JOKES IN PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING

Theory is when one knows everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but nobody knows why. In our lab, theory and practice go hand in hand: nothing works and nobody knows why.

#2 Bart’s 1^st Law of Motion

A body at rest remains at rest until a parental body comes and tells it to mow the lawn.

#3 Bart’s Universal Law of Motion

Everything that goes up must come down, man.

#4 Atoms Converse

Atom #1: I have lost an electron!

Atom #2: Are you sure?

Atom #1: I am positive.

#5 The Drunken Neutron

A neutron walks into a bar and asks the bartender, “How much for a beer?” The bartender says, “For you, no charge.”

#6 At a PhD Defense

One of the examiners addresses the PhD candidate:

My dear colleague, there are many new and accurate statements in your thesis. Unfortunately, those which are accurate are not new, and those which are new are not accurate.

#7 Time Travel

time_travel

#8 Tenure

A young physicist, upon learning that he was denied tenure after six productive years at a University in San Francisco, requested a meeting with the Provost for an explanation, and a possible appeal. At the meeting, the Provost told the young physicist, "I'm sorry to tell you that the needs of the University have shifted somewhat, during the past six-years leading up to your tenure decision. In point of fact, what we now require is a female, condensed-matter experimentalist. Unfortunately, you are a male, high-energy theorist!" Dejected but not defeated, the young physicist thought for a moment about the implications of the Provost's words. "Sir," he said, "I would be willing to convert in two of the three categories you mention, but ... I'll never agree to become an experimentalist!"

#9 Heisenberg’s Principle of Uncertainty

Heisenberg was driving down the Autobahn whereupon he was pulled over by a policeman. The policeman asked, “Do you know how fast you were going back there?” Heisenberg replied, “No, but I know where I am.”

#10 Doppler Effect

Doppler effect is the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when you come at them rapidly.

#11 Cross Products

Question: What do you get when you cross an elephant with a grape?

Answer: Elephant grape sine theta.

#12 Convergence

A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked to review this mathematical problem. In a high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. The mathematician, physicist, and engineer were asked, “When will the girls and boys meet?”

The mathematician said, “Never.”

The physicist said, “In an infinite amount of time.”

The engineer said, “Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes.”

#13 Fire

An engineer, a physicist, a mathematician, and a statistician 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 physicist's room spontaneously breaks into flame, waking the physicist. He whips out his slide rule, does some calculations, then runs to the sink, fills his bucket with exactly .75 liters of water, and douses the flames. Having put out the fire, he goes back to sleep.

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 statistician is running from room to room lighting trashcans on fire -- he needed more samples.

#14 Binary Opinion (sent by Graeme Morris)

There are only 10 different kinds of persons – those who understand binary, and those who do not.

#15 Airline Maintenance

After every flight, Qantas pilots fill out a form, called a “gripe sheet,” which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight. Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor.

Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by Qantas’ pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers. By the way, Qantas is the only major airline that has never had an accident.

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.

S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.

S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in cockpit.

S: Something tightened in cockpit.

P: Dead bugs on windshield.

S: Live bugs on back-order.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.

S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.

S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.

S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.

S: That's what they're for.

P: IFF inoperative.

S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.

S: Suspect you're right.

P: Number 3 engine missing.

S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny.

S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.

S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

P: Mouse in cockpit.

S: Cat installed.

P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.

S: Took hammer away from midget.

#16 A Quote from Oksendal “Stochastic Differential Equations” (sent by Tim Field)

We have not succeeded in answering all our problems. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some

ways we feel we are as confused as ever, but we believe we are confused on a higher level and about more important things.

#17 Four-dimensional Geometry (from Bo Thidé’s Electromagnetic Field Theory)

Alfred Whitehead writes in his book The Concept of Nature: “I regret that it has been necessary for me in this lecture to administer a large dose of four-dimensional geometry. I do not apologise, because I am really not responsible for the fact that nature in its most fundamental aspect is four-dimensional. Things are what they are. . . ”

#18 Square Root of Infinity (from Michio Kaku’s book Parallel Worlds)

From George Gamow:

There was a young fellow from Trinity

Who took the square root of infinity

But the number of digits

Gave him the fidgets;

He dropped Math and took up Divinity.

#19 Spherical Chicken in a Vacuum (from Richard Martin’s compilation http://www.phy.ilstu.edu/~rfm/107F07/EPMjokes.html)

A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, “Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I’ll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine.” The engineer tackles the problem by surveying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to minimize the cost per chicken, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve the problem. The physicist looks at the problem and says, “Let’s start by assuming a spherical chicken in a vacuum...”.

#20 Large Hadron Collider (sent by Ricardo Heras)

LHC CARTOON.jpg

#21 God, the Devil, and an Engineer

http://www.engineeringhumor.com/jokes.html

Although locked in fierce competition for what seems like forever, God and the Devil meet once every week for coffee just to catch up with each other. One week they are in heaven and the next they are in hell. When it was God’s turn to host last week, the Devil was whistling a happy tune as he walked through the gates and wore a huge smile as he plopped down in the golden chair. As he poured a cup, God said, “You look pretty pleased with yourself.” “Yeah,” said the Devil, “Things are really looking up since I got that engineer last week. He’s put in escalators and flush toilets, and he even found a way to control the heat in those old furnaces. I’ve been meaning to thank you for turning him away up here.” God looked stunned, and almost spilled coffee into the saucer. “You know that you're not supposed to get any engineers,” God said. “Peter was bringing in some new help at the gates last week, and they must have made a mistake. Just send him back up and we’ll straighten it out.” But the Devil just chuckled and said, “No. I think I’ll keep him. He was talking about looking into better ventilation this week. I can see why you keep them all for yourself.” “Send him back,” demanded God “No,” smirked the Devil. God thundered, “Send him back, or...” “Or what?” the Devil asked. “Or I’ll sue,” finished God. The Devil chuckled again. “Where are you going to get a lawyer?”