Ask a Stupid Quetion Get a Stupid Answer

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Damn! I knew the day would come when we would have to have this talk with Jimmy P. Our little Chopnik is growing up.

OK, who wants to explain it to him?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Not me!
Ok, ok, the truth is that entire lot is illiterate and Santa’s simply been winging it all these years, hoping nobody would notice…


What’s up with the tooth fairy these days?
 
The Tooth Fairy ran off with one of Santa's helpers, and rumor has it they've taken over the whole syndicate. Apparently they've been extorting the Easter Bunny to buy chocolate eggs from only their supplier or risk having some compromising photos of him and Cupid released onto the internet.

Where did the shape of Valentine's hearts come from, since that certainly isn't what a real heart looks like?
 
Moonbear said:
Where did the shape of Valentine's hearts come from, since that certainly isn't what a real heart looks like?
I have grave, grave doubts about the stupidity of this quetion. I wonder if "quetion" is really the accurate term for it? Is it not actually a perfectly logical question is stupid quetion's clothing? I am afraid to touch it, since I might, inadvertantly, not give a stupid anser.


Speaking of the Whitehouse, is it not true that the plot of the film Casablanca was inspired by that incident in Special Relativity where the guy on the train and the guy on the embankment compare notes about the timing of the lightning flashes, disagree, and one says to the other "I think this is the start of a long argument," merely twisted into a happy Hollywood ending?
 
I'll never forget the original version. It was so touching the way the two scientists parted and then eventually re-united in the end after their disagreements on space-time geometry. "Here's looking at Euclid." he told her.

What fundamental things actually apply as time goes by?
 
Aging.

Where did all the samurai go?
 
Yes, an Apple. And I'd ask him to throw it in the air and chop it in half. Then I'd pay him and go away.

When franznietzsche asked " Where did all the samurai go ?" did he mean "Where have all the samurai gone" in a Kurosawa-Cole-esque manner ?
 
BoulderHead said:
Would you buy a computer from a man wielding a large sword?

You bet I would! :blush: Um, well, depending on how he was planning on using it if I didn't buy the computer.

Why wasn't my last question dumb enough? :cry: :smile:

***
You can ignore my dumb question and try answering the one before mine. Apparently I took too long playing with smilies and someone beat me to the answer.
 
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Gokul43201 said:
When franznietzsche asked " Where did all the samurai go ?" did he mean "Where have all the samurai gone" in a Kurosawa-Cole-esque manner ?

I don't think he thought quite that hard about it. He was probably reminiscing about old Saturday Night Live episodes.

Moonbear: the problem is that your question wasn't truly a quetion, because it wasn't truly stupid. I am afraid there's a legitimate answer for your ponderance:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_146.html

Nice try, though! :smile: Keep hanging out with us, and you'll get stupider, I promise :smile:

Today while wandering down the sidewalk I pondered the children's rhyme "Step on a crack, break your mama's back".

What would happen to your mama if you accidentally stepped on a singularity?
 
Her back would be broken on the quantum scale, for a time period of below one Planck unit. Hard to tell, really.

Why do the Ancient Greeks have a near-monopoly in algebraic symbols?
 
FZ+ said:
Why do the Ancient Greeks have a near-monopoly in algebraic symbols?
It was the most inscrutable alphabet available in the ancient Western world, at the time. Had the West discovered China a couple milenia earlier, things would be different.


Is it true that in exchange for fireworks technology from the Chinese, Marco Polo traded a mere eight cartons of Chef Boyardee Spagetti-Os?
 
Math Is Hard said:
Moonbear: the problem is that your question wasn't truly a quetion, because it wasn't truly stupid. I am afraid there's a legitimate answer for your ponderance:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_146.html

Nice try, though! :smile: Keep hanging out with us, and you'll get stupider, I promise :smile:

LOL! Now I get it. Does it count if I didn't know it wasn't a quetion when I asked it? As long as I haven't been disqualified from playing, I'll try harder to get it right...or is that not try nearly so hard?

Anyway, back to the game:
zoobyshoe said:
Is it true that in exchange for fireworks technology from the Chinese, Marco Polo traded a mere eight cartons of Chef Boyardee Spagetti-Os?

Absolutely not! O's were just not nearly so fashionable back then, and it was Chef Boyardee's predecessor, Chef Girlarwee who prepared the eight carton's of Spaghetti-Z's.

Why does it always rain on holiday weekends?
 
This is one way Native American tribes have conspired to wreak vengeance against the white man. All religious rain-making ceremonies are now held on holiday weekends.

True story: Today I was up in our human resources office which is populated by understimulated civil servants when I noticed something peculiar. It is not unusual for one of the staff up there to decorate the office with shapes he cuts out of colored construction paper. He suspends these from the ceiling with strings.

Normally these are holiday-themed decorations, but today for some reason, he had fashioned fish and seaweed and long-tentacled paper jellyfish and dangled these from the rafters.

I was very concerned that one of these weird paper jellyfish was dangling a bit too close to my shoulder and might have resulted in a severe paper cut had I come any closer.
Were my fears unfounded?
 
Math Is Hard said:
I was very concerned that one of these weird paper jellyfish was dangling a bit too close to my shoulder and might have resulted in a severe paper cut had I come any closer.
Were my fears unfounded?

Yes, origami is only lethal when dry.


Is it possible for me to ask a truly stupid question?
 
What would happen to your mama if you accidentally stepped on a singularity?

"Steppin' on a singularity, sends your momma to a world of non-linearity"?

Can asking a truly stupid question cause someone's answer to tunnel back several posts and thus merge two of the realities predicted by the Many Stupidities hypothesis?
 
franznietzsche said:
Is it possible for me to ask a truly stupid question?
All questions are, in fact, the tip of a truly stupid iceberg of immense proportions.
plover said:
Can asking a truly stupid question cause someone's answer to tunnel back several posts and thus merge two of the realities predicted by the Many Stupidities hypothesis?
All questions are, in fact, the tip of a truly stupid iceberg of immense proportions.


How is it that the ability to recognise and intentionally repeat a misspelling has suddenly become an indicator of I.Q.?
 
Since nobody spells words correctly anymore, it's hard to discern misspellings. Very, very hard.

Hwoeevr bdaly a clloection of wodrs be spelllt, their meainngs aer not dffiuclt to indetify.

Its definitely acceptible to write a lot of words like 'embarrass', 'exhilerate', 'existence', 'manouvre', 'momento', 'restaurent, and 'reciept', without people notising that their spellt incorrectly.

Does it matter how you spell a word, so long as the other person gets your drift ?
 
Gokul43201 said:
Does it matter how you spell a word, so long as the other person gets your drift ?
No. But when people don't misspell things properly it can sometimes speak volumes.


Quetion: Having turned left at the first three corners I came to hoping to find the right left corner at which to turn by process of trial and error it occurred to me that seeking the right left corner was a logical error that could lead to beilderment, even if I found it. Should I turn right, seek the wrong left turn, or turn at the "left" corner (meaning, which ever one is left)?
 
Yes. And use your buzzsaw.

Why?
 
Tsunami said:
Yes. And use your buzzsaw.

Why?

The North Pole.

If you left the right left turn between the left right turn and the right right turn, would you ever reach closure?
 
selfAdjoint said:
If you left the right left turn between the left right turn and the right right turn, would you ever reach closure?
I am unfortunately not at an advanced enough stage in my studies to be able to factor right right turns and wrong right turns into my navigation. All that leaves me with to select from are right left turns, wrong left turns, or left turns (meaning, which ever turns are left).

Which calls to mind the events of a summer evening in 1936 in the city of Strasbourg, Germany, or Strasbourg, France, when, as a lad of 27 I found myself to be in the highest state of inebriation, crawling on all fours toward the train station where I was to meet a Polish aviator of my acquaintance, and from which train station we were to depart together for the coast, changing trains here and there, until we'd made it to the town of Brest, curious, as we naturally were, to discover what it was like to stand in the center of that town, surrounded by Brest, Brest everywhere the eye could see, nothing but Brest.

At any rate, I crawled left in ever widening circles, determined to find the train station with this meticulous method of searching, since none of the locals seemed to understand a word I said to them in their own language, or mine. However, I became distracted when I noticed an outdoor café I used to frequent, passing by me each time the whirling city brought it round into my field of vision, and I decided to pull my increasingly uncooperative body toward it a little more each time it passed. I thought it would be a good place to reconoitre. I could not, at that time, have defined the word reconoitre to you, or myself, but instinct told me that café was the place to do it.

About an hour later I had just succeeded in pulling myself into one of the chairs on the terrace when the garçon came and handed me a note. I couldn't make out a word of it, so I resorted to the technique of the illiterate and held it up to my ear. It said: "All that is gold, glitters, but not all that glitters is gold."

"Hmmm," I thought," Not necessarily.

For twenty points, what five situations can you think of in which gold does not glitter?
 
For twenty points, what five situations can you think of in which gold does not glitter?

If you paint the piece of gold with some nasty, brown paint, it will not glitter. Also, I think that if you dump the gold in some acid and take it out, it won't glitter. Not sure about the last one - I'm not very good with Chemystery. Also not great with numbers, but I don't think that's a big deal.

Now do I get my twenty points (if you don't have them all now, I can take 3 payments of 5 points, and I promise to give you change) ?
 
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Gokul43201 said:
If you paint the piece of gold with some nasty, brown paint, it will not glitter.
Correct, of course.
Also, I think that if you dump the gold in some acid and take it out, it won't glitter.
I'm not sure about this, either, so it clearly constitutes the four remaining cases you need to get your twenty points.
Now do I get my twenty points (if you don't have them all now, I can take 3 payments of 5 points, and I promise to give you change) ?
Your points are in the mail. If they don't arrive soon, please don't disturb me about it.


Once, when I was busily painting my collection of gold nuggets with some nasty, brown paint, so they wouldn't glitter, it occurred to me I might work some interesting mischief by locating some dog droppings and spray painting them with gold paint so they would glitter. (This was in my callous, youth, incidently. I was 38 at the time.) I set to work.

A policeman passing by in his cruiser took an inexplicable interest in my efforts and asked what I thought I was doing. I explained my plan to him, barely able to contain my mirth. "Oh," he responded, "I thought maybe you were writing graffiti." and he cruised away.

And, now, having created this peculiar little set up, what would be the best stupid quetion for me to pose?
 
zoobyshoe said:
And, now, having created this peculiar little set up, what would be the best stupid quetion for me to pose?

The obvious quetion : "Having now made the dog poop glitter, how do I go about convincing people that all that glitters (especially the glittery things I'm carrying about for everyone to see) IS gold ?"

Alternate quetion : "Should I have just told the cop that I found gold, but it really belongs to the government, so he should have it ?"

I'm not sure which of the two I would pick for 'best stupid quetion' because I don't know if this means 'best quetion that is also stupid', or ' quetion that is most stupid.'

So, what exactly (to an accuracy of four significant figures, or better) does 'best stupid quetion' mean ?
 
Gokul43201 said:
So, what exactly (to an accuracy of four significant figures, or better) does 'best stupid quetion' mean ?
That, grasshoppah, will be revealed to you when you have mastered the second belt of the Way of the Stupid Quetion.

A clue: the alternate anser was "best".


Will Grasshoppah Gokul not get ahead of himself with his progress in leaps and bounds toward ascendent mastery of the Stupid Quetion?
 
Gokul43201 said:
So, what exactly (to an accuracy of four significant figures, or better) does 'best stupid quetion' mean ?

5.9732 x 10^1929477790300889

It's the quetion constant.

What symbol should be used to represent the quetion constant in an equation?
 
Moonbear said:
What symbol should be used to represent the quetion constant in an equation?

[tex]\pi[/tex]

What are the units of [tex]\pi[/tex]?
 
The appropriate quetion constant symbol should take a long time to write as this slows the impetuous Grasshopper enough to see the True Path of Stupid Quetioning and not equate it to the myriad misleading Paths of Truly Questionable Stupidity.

Why is the True Path of Stupid Quetioning known as the Sheepfold Way?
 
franznietzsche said:
[tex]\pi[/tex]

What are the units of [tex]\pi[/tex]?

Slices.

If [tex]\pi[/tex] is the question constant, and zooby was going around in circles, is this whole part of the thread just circular reasoning?