asked them to fence of the largest possible area with the least amount of fence.
The engineer made the fence in a circle and proclaimed that he had the most efficient design.
The physicist made a long, straight line and proclaimed 'We can assume the length is infinite...' and pointed out that fencing off half of the Earth was certainly a more efficient way to do it.
The Mathematician just laughed at them. He built a tiny fence around himself and said 'I declare myself to be on the outside.'
Three professors (a physicist, a chemist, and a statistician) are at a meeting when a fire breaks out in a wastebasket.
The physicist says, "I know what to do! We must cool down the materials until their temperature is lower than their ignition temperature and then the fire will go out."
The chemist says, "No! No! I know what to do! We must cut off the supply of oxygen so that the fire will go out due to lack of one of the reactants."
As the physicist and the chemist debate what to do, the statistician actually does something. He runs around the room lighting more fires. The physicist and the chemist scream "What are you doing?" The statistician replies, "We're going to need a larger sample size."
A Mathematician, a Biologist and a Physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house.
The Physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate.".
The Biologist: "They have reproduced".
The Mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again."
A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms.
The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, pulled out his CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, he threw down his pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. He threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep.
The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep.
The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep.
When considering the behaviour of a howitzer:
A mathematician will be able to calculate where the shell will land.
A physicist will be able to explain how the shell gets there.
An engineer will stand there and try to catch it.
There is this farmer who is having problems with his chickens. All of the sudden, they are all getting very sick and he doesn't know what is wrong with them. After trying all conventional means, he calls a biologist, a chemist, and a physist to see if they can figure out what is wrong.
So the biologist looks at the chickens, examines them a bit, and says he has no clue what could be wrong with them.
Then the chemist takes some tests and makes some measurements, but he can't come to any conclusions either.
So the physist trys. He stands there and looks at the chickens for a long time without touching them or anything. Then all of the sudden he starts scribbling away in a notebook. Finally, after several gruesome calculations, he exclaims, "I've got it! But it only works for spherical chickens in a vaccum."
A team of engineers were required to measure the height of a flag pole. They only had a measuring tape, and were getting quite frustrated trying to keep the tape along the pole. It kept falling down, etc.
A mathematician comes along, finds out their problem, and proceeds to remove the pole from the ground and measure it easily. When he leaves, one engineer says to the other: "Just like a mathematician! We need to know the height, and he gives us the length!"
An assemblage of the most gifted minds in the world were all posed the following question:
"What is 2 * 2 ?"
The engineer whips out his slide rule (so it's old) and shuffles it back and forth, and finally announces "3.99".
The physicist consults his technical references, sets up the problem on his computer, and announces "it lies between 3.98 and 4.02".
The mathematician cogitates for a while, oblivious to the rest of the world, then announces: "I don't what the answer is, but I can tell you, an answer exists!".
Philosopher: "But what do you mean by 2 * 2 ?"
Logician: "Please define 2 * 2 more precisely."
Accountant: Closes all the doors and windows, looks around carefully, then asks "What do you _want_ the answer to be?"
Computer Hacker: Breaks into the NSA super-computer and gives the answer.
An engineer thinks that his equations are an approximation to reality.
A physicist thinks reality is an approximation to his equations.
A mathematician doesn't care.
A mathematician and a physicist were asked the following question:
"Suppose you walked by a burning house and saw a hydrant and a hose not connected to the hydrant. What would you do?"
P: I would attach the hose to the hydrant, turn on the water, and put out the fire.
M: I would attach the hose to the hydrant, turn on the water, and put out the fire.
Then they were asked this question:
"Suppose you walked by a house and saw a hose connected to a hydrant. What would you do?"
P: I would keep walking, as there is no problem to solve.
M: I would disconnect the hose from the hydrant and set the house on fire, reducing the problem to a previously solved one.
Q: What's purple and commutes?
A: An abelian grape.
Q: Why did the mathematician name his dog "Cauchy"?
A: Because he left a residue at every pole.
Q: Why is it that the more accuracy you demand from an interpolation function, the more expensive it becomes to compute?
A: That's the Law of Spline Demand.
Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One, who gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing it to an earlier riddle.
Q: What do you call a teapot of boiling water on top of mount everest?
A: A high-pot-in-use
Q: Why did the chicken cross the Moebius strip?
A: To get to the other ... er, um ...
Q: What is the world's longest song?
A: "Alpha-nought Bottles of Beer on the Wall."
Q: What did the thermometer say to the graduated cylinder?
A: "You may have graduated but I've got many degrees"
Q: Why did the cat fall off the roof?
A: Because he lost his mu. (mew=sound cats make, mu=coeff of friction)
Q: What is a tachyon?
A: A sub-atomic particle devoid of good taste.
Q: What do physicist enjoy doing the most at baseball games?
A: The 'wave'.
Q: What is uttered by a sick duck?
A: Quark!
Q: What is an astronomical unit?
A: One helluva big apartment
Q: What do you call a nun who's had a sex change?
A: A Trans-sister
Q:What is horsepower?
A:The power it takes to drag a horse a given distance in a given amount of time.
Q:Does light have mass?
A:Of course not. It's not even Catholic!!!
Q: What do you call the sum of the diagonal elements of the tensor of inertia?
A:The spur of the moment.
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends on your frame of reference.
Q:What do you get when you cross a chicken and a turkey
A:(Chicken)(turkey) sine theta!
Q:What do you get when you cross a chicken and a rock climber?
A: You silly! A rock climber is a scalar!!
A bar walks into a man, oops, wrong frame of reference.
Q: How many general relativists does it take to change a light bulb.
A: Two. One holds the bulb, while the other rotates the universe. ...
Q: What do you call it when atomic scientists grab their rods and gather around the old watering hole?
A: Nuclear fishin'
Q: What do you call a young eigensheep?
A: A lamb, duh!!!
Q: What is Quayle-o-phobia?
A: The fear of natural logarithms. (Hint: Quayle and the letter "e" made news.)
A neutron walks into a bar; he asks the bartender, "How much for a beer?"
The bartender looks at him, and say "For you, no charge."
Two atoms bump into each other. One says "I think I lost an electron!"
The other asks, "Are you sure?", to which the first replies, "I'm positive."
Heisenberg is out for a drive when he's stopped by a traffic cop. The cop says "Do you know how fast you were going?"
Heisenberg says "No, but I know where I am."
Two electron convicts are sitting in a jail cell together. The first one says, "What are you in for?"
The second one says, "For attempting a forbidden transition."
Question: What's the easiest way to observe Doppler's effect optically (not accoustically) in one's everyday life ?
Answer: Go out in the evening and look at the cars. Their lights are white or yellow when they approach, but they are red when they are moving away of you.
Definitions of Terms Commonly Used in Higher Math
The following is a guide to the weary student of mathematics who is often confronted with terms which are commonly used but rarely defined. In the search for proper definitions for these terms we found no authoritative, nor even recognized, source. Thus, we followed the advice of mathematicians handed down from time immortal: "Wing It."
CLEARLY: I don't want to write down all the "in-between" steps.
TRIVIAL: If I have to show you how to do this, you're in the wrong class.
OBVIOUSLY: I hope you weren't sleeping when we discussed this earlier, because I refuse to repeat it.
RECALL: I shouldn't have to tell you this, but for those of you who erase your memory tapes after every test...
WLOG (Without Loss Of Generality): I'm not about to do all the possible cases, so I'll do one and let you figure out the rest.
IT CAN EASILY BE SHOWN: Even you, in your finite wisdom, should be able to prove this without me holding your hand.
CHECK or CHECK FOR YOURSELF: This is the boring part of the proof, so you can do it on your own time.
SKETCH OF A PROOF: I couldn't verify all the details, so I'll break it down into the parts I couldn't prove.
HINT: The hardest of several possible ways to do a proof.
BRUTE FORCE (AND IGNORANCE): Four special cases, three counting arguments, two long inductions, "and a partridge in a pair tree."
SOFT PROOF: One third less filling (of the page) than your regular proof, but it requires two extra years of course work just to understand the terms.
ELEGANT PROOF Requires no previous knowledge of the subject matter and is less than ten lines long.
SIMILARLY: At least one line of the proof of this case is the same as before.
CANONICAL FORM: 4 out of 5 mathematicians surveyed recommended this as the final form for their students who choose to finish.
TFAE (The Following Are Equivalent): If I say this it means that, and if I say that it means the other thing, and if I say the other thing...
BY A PREVIOUS THEOREM: I don't remember how it goes (come to think of it I'm not really sure we did this at all), but if I stated it right (or at all), then the rest of this follows.
TWO LINE PROOF: I'll leave out everything but the conclusion, you can't question 'em if you can't see 'em.
BRIEFLY: I'm running out of time, so I'll just write and talk faster.
LET'S TALK THROUGH IT: I don't want to write it on the board lest I make a mistake.
PROCEED FORMALLY: Manipulate symbols by the rules without any hint of their true meaning (popular in pure math courses).
QUANTIFY: I can't find anything wrong with your proof except that it won't work if x is a moon of Jupiter (Popular in applied math courses).
PROOF OMITTED: Trust me, It's true.
MADD =
Mathematicians
Against
Drunk
Deriving
Senior Life vs. Freshman Life
Freshmen: Are never in bed past noon.
Seniors: Are never out of bed before noon.
Freshmen: Read the syllabus to find out what classes they can cut.
Seniors: Read the syllabus to find out what classes they need to attend.
Freshmen: Brings a can of soda into a lecture hall.
Seniors: Brings a jumbo hoagie and six-pack of Mountain Dew into a recitation class.
Freshmen: Calls the professor "Professor."
Seniors: Calls the professor "Bob."
Freshmen: Would walk ten miles to get to class.
Seniors: Drives to class if it's further than three blocks away.
Freshmen: Memorizes the course material to get a good grade.
Seniors: Memorizes the professor's habits to get a good grade.
Freshmen: Roller skates to class.
Seniors: Roller skates instead of going to class.
Freshmen: Knows a bookfull of useless trivia about the university.
Seniors: Knows where the next class is. Maybe...
Freshmen: Shows up at a morning exam clean, perky, and fed.
Seniors: Shows up at a morning exam in sweats with a cap on and a box of pop tarts in hand.
Freshmen: Have to ask where the computer labs are.
Seniors: Has 'own' personal workstation.
Freshmen: Use the campus buses to go everywhere.
Seniors: Use the campus buses to run block while crossing the street.
Freshmen: Worry about the last freshman composition essay.
Seniors: Worry about the last GRE essay.
Freshman: Lines up for an hour to buy his textbooks in the first week.
Senior: Starts to think about buying textbooks in October... maybe.
Freshman: Looks forward to first classes of the year.
Senior: Looks forward to first parties of the year.
Freshman: Is proud of his A+ on Calculus I mid term.
Senior: Is proud of not ~quite~ failing Complex Analysis mid term.
Freshman: Calls his girlfriend back home every other night.
Senior: Calls Domino's every other night.
Freshman: Is appalled at the class size and callousness of Profs.
Senior: Is appalled that the campus bar was turned into a deli.
Freshman: Is excited about the world of possibilities that awaits him, the unlimited vista of educational opportunities, the chance to expand one's horizons and really make a contribution to society.
Senior: Is excited about new dryers in laundry room.
Freshman: Takes meticulous four-colour notes in class.
Senior: Meticulously quotes professor when he says something funny in class (when awake in class and not skating.)
How To Prove Anything
Methods for getting people to believe you (as good as, if not better than, proof). A collection of proof techniques that will prove invaluable to both mathematicians and members of the general public.
This is closely related to the 'bullet' proof, but is easier to make look like an accident.
51 Fun Ways To Take An Exam You're Sure To Fail
50 Ways to Confuse, Worry, or Just Plain Scare People in the Computer Lab
50 ways to intimidate your professor
Is There a Santa Claus?
As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research help from
that renowned scientific journal SPY magazine (January, 1990) - I am pleased to
present the annual scientific inquiry into Santa Claus.
No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist cihldren, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seemes logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding etc.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal anount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of Queen Elizabeth.
353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
From the School of Physics, University of Sydney
Is Hell really hotter than Heaven?
The Bible provides sufficient information to calculate the temperature of Heaven and set a maximum value on the temperature of Hell.
For Heaven we know that:
"The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days."
(Isaiah, 30:26)
I.e. the sun provides 49 times as much light to heaven as it does to Earth, and the Moon adds another Sun's-worth. in a steady state, Heaven must therefore radiate 50 times as much light as the Earth does. From Stefan's law, the radiated power goes as T4, where T is the absolute temperature, so Heaven must therfore be hotter than the Earth by a factor of root4 50, i.e. 2.66. Taking the temperature of the Earth to be 300K gives the temperature of Heaven as 798 K, or 525 C.
For Hell, we know that:
"The fearful and unbelieving... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone"
(Revelations 21:8).
Brimstone is sulphur, which boils at 444.6 C, so a lake of it must be at a temperature lower than this. Therefore the temperature of Hell cannot exceed 444.6 C and so Heaven is hotter than Hell.
- 1972, Applied Optics, 11, A14.
Physics Related E-mail Signatures
Thesis Deadline: Remaining time multiplied by distress is constant
Probably the most certain uncertainty principle - Heisenberg
There's no future in time travel.
Einstein said that talking to yourself is a sign of intelligence. Answering yourself, however, is a sign of insanity
It might look like I'm doing nothing, but at the cellular level I'm really quite busy
On the sixth day, God created the platypus. And God said: let's see the evolutionists try and figure this one out.
(on a lecturer's door): The probability of finding me in this office is inversely proportional to the magnitude of your urgency.
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
Universities are places of knowledge. The freshman each bring a little in with them, and the seniors take none away, so it accumulates.
This message was written entirely with recycled electrons.
I can travel through time and I do ... at the unremarkable rate of one second per second.
The speed of time is one second per second.
Bohr moved in atomic circles while Schrodinger waved and Heisenberg hesitated.
OLD LASER PHYSICISTS never die, they just become incoherent
It's worse than that, it's physics, Jim!
"The faster you go, the shorter you are" - Einstein
And God said: E = +mv2 - Ze2/r ...and there *WAS* light!
Resistance Is Useless! (If < 1 ohm)
Formula: E=mc2 "Energy equals milk chocolate square"
A probability is a desperate attempt of chaos to become stable.
Heisenberg might have slept here.
If the Titanic had struck a Heisenberg, would it still be floating?
All coordinate systems are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Entropy isn't what it used to be...
"Quasars are far out!"
"Absolute zero is cool."
Anything that doesn't matter has no mass.
Brownian motion = Jogging girl scout
Polymer physicists are into chains.
Gravity brings me down
Neutrinos have bad breadth
Got mole problems? Call Avogadro at 602-1023.
"Today, everybody remembers Galileo. How many can name the bishops and professors who refused to look through his telescope?" - James Hogan, Mind Matters
2nd Law of Thermodynamics: Chaos will Reign.
31.69 nHz = once a year.
A bristlecone pine is just a fire's way of making another fire.
A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems.
A vibration is a motion that can't make up its mind which way it wants to go.
Actually officer, if you factor in the earth's rotation, we were all speeding.
All that glitters has a high refractive index.
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain. And as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. - Einstein
Barium: What you do with dead chemists.
Be careful with water -- it's full of hydrogen and oxygen!
Biology grows on you.
Black holes suck.
Black holes were created when God divided by 0.
Color... it's just a pigment of your imagination.
Einstein never accepted quantum mechanics because of this element of chance and uncertainty. He said: God does not play dice. It seems that Einstein was doubly wrong. The quantum effects of black holes suggests that not only does God play dice, He sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen. - Steven Hawking
Entropy - it's a tough job, but somebody's got to undo it.
Entropy isn't what it used to be.
Entropy: Not just a fad, it's the future!
Geologists rock your world.
Geology: Subduction leads to Orogeny.
Gravity isn't MY fault--I voted for velcro!
Gravity... not just a good idea: It's the law.
If the Earth is the size of a pea in New York, then the Sun is a beachball 50m away, Pluto is 4km away, and the next nearest star is in Tokyo. Now shrink Pluto's orbit into a coffee cup, then our Milky Way Galaxy fills North America.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
It might look like I'm doing nothing, but at the cellular level I'm really quite busy.
May the torque be about you.
Nature abhors a vacuum. So does my sister's dog.
On the sixth day, God created the platypus. And God said: let's see the evolutionists try and figure this one out.
Photons have mass!? I didn't even know they were Catholic...
Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of.
Resolving a transformation is like cleaning a barn - it's hard to get started, but when you're good and dirty, you might as well keep going.
That's the whole problem with science. You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder. - Calvin (& Hobbes)
The Benoit/Blamey Theory of Thermo-Sock-Dynamics: Why bother to do laundry, when the inevitable loss of a sock will just increase entropy and contribute to the eventual heat death of the universe anyway?
The law of gravity says, "no fair jumping without coming down"
The square root of three equals two for large values of three. - found in a bathroom in the Cornell Physics department
The Three Laws Of Thermodynamics, God Shoots Dice Style: First Law: You can't win. Second Law: You can't break even. Third Law: You can't even get out of the game.
To most people solutions mean finding the answers but to chemists solutions are things that are still all mixed up...
What happens if a big asteroid hits the Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad. - Dave Barry
When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands with the buttered side facing down. I propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat. The two will hover, spinning inches above the ground. With a giant buttered cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.
When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny..."' - Isaac Asimov
Particle physicists are always trying to hold a meeting, but whenever they decide on a place, the time changes.
In The Beginning there was nothing, which exploded.
May the rate of change of momentum be with you - Dave Watkins
There are theories at the bottom of our garden - Peter Seddon
Student E-mail Signatures
'The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the ocean searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain any more...so it eats it. It's rather like getting tenure.' - Michael Scriven
(on a lecturer's door): The probability of finding me in this office is inversely proportional to the magnitude of your urgency.
...Yes, the lectures are optional. Graduation is also optional. - Professor Brian Quinn
A grade 9 history test question: Give the number of automobiles produced in America during the year of your choice. My answer? 1806: none
A lecture is a process where information is passed from the notebook of the lecturer to the notebook of the student without necessarily passing through the minds of either.
A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.
A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard
A typical class in high school: show up, get rid of your homework, get new homework, leave.
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. - John Ciardi
B2 Hamerschlag: We're the best freshman floor this year, and at the rate we're going, we'll be the best freshman floor next year, too.
Bad spellers of the world Untie!
In a large auditorium at university, the lecturer began by saying, 'If you can't hear me up at the back, put your hands up.' A row of hands went up...
One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.
These opinions are mine, not those of the University of Southampton. It is the opinion of the University that I should be writing my dissertation.
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
Universities are places of knowledge. The freshman each bring a little in with them, and the seniors take none away, so it accumulates.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Albert Einstein
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. - Mark Twain