So You Think Physics is Funny? 926
mzs writes "I just found this article in PhysicsWorld by Robert P. Crease detailing some of the 'better' physics jokes that readers sent him in response to an earlier article. Read about why the elements of magnetic flux are hard to understand or about the sexual adventures of Alice and Bob in a bar. Let's use the comments for this article to list more jokes from our technical professions which are funny but not necessarily to those outside of the field. I will close with this gem from the article: 'What's new?' 'E over h.'"
Funny? Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Funny? Yes. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Funny? Yes. (Score:3, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Funny? Yes. (Score:4, Funny)
(disgruntled Tech student holding his pee)
Re:Funny? Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
(disgruntled Tech student holding his pee)
while posting to
well I guess as long as I never have to sit in a chair you've just used
Re:Funny? Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Funny? Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
4th Graduate... (Score:5, Funny)
"And at the Air Force Academy, we didn't have to be taught not to pee on our hands."
(Originally heard with Army, Navy, Marine, and USAF graduates)
My Contribution (Score:5, Funny)
One day, as he was lying on the beach, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. It was a rowboat, and in it was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. She rowed up to him.
In disbelief, he asked her: "Where did you come from? How did you get here?"
"I rowed from the other side of the island," she said. "I landed here when my cruise ship sank."
"Amazing," he said. "I didn't know anyone else had survived. How many are there? You were lucky to have a rowboat wash up with you."
"There's only me," she said, "and the rowboat didn't wash up; nothing did." He was confused.
"Then how did you get the rowboat?"
"Oh, simple," replied the woman. "I made the rowboat out of materials that I found on the island. The oars were whittled from Gum tree branches. I wove the bottom from palm branches and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree."
"B-B-But that's impossible," stuttered the man. "You had no tools or hardware. How did you manage?"
"Oh, that was no problem," replied the woman. "On the other side of the island there is a very unusual stratum of alluvial rock exposed. I found that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into forgeable ductile iron. I used that for tools, and used the tools to make the hardware. But enough of that," she said. "Where do you live?"
Sheepishly, he confessed that he had been sleeping on the beach the whole time.
"Well, let's row over to my place, then," she said.
After a few minutes of rowing she docked the boat at a small wharf. As the man looked to the shore he nearly fell out of the boat. Before him was a stone walk leading to an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white.
While the woman tied up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, the man could only stare ahead, dumbstruck. As they walked into the house, she said casually, "It's not much, but I call it home. Sit down, please; would you like a drink?"
"No, no thank you," he said, still dazed. "I can't take any more coconut juice."
"It's not coconut juice," the woman replied. "I have a still. How about a Pina Colada?"
Trying to hide his amazement, the man accepted, and they sat down on her couch to talk. After they had exchanged their stories, the woman announced, "I'm going to slip into something comfortable. Would you like to take a shower and shave? There is a razor upstairs in the cabinet in the bathroom."
No longer questioning anything, the man went into the bathroom. There in the cabinet was a razor made from a bone handle. Two shells honed to a hollow ground edge were fastened onto it's end inside a swivel mechanism.
"This woman is amazing," he mused. "What next?"
When he returned, she greeted him wearing nothing but vines - strategically positioned - and smelling faintly of gardenias. She beckoned for him to sit down next to her.
"Tell me," she began, suggestively, slithering closer to him, "we've been out here for a very long time. You've been lonely. There's something I'm sure you really feel like doing right now, something you've been longing for all these months. You know..." She stared into his eyes.
He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You mean??" he replied, "? I can check slashdot.com from here?"
The joke he could not tell... (Score:5, Funny)
The barman covers his eyes, trying not to look. As he sneaks a glimpse through his fingers, he sees something wierd - he can't make out what they're doing. He looks again, but is still confused. He turns to the drunk propping up the bar next to him, and asks, "What's going on? He seems to be screwing her over the table AND getting a blowjob at the same time. That doesn't make any sense. Looks brilliant though, doesn't it?"
"Yeh," sighs the drunk whistfully, "It's a super position."
group theory (Score:5, Funny)
Q: What's purple and commutes?
A: An Abelian grape.
Re:group theory (Score:5, Funny)
When he had the time he didn't have the energy, and when he had the position, he didn't have the momentum.
another Heisenberg joke (Score:4, Funny)
Taken from here [workjoke.com].
Re:group theory (Score:5, Funny)
Q: What's purple, commutes, and is appreciated by only a select group?
A: A finitely-venerated abelian group
The pilot of a plane on its way out of Poland dies unexpectedly in flight. A passenger is asked to fill in. He looks at the controls and shakes his head. "What's wrong?" someone asks. The reply: "I'm just a simple Pole in a complex plane".
Re:group theory (Score:5, Funny)
What's the contour integral around Western Europe?
Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe!
(Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but they are removable)
Why did the math professor name his dog Cauchy?
Because he left a residue at every pole!
Math Joke (Score:5, Funny)
x and e^x are walking down the street. They encounter d/dx, who operates on them. x disappears. e^x survives, thanking the math gods that he is immune to differential operators. While walking on, he encounters another operator coming toward him. "Who are you?" he asks. "I'm d/dy," the operator answers.
Well, I like it.
Schrodinger's Cat (Score:5, Funny)
Wanted Dead or Alive.
Re:Schrodinger's Cat (Score:5, Funny)
Wanted: Dead AND Alive.
Re:Schrodinger's Cat (Score:5, Funny)
Not quite (Score:5, Funny)
Not really. Considering it in the superposition of states context from which the analogy derived, the particle (cat) does have a wavefunction, which must integrate to 1 over all space. That wavefunction/state can be a superposition of two well-defined states/functions, which in the cat context means it's dead and alive.
To be more accurate, LifeState(Cat)=A*"alive"+(1-A)*"dead", where A is a real number between 0 and 1, and "alive" and "dead" are two valid, real-valued states/values, each of which derives from an operator "LifeState" and two respective "wavefunctions" that square-integrate to 1 over all space and together make up the composite wavefunction "Cat." So the cat's half-alive, half-dead.
Wow, that was fun.
Protons (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Protons (Score:4, Funny)
"What's wrong?", asks Neon.
The nervous Sodium replies, "I think I just lost an electron!"
Neon, concerned, asks, "Are you sure?"
"Yep. I'm positive!", Sodium responds.
Re:Protons (Score:5, Funny)
a better version (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Protons (Score:5, Funny)
Biologists answer only to Chemists.
Chemists answer only to Physicists.
Physicists answer only to Mathemeticians.
Mathemeticians answer only to God.
Re:Protons (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Protons (Score:5, Funny)
The biologist wants to be a chemist.
The chemist wants to be a physicist.
The physicist wants to be God.
God wants to be a mathematician.
Re:Protons (Score:5, Funny)
If it stinks, its chemestry...
If it does not work, it is physics...
Re:Protons (Score:5, Funny)
Okay... (Score:5, Funny)
Q: What did the webserver say to Slashdot?
A: HRRRRRNNNnnnnnnghhhh......
2 + 2 (Score:5, Funny)
Ada, the daughter of a mathematitian, asks her dad. He responds: "Well, 1 + 1 = 2. 2+ 1 = 3. 3 + 1= 4, but it can be rewritten as 2 + 2, so 2 + 2 = 4"
Bob asks his mom, who is an engineer. She takes out her HP calculator, punches in RPN the appropiate keys, and announces: "It is 4.000000000000"
Charles asks his dad, the phycisist, and he responds: "Well, it is about pi on a zeroth order calculation"
Finally, Danna ask his dad, who is an accountant: "Dad, how much is 2 + 2?" And he responds: "How much do you want it to be?"
Here's an EE joke... (Score:5, Funny)
"I caught my daughter playing with the electrical outlet, and she gave herself quite a shock. I had to ground her."
*Groans elicted from the crowd*
"Hey, what do you expect? I'm a conductor."
Text cause it's slow already (Score:3, Informative)
Points of View: December 2003
Robert P Crease selects the funniest jokes about physics and physicists from his readers' poll
Three months ago I asked readers of Physics World to contribute samples of new physics jokes, fresh forms of physics wit, or cases of "found humour" in physics (see "So you think physics is funny?"). I received about 200 replies, including jokes in several languages, stories, Photoshop creations, video clips and links to science cartoon databases.
I was also contacted by a representative of BBC Radio Five Live, who claimed to be interested in having me talk about physics humour late one night. My subsequent negative experience - I hope nobody was awake to hear it - illustrates an important lesson about science humour.
Outsiders don't get it
When I was first hooked up, the show's host Dotun Adebayo was finishing a segment on dirty bombs, treating the expert being interviewed with deference and respect. When that concluded, he said something like: "And now for something completely different!" That should have alerted me that I was bring set up.
Adebayo retold some jokes from my column in Physics World - accompanied by a conspicuously too-loud laugh track - then asked me to explain the jokes. Stupidly, I complied. Too late, it dawned on me that while some aspects of science, such as safety and health, are sacred to outsiders, other parts are simply targets for ridicule. Professional humour is one. The point of the programme was to laugh, not at jokes, but at physicists for their supposedly mechanical and cerebral wit.
The lesson was that I should have resisted. Being jousted, I should have jousted back - perhaps with the aid of a simple jest. "I can't explain these jokes to you, Dotun, they're only for smart people!" I should have said. "But try this one: did you hear about the restaurant NASA is starting on the Moon? Great food, no atmosphere! Still with me, Dotun? Shall I slow down?" (Thanks to Larry Bays from the Los Alamos National Laboratory for that joke.)
My Five Live experience reminded me of two other cases of comedians appropriating professional humour. One is a recent New Yorker article in which Woody Allen couches everyday anxiety-provoking experiences (being late for work, trying to seduce someone) in language borrowed from physics. A typical sentence runs: "I could feel my coupling constant invade her weak field as I pressed my lips to her wet neutrinos." Allen lumbers across a whole page in this meant-to-be-cute vein. Don't abandon that film career, Woody.
The other comedian to have tackled professional humour is Steve Martin, who tells his audience that he has worked up a joke about wrenches because a convention of plumbers is in town that night. The punchline, when it eventually comes, is: "It says sprocket, not socket!" When the supposedly expected guffaws fail to materialize, Martin feigns puzzlement. "Were those plumbers supposed to be here this show?" he asks. Now that brings laughs.
These episodes illustrate a mixture of ways in which outsiders can appropriate the technical vocabulary of a profession for humorous purposes. Allen uses the poetic suggestiveness of technical terms (coupling, weak field and so on) for good-natured fun; his sentences do not make sense if you are an insider and go only by the words. Martin makes fun out of our not being insiders and not understanding the words. Radio Five Live made fun of the insiders themselves: the fact that they do understand the words.
Jests
Humour, anthropologists tell us, is a flexible tool for managing the social environment. It can be used to draw people in by sharing, to keep people away by intimidating, to build charisma, to impress, to entertain, to relieve tension, to test and challenge oneself and others. But it is an especially useful tool in science, and particularly physics, precisely because it engages, fosters and celebrates the same values that the field itself depends on - namely cleverness, play and
Original Joke (Score:5, Funny)
Q: How many quanta does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One and a half.
Re:Original Joke (Score:4, Funny)
A: As many as they can fit inside
Re:Original Joke (Score:5, Funny)
A: Wanna go for a bike ride?
Re:Original Joke (Score:4, Funny)
A: A fish.
Re:Original Joke (Score:4, Funny)
Two, one to screw in the lightbulb and one to hold the penis...I mean ladder.
Re:Original Joke (Score:5, Funny)
A: FIRST POST!
Re:Original Joke (Score:4, Funny)
Q: How many people does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two, the same number it takes to screw anywhere else.
Sorry, I don't have any physics jokes. I'm a chemist.
long list of geeky light bulb jokes (Score:5, Funny)
How many consulting engineers does it take to change a light bulb? One, that'll be $50 please.
How many nuclear physicists does it take to change a light bulb? One, he raises it into place and the world revolves around him.
How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb? Can't be done. It's a hardware problem.
How many mathematicians does it take to change a light bulb? Approximately 1.000000000000000000000.
How many Pentium owners does it take to change a light bulb? 0.99987, but that's close enough for most applications.
How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb? It burned out? You must be using a non-standard socket.
How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb? None, they merely change the standard to darkness and then they upgrade the customers.
How many Apple employees does it take to screw in a light bulb? Seven, one to screw it in and six to design the T-shirts.
How many AOL users does it take to change a light bulb? Two, one to screw in the light bulb, and one to watch him to make sure he doesn't say 'nipple'.
How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One always leaves in the middle of the project.
How many beta testers does it take to change a light bulb? None. They just find the problems, they don't fix them.
How many science fiction writers does it take to change a light bulb? Two, but it's actually the same person doing it. He went back in time and met himself in the doorway and then the first one sat on the other one's shoulder so that they were able to reach it. Then a major time paradox occurred and the entire room, light bulb, changer and all was blown out of existence.
Re:Original Joke (Score:4, Funny)
A: A stick.
Reminds me of a joke I heard a while ago...
An egg and a sausage are sitting in a frying pan. The sausage says to the egg, "Is it just me, or is it hot in here?" The egg says "Ahhhh! Talking sausage!"
Re:Original Joke (Score:5, Funny)
A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is leaning against the headboard smoking a cigarette with a satisfied smile on its face. The egg, looking a bit pissed off, grabs the sheet and rolls over and says "Well, I guess we finally answered THAT question!"
Physics humor (Score:5, Funny)
Just like in various other occult groups (such as RPGers), some things they find very hilarious indeed can make little to no sense to a normal individual.
(PS, I am in no way trying to insult physicists, gamers or any other group. I am all of the above myself.)
Re:Physics humor (Score:5, Funny)
I have a quantum car. Every time I look at the speedometer I get lost...
Higher education (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Physics humor (Score:4, Funny)
Commander Data, when I said 'Fire at Will!', I assumed you wouldn't have been so literal.
Civil Engineering Jokes (Score:5, Funny)
Another...
Q: What's the difference between civil engineers and mechanical engineers?
A: Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build...targets
-JT
Already dead :P (Score:4, Informative)
OK my original physics/cs joke (Score:5, Funny)
A:Some strings weren't null terminated.
My favorite... (Score:5, Funny)
If this sign looks blue...SLOW DOWN
Re:My favorite... (Score:5, Funny)
Q: How far can you see on a clear day?
A: 93 million miles...from here to the Sun.
Re:My favorite... (Score:4, Funny)
DANGER! HIGH RESISTANCE! 10,000 Ohms! DANGER!
The wood door probably had a resistance well in excess of that.
Told to me by a polish professor... (Score:5, Funny)
Q: What do you call a Polak in a F15?
A: A simple pole in a complex plane.
<ba dum ching>
Bumper sticker (Score:5, Funny)
IT joke (Score:5, Funny)
Re:IT joke (Score:5, Funny)
A helicopter is lost in a fog. The pilot observes he is near a tall building and so he yells to get the attention of someone.
A person comes to the window and says, "Can I help you?"
"Yes," says the pilot, "I'm lost! Where am I?"
"You're in a helicopter!" says the man in the window.
The pilot thanked him and turned a specific angle and flew an exact distance to the nearest airport.
His passenger asked him how he knew where he was.
"Well, the answer I got was 100% correct, and 100% useless, so I knew I was talking to Microsoft Technical Support."
Re:IT joke (Score:4, Funny)
A man is standing on a foggy hilltop when another man riding in a hot air baloon starts to drift by.
"Can you tell me where I am?" asks the baloonist.
"Yes, you are approximately 50 feet above a small hillock in the fog," replies the man on the hill.
"You must be an engineer," comes the reply.
"How did you know?" asks the man on the hill.
"What you told me is 100% correct, but does not help me at all," replied the baloonist.
"You must be a business man," says the engineer.
"How did you know?" asks the baloonist.
The engineer pauses, briefly, then says "Well, you don't know where you are or where you're going, but you expect me to help. And you're no worse off now than when we met, but now it's my fault."
MM
--
Re:IT joke (Score:5, Funny)
A shepherd is tending his flock when a black 5 series BMW pulls up in his field. A dude jumps out of the car wearing $2000 loafers, an Armani suit, Gucci tie, Blancpain watch.
"Hey Shepherd" says the Dude, "if I can guess exactly how many sheep you have in this field, can I have one of them?".
The Shepherd looks at the field and says "I'm a punting man; give it your best shot".
The Dude whips out his WAP and calls a satellite flyover service and gives them a telephone number. 10 minutes later, an overhead view is faxed to the Dude and he counts up the animals.
"Shepherd, you have exactly 1218 sheep".
The Shepherd confirms this is correct and the Dude opens the trunk of the Beemer and puts an animal in the trunk.
"Tell me sir" says the Shepherd, "if I can guess what you do for a living, can I have my animal back?"
"Sure", says the Dude, grinning.
"You are a IT Consultant and you work for either Accenture or KPMG"
"Fuck!! Right on" exclaims the Dude "How didja guess?"
"Well" says the Shepherd "Firstly you turned up unannounced, unwanted and with no prior warning. Then you told me what I already knew. And then you proved you knew absolutely nothing about my business. So give me back my fuckin' dog".
Solar physics joke (Score:5, Funny)
The bartender immediately begins shouting "OK, everybody out! Right now! Everyone out of the bar!" And he heards all the patrons out into the street, slamming the door behind them.
The solar physicist shakes his head ruefully. "Darn," he says, "I should have seen that Corona mass ejection coming!"
(By the way, it goes without saying that the bar is in SoHo.)
I dunno (Score:4, Funny)
So yeah, my Alice and Bob joke is this:
What did Alice and Bob believe is the most important thing to remember when having sex? To always practice mathematically secure sex!
Philosophy Department (Score:5, Funny)
"I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is we have alot of exciting things going on in the department - some potential Noble-prize winning stuff. The bad news is we need a new particle accelerator which will cost $10M."
The Provost is shocked. "That is alot of money. It is incredible to me how different departments need different things. Why can't you be more like the math department? They only want Paper, Pencils and wastebaskets. And the philosophy department doesn't even want the wastebaskets..."
Psychology joke (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Psychology joke (Score:5, Funny)
The free bicycle (Score:5, Funny)
Three (assume they're male) physics/engineering students are having a conversation.
The first one says, "The strangest thing happened to me the other day! I was walking across campus, minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up to me on her bicycle. She threw down the bike, tore off her clothes and threw them to the ground, and then cried to me, 'Take whatever you want!'."
His friends look at each other knowingly. One replies, "So, you took the bike, right?"
"Of course! The clothes never would have fit me."
Numbers, now with vegetative goodness! (Score:3, Funny)
A Guacamole. Bwaaaahahahahaaaaa. Heeheehee.
*sniffle*
c/c++ joke (Score:5, Funny)
Re:c/c++ joke (Score:5, Funny)
old favorite of mine (Score:5, Funny)
Work (Score:5, Funny)
WORK = F D
F = M A
WORK = M A D
I tell this one to everyone... (Score:5, Funny)
Q: What do you get when you cross a mosquito with a mountain climber?
A: You can't cross a vector with a scaler.
-Carolyn
Re:I tell this one to everyone... (Score:5, Funny)
I've been known to lead with that one from time to time...but I always use |mouse|*|elephant|*sin(theta). Sometimes I even use cos to see if they call me on it.
Here's another math one:
A biologist, a physicist, and a mathematician are sitting in an outdoor cafe. They watch two people go into a building across the street. Shortly thereafter, three people come out.
"Hmm," says the biologist. "It looks like they reproduced."
"Nah," says the physicist. "There was obviously error in our initial measurement."
The mathematician looks up from his coffee. "Who cares? If another person goes in, it'll be empty."
-Carolyn
My favorite mathematics joke (Score:5, Funny)
There was a man in a nuthouse who constantly scared off all the newcomers with a menacing smile and the dreadful-sounding phrase, "I differentiate you! I differentiate you!"--invariably the newcomer would cower in the corner and stay far away from the man.
However, one day another man came in and confronted the first man. Of course, the first began yelling at the newcomer, "I differentiate you! I differentiate you!" But it had no effect on the newcomer. The man yelled "I differentiate you!" several times to no avail. Finally, he broke down in tears. "Why, why?!?" he asked.
The second man stated simply, "I'm e^x."
Bar joke (Score:5, Funny)
Heisenberg looks around the bar and says, "Because there are three of us and because this is a bar, it must be a joke. But the question remains, is it funny or not?"
And Godel thinks for a moment and says, "Well, because we're inside the joke, we can't tell whether it's funny. We'd have to be outside looking at it."
And Chomsky looks at both of them and says, "Of course it's funny. You're just telling it wrong."
Mathematics (Score:4, Funny)
This one requires a little bit of visualization, so get out a pen and paper if necessary. Some friends and I once wrote the following on a chalkboard:
integral e^x = f(un)
The teacher, upon seeing this, showed his appreciation by adding a subscript ny to the right side of the equation.
Now for another one of my personal favorites, told in the manner of an algebraic proof.
1. Girls require time and money. Or, to say it another way, girls are the product of an investment of time and money:
girls = time * money
2. Time is money:
time = money
3. Therefore, by substitution:
girls = (money)^2
4. According to the new testament, money is the root of all evil:
money = (all evil)^(1/2)
5.Performing another subsitution:
girls = all evil
so, these two antennas got married... (Score:4, Funny)
The wedding wasn't too great, but the reception was awesome.
ba-dum ching
Cats on a roof (Score:5, Funny)
A. The one with the lower mew.
Norbert Weiner true (?) story (Score:4, Funny)
Norbert Weiner was driving along a country road, when he got involved in a one-car accident, he drove off the road head-on into a telephone pole. When the police arrived, they asked him what happened. He said,
"I was driving along, the telephone poles were passing me in a regular order, when suddenly they swerved!"
this joke makes no sense (Score:5, Funny)
Absurd! The accountant will say the wife-- she's tax deducible.
n-th joke (Score:4, Funny)
Hg Wells
(/me runs away)
This one is my favorite (Score:5, Funny)
Not exactly physics... (Score:4, Funny)
"Aha!" the biologist says, "they must be breeding!"
"No, no," the physisist replies "this is could be bad. In order to preserve the laws of thermodynamics, someone else must go into the building."
The mathematician replys "But if someone else goes into the building, it will be empty."
--------------
An engineer, a physisist, and a mathematician, and a statisticain are all staying at a hotel. In the middle of the night the engineer wakes up to find that his trashcan is on fire. He runs to the sink, fills his ice bucket with water and douses the flames. Then, just to be sure, he runs back to the sink, refills the bucket and dumps more water into the trashcan. With the fire out, he goes back to sleep.
A little while later, the trashcan in the physists room spontaneously breaks into flame, waking the physisist. He whips out his slide rule, does some calculations, then runs to the sink, fills his bucket with exactly
A few minutes later, the mathematician wakes up to see that his trashcan is on fire. He whips out a piece of paper, scrawls out some equations, then goes back to sleep, comfortable that a solution exists.
Meanwhile, the statisticain is running from room to room lighting trashcans on fire -- he needed more samples.
--------------
neh, i tried...
CS Jokes (Score:5, Funny)
Two bytes are in a bar. One says to the other, "I'm not feeling that well. I think I have a parity error". The other byte responds, "I thought you looked a bit off!"
rimshot
Two strings walk into a bar. The first says "Barkeep, I'll have a whiskey sour." The second string says "Hey, that sounds good. I think I'll have one too.(&!@(**(#$^(*(*&@(*!$&(*@#&(*(!@#)(*(*@!$(&!@
The first string says to the bartender "Excuse my friend, he isn't null terminated."
A physicist, a mathematician and an engineer (Score:4, Funny)
The engineer walks in, seeing the fire he runs and grabs the biggest container he can find, fills it full of water, dumps it on the fire. The fire is out but the room is flooded, the stereo and tv are ruined, the couch is trashed, everything is soaked.
The physicist walks in to his own abode sees the fire, thinks a bit, does some calculations goes and grabs a container fills it with exactly 4.5 gallons of water, dumps it on the fire. The fire is out, there was just enough water to put out the fire and no more.
The mathematician walks, looks at the fire, grabs a pencil and paper and starts jotting down equations. Looks at the fire again, looks at the sink and a tub, jots down some more equations. Finally he puts down the paper, scratches his chin and says "Definitely possible."
I think the consultants my company hires work here (Score:5, Funny)
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray-Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and says to the shepherd: "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"
The shepherd looks at the man, who is obviously a yuppie, then turns to his peaceful, grazing flock and calmly answers, "OK, why not?"
So the yuppie parks his car, whips out his IBM Thinkpad, connects it to his mobile phone, surfs the Internet and finds a NASA site. Then, using the Web site, he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system and scans the area.
Next he opens up a database and an Excel spreadsheet with complex formulas and after a few minutes he prints out a 150 page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized printer. Eventually he turns to the shepherd and says, "You have exactly 1,586 sheep."
"That's correct," says the shepherd "you can take one of the sheep."
He watches as the young man selects one of the animals and bundles it into his car, then says: "Hold on a minute, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?"
"OK, why not?" answers the young man.
"That's easy," says the shepherd "you're a consultant."
"That's spot on," says the yuppie, clearly amazed, "but how did you guess that?"
"There was no guessing required," answers the shepherd. "You turned up here, even though nobody called you. You expect to get paid to give me an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you don't even know a thing
about my business. Now give me back my dog."
Consultants.. Chicken and the road... (Score:5, Funny)
ANDERSEN CONSULTING: Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Andersen Consulting, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), Andersen helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework. Andersen Consulting convened a diverse cross-spectrum of road analysts and best chickens along with Anderson consultants with deep skills in the transportation industry to engage in a two-day itinerary of meetings in order to leverage their personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable them to synergize with each other in oorder to achieve the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and implementing an enterprise-wide value framework across the continuum of poultry cross-median processes. The meeting was held in a park-like setting, enabling and creating an impactful environment which was strategically based, industry-focused, and built upon a consistent, clear, and unified market message and aligned with the chicken's mission, vision, and core values. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution. Andersen Consulting helped the chicken change to become more successful.
How do you best determine the volume of this ball (Score:4, Funny)
Q: "What is the best way to determine the volume of a little red ball."
A: Physicist: Measure the diameter, devide by two for radius and use the formula 4/3 * PI * radius ^ 3
A: Chemist: Take a beaker, fill it with water. Dunk the ball in it, and measure the amount of water displaced.
A: Engineer: It's easy, just pull out the "Little Red Ball" book and look it up.
Probably too late to be modded up... (Score:5, Funny)
My physics teacher in high school told of the graffiti in the bathroom in the physics building at his alma mater. While the other bathrooms around the campus had the usual bathroom scrawlings, the physics bathrooms were clean, except for a single limeric:
The once was a lady named Bright,
Who could travel faster than light.
She went out one day,
In her usual way,
And returned the previous night!
Re:There are only 3 posts... (Score:5, Funny)
Defies the notion that nobody reads the articles before posting, doesn't it?
Re:There are only 3 posts... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Neils Bohr (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, the examiner reading his answers got Bohr'ed to death.
Re:Neils Bohr (Score:4, Funny)
lower pen from top of building
measure string.
Re:Neils Bohr (Score:5, Funny)
The following concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the University of Copenhagen:
"Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer."
One student replied:
"You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building."
This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed immediately. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case.
The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics. To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer that showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.
For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use. On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:
"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer."
"Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper."
"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T =2 pi sqr root (l
"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up."
"If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building."
"But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper'."
The student was Niels Bohr, the only Dane to win the Nobel Prize for physics.
Re:Neils Bohr (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Neils Bohr (Score:5, Funny)
Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.
I read the examination question: "Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer." The student had answered: "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building."
The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this.
I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he hadn't written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on.
In the next minute, he dashed off his answer, which read: "Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^2, calculate the height of the building." At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit.
While leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were.
"Well," said the student, "there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer.
For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building, and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building."
"Fine," I said, "and others?"
"Yes," said the student, "there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units." "A very direct method."
"Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g [gravity] at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building, in principle, can be calculated."
"On this same tack, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession".
"Finally," he concluded, "there are many other ways of solving the problem. Probably the best," he said, "is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: 'Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer."
At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.
The name of the student was Niels Bohr." (1885-1962) Danish Physicist; Nobel Prize 1922; best known for proposing the first 'model' of the atom with protons & neutrons, and various energy state of the surrounding electrons -- the familiar icon of the small nucleus circled by three elliptical orbits ... but more significantly, an innovator in Quantum Theory.
Re:Old Fraternity Humor... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The inexplicable geek detector joke (Score:5, Funny)
Mind you, this only works in states where (license_plate_capacity >= (char characters[8]);.
(Yes, I know, that's really bad code.)
Re:Very old IT joke (Score:5, Funny)
Why do nerds confuse Halloween and Christmas?
Because OCT31=DEC25
I feel ashamed.
-aiabx
Locating a Submarine Re:old physics lore (Score:4, Funny)
Amazingly, that appears to be the only copy on the WWW. I'm surprised it doesn't show up in Google Groups.
-- Bill