Collection of Science Jokes P2

  • Thread starter Thread starter Greg Bernhardt
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Jokes Science
Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

This thread features a collection of science-related jokes, puns, and humorous anecdotes, primarily focusing on physics, mathematics, and engineering concepts. The discussion includes various types of jokes, some of which are derived from literature, while others are original contributions from participants.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant shares a joke about a mathematician, a dog, and a cow, highlighting the humor in knot theory.
  • Another participant introduces a joke about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in a romantic context.
  • Several jokes reference mathematical conventions, such as the use of epsilon in calculus, with some participants seeking clarification on the humor.
  • A joke about a communication between Americans and Canadians illustrates a humorous misunderstanding, with historical context provided by a participant.
  • Participants discuss the nature of jokes, including the structure of short jokes and the implications of scientific terminology in humor.
  • There are multiple jokes involving Heisenberg, with one participant noting the brevity of a specific version of the joke.
  • A humorous take on a scientific method is shared, with some participants expressing curiosity about the referenced group of scientists.
  • Another joke involves a metaphorical description of a woman's experience during childbirth, framed in scientific terms.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally share jokes and humorous anecdotes without a clear consensus on any specific joke or concept. Some jokes prompt requests for clarification, indicating varying levels of understanding and appreciation for the humor presented.

Contextual Notes

Some jokes rely on specific scientific knowledge or conventions that may not be universally understood, leading to requests for explanations. The humor often hinges on wordplay and the intersection of scientific concepts with everyday situations.

Who May Find This Useful

Readers interested in science humor, particularly in physics and mathematics, may find this collection entertaining and thought-provoking.

  • #4,021
major-you-love.webp
 
  • Like
  • Sad
  • Agree
Likes   Reactions: DEvens, 256bits, phinds and 2 others
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #4,022
I love AI.

I can just enter my major bullet points for a document, and have AI create an elegant and comprehensive long form paper from those bullet points.

I send it to a colleague who then scans it with his or her AI and reduces it to the major bullet points.
 
  • Haha
  • Like
  • Agree
Likes   Reactions: DEvens, 256bits, pinball1970 and 3 others
  • #4,023
It seems the internet has been training us for AI use all along - You never want to be polite to your AI.

According to Sam Altman, it costs tens of millions of dollars to process added politeness.
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: DEvens
  • #4,024
Ivan Seeking said:
I love AI.

I can just enter my major bullet points for a document, and have AI create an elegant and comprehensive long form paper from those bullet points.

I send it to a colleague who then scans it with his or her AI and reduces it to the major bullet points.
Reminds me of Kishon. When chess computers came up, he let one of his figures say: "Buy a second computer and let them play against each other, while we are going to have a coffee."
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: 256bits, pinball1970, Ivan Seeking and 1 other person
  • #4,025
fermi-paradox.webp
 
  • Like
  • Haha
  • Wow
Likes   Reactions: Demystifier, DEvens, Klystron and 4 others
  • #4,026
1762968315398.webp


Edit/Adding link to XKCD 2848, "Breaker Box", https://xkcd.com/2848/ from Jonathan below. Thanks Jonathan. :smile:
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: BillTre and collinsmark
  • #4,027
  • Love
Likes   Reactions: berkeman
  • #4,028
Jonathan Scott said:
The terms of use for the XKCD website mean you should provide a link or give credit. That's XKCD 2848, "Breaker Box", https://xkcd.com/2848/
Thanks Jonathan! I always include the attribution to the person posting it on FB or wherever, but it they posted it without attribution to the source, that's not good. I'll keep an eye out for that in the future.
 
  • #4,029
berkeman said:
Thanks Jonathan! I always include the attribution to the person posting it on FB or wherever, but it they posted it without attribution to the source, that's not good. I'll keep an eye out for that in the future.
Not to pile-on but:

1. It is also customary with XKCD to add the alt text under the pic. :wink:

Alt: "Any electrician will warn you to first locate and flip the house's CAUSALITY circuit breaker before touching the CIRCUIT BREAKERS one."


2. XKCD attributions seem almost redundant at this point, it's so well known.
 
  • Agree
Likes   Reactions: jack action
  • #4,030
DaveC426913 said:
Not to pile-on but:

1. It is also customary with XKCD to add the alt text under the pic. :wink:

Alt: "Any electrician will warn you to first locate and flip the house's CAUSALITY circuit breaker before touching the CIRCUIT BREAKERS one."

2. XKCD attributions seem almost redundant at this point, it's so well known.
My primary concern is that PF users should try to comply with any license conditions, so 1 is much less important and 2 is not a valid excuse. Obviously the original fault lay with the Facebook poster, but as this was obviously XKCD and I was aware of the license (as I have used other excellent XKCD comics myself in the past) I provided the appropriate link.
 
  • #4,031
Jonathan Scott said:
My primary concern is that PF users should try to comply with any license conditions
This can be not easy these days, especially as the origins are not always obvious. I'm very cautious about scientific copyright. So, for a while, I judged the legitimacy of references by their URL, you know, Western addresses can be trusted, Eastern not so much. That was a mistake. I have found a few copies of protected books on a university server in Scotland over time, and another American address that notoriously violates copyrights. So, if even serious material cannot be trusted, how much more jokes going viral?
 
Last edited:
  • #4,032
J8TJYfW7ThSzPooCj&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-fra3-1.webp


References:

Andrew Gelman (2025)
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/.../string-theory.../
Examines the string-theory debate as a sociological alignment problem rather than a scientific one.

Peter Woit (2024) — “Susskind: String Theory is Not the Theory of the Real World”
https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=14059
Reports Susskind saying outright that string theory isn’t a theory of our world as it stands.

Peter Woit (2024)
https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=15206
Argues string theory persists institutionally despite having no empirical foothold.

Peter Woit (2023)
https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=14200
States that after decades the theory has not progressed toward describing the observed universe.

Peter Woit (2023)
https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=14321
Notes declining momentum in the Strings conference series as a sign of internal fatigue.
Physics World review of Grimstrup’s The Ant Mill (John Horgan://physicsworld.com/a/jesper-grimstrups-the-ant-mill-could-his-anti-string-theory-rant-do-string-theorists-a-favour/
Acknowledges that even harsh critiques reveal a widely recognized stagnation.

John HSabine Hossenfelder//johnhorgan.org/cross-check/my-encounter-with-string-theorist-and-nave-realist-edward-witten
Highlights the disconnect between high theoretical elegance and lack of empirical grounding.

Sabine Hossenfelder (2022 lecture)
Search: Hossenfelder string theory wrong unscientific 2022
https://www.theguardian.com/.../physicist-sabine...
Asserts that a theory without testable predictions is not science but metaphysics.

Sabine Hossenfelder — Lost in Math (2018)
https://backreaction.blogspot.com/.../physicists-still...
Argues that aesthetic bias, not data, led high-energy physics into conceptual dead-ends.

Peter Woit on Susskind distancing from Krauss (c. 2018)
https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4519
Interprets Susskind’s comments as a retreat from earlier claims that the multiverse could explain cosmology.

Philosophy of Physics (LSE, 2022)
https://philosophyofphysics.lse.ac.uk/.../10.31389/pop.100
Examines the landscape problem: if all universes are allowed, predictivity collapses.

IAI Magazine (2021)
https://iai.tv/articles/string-theory-under-fire-auid-2506
Critiques the long-standing institutional dominance of string theory despite its limited empirical return.
.
Scientific American (2019)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/.../supersymmetrys.../
Reports SUSY’s experimental collapse, removing a key hoped-for bridge between string theory and observation.
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: DEvens and DaveC426913
  • #4,033
1tQsveOjbkvebAmbm&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-fra3-1.webp
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: jack action and Ibix
  • #4,034
mXGCy_c3EJZD2wMl5&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-fra5-2.webp
 
  • Haha
  • Like
  • Love
Likes   Reactions: DEvens, Filip Larsen, Klystron and 2 others
  • #4,035
1763861943411.webp
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Likes   Reactions: DEvens, Klystron, jack action and 4 others
  • #4,036
U1T4ibSBelcqdi3SO&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-fra5-2.webp
 
  • Haha
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: DEvens, Klystron, collinsmark and 3 others
  • #4,037
fresh_42 said:
1764167991365.webp

This is very Wile E. Coyote-esque.
 
  • #4,038
DaveC426913 said:
This is very Wile E. Coyote-esque.
Ha!

I have always found this similar relationship interesting.

Hella Planitia on Mars.
form this paper:
Screenshot 2025-11-26 at 10.23.59 AM.webp

Screenshot 2025-11-26 at 10.25.11 AM.webp


from wikipedia:
5 km deep! About 2,300 km (1,400 mi) in diameter!
Screenshot 2025-11-26 at 10.30.14 AM.webp


Antipodal to the impact basin is a large disrupted area (Tharsis Bulge) contains several large volcanoes, including mount Olympus.

Maybe this is way there is no significant geomagnetic field left on Mars. Dynamo disrupted?
 
  • #4,039
BillTre said:
Ha!

I have always found this similar relationship interesting.

Hella Planitia on Mars.
form this paper:
View attachment 367761
View attachment 367762

from wikipedia:
5 km deep! About 2,300 km (1,400 mi) in diameter!
View attachment 367763

Antipodal to the impact basin is a large disrupted area (Tharsis Bulge) contains several large volcanoes, including mount Olympus.

Maybe this is way there is no significant geomagnetic field left on Mars. Dynamo disrupted?
Yup. In my 'Everything Mars' phase I always thought that was cool. Made an interactive webpage of the topology (too bad it only worked for IE).

In my opinion, Valles Marineris was likely created at the same time, cracking like an egg shot with a bullet.

So its presence in the image would be anachronous:
1764188969659.webp
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: BillTre
  • #4,040
10tqP5IYsdsykDK5w&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-fra3-2.webp
 
  • Haha
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: dextercioby, jack action and berkeman
  • #4,041
jGGiwhae984MkJMc-&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-dus1-1.webp
 
  • Like
  • Love
  • Wow
Likes   Reactions: DEvens, dextercioby, jack action and 1 other person
  • #4,042
1764964781757.webp
 
  • Like
  • Haha
  • Informative
Likes   Reactions: DEvens, BillTre, Borg and 2 others
  • #4,043
1765071029747.webp
 
  • Like
  • Agree
  • Informative
Likes   Reactions: DEvens, collinsmark, phinds and 2 others
  • #4,044
From an online list of stupid stuff I saw:
IMG_0997.webp
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: collinsmark
  • #4,045
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: jack action, BillTre, gmax137 and 1 other person
  • #4,046
1766250642080.webp
 
  • Like
  • Agree
Likes   Reactions: Bystander, collinsmark, BillTre and 1 other person
  • #4,047
berkeman said:
The first one is off by ##10^6##, no? A million microphones is a phone and a trillion would be a megaphone.

The SI unit of beauty is the milli-Helen, the amount of beauty required to launch one ship
 
  • Agree
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: collinsmark, BillTre, DaveC426913 and 1 other person
  • #4,048
The graham cracker one is in error.

It should be 453.6
 
  • Agree
Likes   Reactions: jack action and gmax137
  • #4,049
Ibix said:
The SI unit of beauty is the milli-Helen, the amount of beauty required to launch one ship
The practical "Troy system" unit of beauty, something we are more likely to encounter, is the micro-helen, the beauty required to push a single plank into a mill pond, on a dark night.
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Ibix and BillTre
  • #4,050
'More of an engineering joke, but we've all debugged stuff before.

Z0AyJKHRrg17z7TK5&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-1.webp
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: DEvens and BillTre

Similar threads

  • · Replies 470 ·
16
Replies
470
Views
36K
  • · Replies 14 ·
Replies
14
Views
3K
  • · Replies 17 ·
Replies
17
Views
5K
  • · Replies 14 ·
Replies
14
Views
2K
Replies
11
Views
4K
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
2K
Replies
14
Views
3K
  • · Replies 6 ·
Replies
6
Views
16K
  • · Replies 6 ·
Replies
6
Views
1K
  • · Replies 17 ·
Replies
17
Views
5K