Astrophysicists' Sense of Humor: Constraining the Dark Energy

[Chronos]

Who says astrophysicists don't have a sense of humor? This probably freed up a few tenured positions:

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0505330
For exploring the physics behind the accelerating universe a crucial question is how much we can learn about the dynamics through next generation cosmological experiments. For example, in defining the dark energy behavior through an effective equation of state, how many parameters can we realistically expect to tightly constrain? Through both general and specific examples (including new parametrizations and principal component analysis) we argue that the answer is 42 - no, wait, two.

 

[Moonbear]

 

[Math Is Hard]

My ex-beau is an expert in quantum optics. He told me that those in his department (I won't reveal the school) have the tradition of tucking the words "meow meow meow meow" somewhere within their PhD theses just to see if someone is actually reading the text and not just looking at the pretty graphs.

 

[Danger]

those in his department (I won't reveal the school) have the tradition of tucking the words "meow meow meow meow" somewhere within their PhD theses just to see if someone is actually reading the text and not just looking at the pretty graphs.

But if the examiner is fully fluent in cat, he might not notice the transition.

 

[Nylex]

But if the examiner is fully fluent in cat, he might not notice the transition.

 

[Moonbear]

My ex-beau is an expert in quantum optics. He told me that those in his department (I won't reveal the school) have the tradition of tucking the words "meow meow meow meow" somewhere within their PhD theses just to see if someone is actually reading the text and not just looking at the pretty graphs.

How many times was it caught? Their mentor should be reading every word and catching it. As for the other committee members, well, it probably depends how quickly they are skimming. But watch out if any of the faculty catch on! The next dissertation defense just might have a slide quickly added to their powerpoint presentation that reads "meow meow meow meow." This is much easier with powerpoint nowadays. All you have to do is have the IT guy in on the joke and have the slide already in a file on the auditorium computer ready to drag into the presentation once loaded...the moment the student heads out for that last bathroom run before giving his talk... In the olden days of actual slides, the best they could do was stick a slide at the end. It took too long to shuffle all the rest of the slides to get away with it undetected. (So, yeah, somehow despite all our best attempts to guard our slide carousel prior to our talks, somehow someone always managed to slip some mildly embarrassing photo ahead of the acknowledgments slide at the end. No, you can't even trust your own mentor to guard your slides. )