Great one-liners from PF members

[Dale]

To be fair, my wife was cooking bacon at the time. So, yeah. The only other products that came to mind (eggs and tortillas) weren’t sold by weight.

 

[DaveC426913]

Hey, waidaminute, why don't supermarkets have these anymore?

The quintessential 'banana for scale'.

 

[Frabjous]

Yes

For leaving V50 speechless.

Wow. Just wow.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Oh, I had a comment, all right. I just figured it would be best if kept to myself.

 

[berkeman]

That press release was...um...sufficiently rich in organic material that it could itself be used as a renewable fuel.

 

[phinds]

In a thread asking about making food from just raw elements

You have a series of different questions:
1) Can you eat the periodic table?
A: yes depending on what it is printed on.

 

[berkeman]

In a thread discussing how to judge the validity of sources (not peer-reviewed):

As they said "If it ducks like a quack..."

 

[jack action]

In a thread where the OP is trying to identify why a bracket has been failing before its expected life:

I'm trying to simulate this in FEA to identify the weak spots

No need for FEA to do that. The weak spots are where it breaks.

 

[Vanadium 50]

In a thread discussing how to judge the validity of sources (not peer-reviewed):

You had to be there.

 

[berkeman]

Sometimes we have to school newbies on the obvious...

Avoid sifting flour by the light of a candle.

 

[sysprog1]

 

[DaveC426913]

In a thread discussing how to judge the validity of sources (not peer-reviewed):

As they said "If it ducks like a quack..."

This gets wittier the more I read it.

In fact, it's positively steal-worthy for some of the woo discussions I get caught in.

 

[Borg]

Yes, it's a pleasant mix of dyslexic double entendre and skepticism.

 

[phinds]

It's much easier to revolutionize the world if you don't have to put numbers in.

 

[Flyboy]

Upon witnessing the chaos unfolding in a different department at work, I once quipped “not my circus, not my monkeys.”

Only it came out as “not my cirkeys, not my monkus.”

It took a solid minute for everyone to stop laughing.

 

[phinds]

I once was talking to my new boss from home on my flip phone but needed to take some notes so I asked her to "please give me a second to put on my head free handset. Fortunately she had a sense of humor and we both got a good laugh out of it.

 

[PeterDonis]

head free handset

For some calls I am on such a thing would be a welcome change...

 

[berkeman]

From the thread about Dr. Hossenfelder's "7 Coincidences" video:

I once stayed at a hotel room where the room number was the same as the mass of the Λ baryon. Coincidence? I think not!

 

[berkeman]

@gleem giving more good advice and motivation in the Academic Advising forum...

That spark that you mentioned is what lights the fire that burns inside of you to find out what has yet to be learned.

 

[DaveE]

Here's the risk with engineers: we're creative and often have loose or missing screws, so if you constrain your problem insufficiently there is a decent chance the answer will involve a trebuchet.

 

[pinball1970]

googles trebuchet.......

still does not get the joke....

 

[Ibix]

googles trebuchet.......

still does not get the joke....

The device under discussion was some kind of vaguely specified energy generation scheme involving animals (probably cattle) moving around and having their energy harvested somehow. At least some of the ideas involved fairly brutal accelerations when you ran the numbers. The vagueness was a cause of some frustration.

I'm not sure if Russ was implying he'd use the cattle as ammo ("Fetchez la vache!") or as the counterweight.

 

[Arjan82]

googles trebuchet.......

still does not get the joke....

I think what he meant a word of caution: "please constrain your problem well enough or engineers will run with it in the direction they think is fun, rather than useful" Because hey, if you can make a trebuchet within the given specs, that's just way more fun .

 

[Vanadium 50]

"Fetchez la vache!"

Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time.

 

[gmax137]

It helps if you have worked and played outside during your formative years. Then most of this stuff is second nature.

 

[berkeman]

If Schwarzenegger shows up naked in my backyard, I'm hitting the report button.

 

[Klystron]

I never really got the title. Did he have a "breakdown" in the mental health sense? No! He was absolutely coherent, organised and focused. He was also very smart and professional, at every turn.

The concepts of 'doing bad' and making good with your life and talents appear often in this series. Walter, as Jessie's high school chemistry teacher, lectured about the benefits of applying oneself in order to achieve. See the portrait Jessie drew on the rear of a failed exam of Mr. White with a large screw. "Apply yourself!" Mr. White demands.

Later as criminal partners, Jessie refers archly and satirically to Walter "breaking bad" as per Gilligan's title. Jesse using this slang expression to describe White's behaviour begs the question, "Was Mr. White a good man driven after a cancer diagnosis to support his family via vile crimes, or was Walter always a suppressed criminal posing as a teacher who enjoys being master criminal Heisenberg?".

Jessie resolves this dilemma after contemplation during rehab, telling Walter, "I know this now, I am the bad guy.", leaving Walter to sort out his own morality.

 

[Bystander]

Welcome to PF! I failed my Turing test, btw ;).

 

[jack action]

If you are really trying to invent an accurate hand-wound mechanical clock, then you are 300 years too late. You are so far behind, that you think you are first.

 

[phinds]

In a thread about those who decide to build a particle accelerator in their basement

The correlation between ambition and cluelessness seems high.

 

[BillTre]

Well it easy to get psyched up if you don't know the problems.

 

[PhDeezNutz]

In a thread about those who decide to build a particle accelerator in their basement

I think this stems from Michio Kaku’s book “hyperspace” where he claims to have built a “particle accelerator” in his garage while in high school.

He’s rather trite imo.

Personal Commentary: I hate pop-sci. Sometimes it seems necessary to get the general public interested……and at other times it seems like a ploy for some to glean unwarranted notoriety;

“look at me I’m so smart I argue with neckbeards about Bigfoot on twitter, I am the embodiment of intellect”

None of this serves to help actual Physics students advance.

 

[PeterDonis]

I think this stems from Michio Kaku’s book “hyperspace” where he claims to have built a “particle accelerator” in his garage while in high school.

Maybe he did and the radiation exposure did something to the part of his brain that is supposed to instantiate humility.

 

[PeterDonis]

Personal Commentary: I hate pop-sci.

You might feel even more strongly about it if you had to moderate here...

 

[PhDeezNutz]

You might feel even more strongly about it if you had to moderate here...

That is not a burden I am ready for. I am not advanced enough in my general understanding of physics (partially because I was disillusioned by pop science for many years) nor as an emotionally stable adult.

To that end I appreciate the efforts of the Mentors to keep discussions substantive and “in bounds”.

 

[PeterDonis]

That is not a burden I am ready for.

To be clear, I wasn't implying that you should become a moderator, just commenting on how "pop-sci" looks to moderators. (Michio Kaku is currently number 2 on my list of "people whose pop sci I wish would totally disappear", not far behind Brian Greene at number 1.)

 

[PeterDonis]

To that end I appreciate the efforts of the Mentors to keep discussions substantive and “in bounds”.

Thanks for the kudos!

 

[PhDeezNutz]

I wasn't implying that you should become a moderator, just commenting on how "pop-sci" looks to moderators. (Michio Kaku is currently number 2 on my list of "people whose pop sci I wish would totally disappear", not far behind Brian Greene at number 1.)

I know you weren’t implying I was ready for it, it was just a set up to say that I appreciate your efforts and those of other Mentors.

 

[Ibix]

But nobody wants to tell billionaires "no" when they have their checkbooks out.

True facts.

 

[Vanadium 50]

From a discussion of using waveguides rather than free-space propagation:

Think inside the box.

 

[berkeman]

From a thread on determining the volume of a star in GR:

Is it worth pointing out that the difference between Newton and Einstein is much, much smaller than the uncertainty on where a star's surface actually is?

 

[phinds]

In a thread on the maximum energy of a photon based on frame of reference

the total energy in the observable universe is an upper bound on photon energy ... the ability to collect that energy into a single photon would pose a significant engineering challenge.

Love that dry humor.

 

[Tom.G]

From a discussion about hiking in the Grand Canyon in the summer.

It's easy to get in serious trouble if you don't appreciate the risks.

Seems to be applicable to much in life.

 

[phinds]

in this thread (now locked) muon-travel-distance-vs-atmosphere-thickness

@Vanadium 50 said

Appeal to authority is not a good argument, but it is better than an appeal to idiocy.

 

[berkeman]

From the Crowdstrike Debacle thread:

Too many clones almost wiped out bananas.

(well, I guess you had to be there...)

 

[berkeman]

Sorry, sorry, more than one line. But way too classic...

From the Olympics:
" Are you a Pole Vaulter?"
" No, I'm German. How did you know my name is Walter?"

 

[PhDeezNutz]

Experimenters are not the oompa-loompas of science.

Need I say more? It's a very delicate symbiotic relationship between theorists and experimentalists. One is not greater than the other.............and people who think this are just not experienced enough to realize this. And if they have enough experience and still think this........they are willingly ignorant.

Edit: not sure if this one has already been mentioned.

 

[Vanadium 50]

It's from The Big Bang Theory.

 

[gmax137]

It's from The Big Bang Theory

Don't forget Roald Dahl!

 

[Vanadium 50]

I believe those were the Oompa-Loompas of Loompa Land.

I doubt that the original message did any good. Too many people come here and say "I got an A in 12th grade physics. I do not wish to soil my hands with your dirty, filth experimental work. And with grades like mine, I shann't have to!"

Whatever.