Great one-liners from PF members

[phinds]

Yes most of the posts highlighted in the thread are witty one liners. But why not highlight good posts in general? Assuming they aren’t too technical/content heavy.

I was not complaining about your post specifically but all of the last several posts. I feel the thread got off track and no, I don't agree that this is the right thread to celebrate long posts. If you'd like to start a new thread to do that then do so. Let's keep this to one-liners.

 

[fresh_42]

If you'd like to start a new thread to do that then do so.

Please don't! We already have a backup procedure in place.

 

[jbriggs444]

Please don't! We already have a backup procedure in place.

 

[fresh_42]

View attachment 316077

And don't forget that we use only recycled electrons from natural sources!

 

[BillTre]

And don't forget that we use only recycled electrons!

Finest kind!

 

[pinball1970]

Finest kind!

THAT is a one liner.

 

[pinball1970]

And don't forget that we use only recycled electrons from natural sources!

Give fresh his due. I didn't think Mathematicians cared about that stuff.

 

[fresh_42]

I didn't think Mathematicians cared about that stuff.

Oh, we do. We are idealists, whereas some merely in the Platonic sense, but yes. It is the reality that we usually fail gloriously at.

 

[berkeman]

While discussing yet another incorrect OP circuit in the EE forum, and still trying to be helpful...

Then I applied an "inverse acid-trip transform" to see what clean circuit concepts might have been present in the ancestral circuit, and how they might interrelate.

 

[phinds]

In response to a post trying to use the rubber sheet model to understand gravity.

It would be like trying to deduce how a steam train works by looking at a child's wooden toy.

 

[DrClaude]

It's very difficult to counter a valid argument.

 

[fresh_42]

... not that we wouldn't try!

 

[jbriggs444]

... not that we wouldn't try!

There are well known ways of countering valid arguments. "The Big Lie", "Straw man", "Ad hominem", "Equivocation", "Post hoc ergo propter hoc", "Deflect and distract, never give in, never admit fault, lie and attack, lie and attack".

Those of us in the technical disciplines often experience problems dealing effectively with such counters.

 

[jrmichler]

There's a reason that the datasheets have lots of writing on them.

 

[berkeman]

In a thread asking about a questionable psychological relation...

Just wanted to add that birds of a feather flock together and there aren't a lot of intelligent birds.

 

[strangerep]

Hmm. Then what are we all doing here on PF?

 

[berkeman]

Hmm. Then what are we all doing here on PF?

Hey, chirp for yourself!

 

[phinds]

Hmm. Then what are we all doing here on PF?

Caw Caw

 

[Tom.G]

Caw Caw

Yup!
Playing in the wind.

(Explanation: If you have seen a large field on a breezy day, a row of trees on the downwind side, and Crows; you may have seen them soaring, gliding. and chasing each other in the updraft.)

 

[PeroK]

In a thread asking about a questionable psychological relation...

Corvids are highly intelligent.

 

[PeroK]

You can't beat someone to death with a handful of algae.

 

[berkeman]

In a thread where a user is asking about derivations for an equation in Relativity...

It looks like you are just throwing letters and equal signs randomly on a wall.

 

[berkeman]

From a thread where a user is asking about Gell-Mann matrices...

That's because you haven't bought a textbook, but are just trying to eat graduate-level topics like physics is box of Christmas chocolates.

 

[Tom.G]

from a thread asking if any well known or famous scientists have visited PF.

Why should they come here? They can find the ungrateful and demanding at their home institutions.

 

[gmax137]

Flying is much easier than nuclear fusion.

 

[PhDeezNutz]

“Real life isn't a movie. Not everything gets resolved in an hour and a half.”

@ohwilleke

 

[berkeman]

From a thread where the newbie is trying to build a particle accelerator, and making some fundamental mistakes...

"A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a couple of hours in the library". Crampon, Jean E. 1988.

 

[DrClaude]

One liner with an extra line for context.

I have no specific references, just some experience with stress relief by hitting things.

Remember that you must display unto them the instruments of torture, before they will recant.

 

[berkeman]

From the Chinese "weather" balloon thread, responding to a comment that every country spies on other countries:

Reminds me of the old joke about peeing in the swimming pool.
You know, even if it's a bit fuzzy thing, doing it from the jump [diving] board is kind of different...

 

[berkeman]

In a thread with a basic question about antennas, where the question was answered but the OP then went on to ask the helpful responders how they learned all of the things they were able to help others with:

Apparently, I spent my first 10 years taking things apart, then the next five putting broken things back together, so that by the age of 15, my constructive profit had finally exceeded my destructive loss.

 

[sysprog1]

I'll take a stern reprobation for this one if I have to (I request mercy); it was too good to pass up:

One will not need to understand the language. The formulas speak for themselves. -- @fresh_42

Reference: https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...l-number-of-unimaginable-proportions.1050015/

 

[pinball1970]

I'll take a stern reprobation for this one if I have to (I request mercy); it was too good to pass up:

One will not need to understand the language. The formulas speak for themselves. -- @fresh_42

Reference: https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...l-number-of-unimaginable-proportions.1050015/

Previous sysprog?

 

[PeroK]

There speaks someone who has never actually used an interferometer.

 

[BoraxZ]

I read this one by Ibix :

"Tidal forces may tear you apart over the weekend, but you will still arrive at Monday morning."

 

[malawi_glenn]

Perhaps not a one-liner, but I really liked this one

You simply cannot take statements intended for the general public and treat them as rigorous scientific truths. If I told you that I read in My First Book of Stars (not a real book) that stars come in all sizes, shapes and colors, so there must exist somewhere a green cubical star that fits in my pocket, what would you say?

 

[pinball1970]

"Amateur" is just a french word.

@malawi_glenn - Why is it in an English dictionary then?

 

[Astronuc]

@malawi_glenn - Why is it in an English dictionary then?

The English have a thing for pissing off (annoying, irritating, . . . ) the French. The feeling is mutual.

Maybe it's a Norman thing.

It's like one of those insights one learns from Monty Python.

Another insight from Monty Python - the Scots cannot play tennis, or perhaps not very well.

 

[pinball1970]

The English have a thing for pissing off (annoying, irritating, . . . ) the French. The feeling is mutual.

Maybe it's a Norman thing.

It's like one of those insights one learns from Monty Python.

Another insight from Monty Python - the Scots cannot play tennis, or perhaps not very well.

We have love hate relationships with some of our European cousins to some extent.

Not many rival the French though, we have had 23 wars with them in the last 600 years including one that went on for over 100 years.
We want to be friends but that has to mean something!

 

[Arjan82]

Another insight from Monty Python - the Scots cannot play tennis, or perhaps not very well.

Andy Murray be like:

 

[Astronuc]

Andy Murray be like:
View attachment 323870

Of course. I was being facetious, referring to a skit or segment on one of Monty Python's Flying Circus, in which the poked fun at the Scots. Coincidentally, I'm more Scottish than English, with a bits of Germanic Eu, Norway, Wales, Ireland and Sweden/Denmark included. In other words, I'm just a mongrel from the UK whose ancestors immigrated as far from the UK as the could get at the time.

 

[Vanadium 50]

"For sale, one French army rifle. Never fired, only dropped once."

 

[Arjan82]

Of course. I was being facetious,

Hey, but I'm a very serious tennis fan

 

[Astronuc]

Hey, but I'm a very serious tennis fan

My father is a big tennis fan, and both my father and brother are big golf fans. I'm more a football (aka soccer) fan, but I'd rather play the sport than spectate.

 

[Arjan82]

Is it wrong of me to have this insane desire to lick it?

-Dan

If someday you are famous enough that your quotes are listed on a website I wonder if the context of this particular one will be lost.

 

[Tom.G]

After much back-and-forth, in post #26 of the thread.

After all this seems to be one of those problem that is immediately clear only to people whose job is inventing textbook problems.

 

[malawi_glenn]

Asking why a particle with zero spin has no magnetic moment is like asking why a bald man has no hair on his head.

 

[sysprog1]

There are a lot of things that can seem counter-intuitive, depending on the quality of your intuition. Intuition can be re-trained. $-$ @Dullard

Reference: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/archimedes-principle-a-rock-and-water-magic-trick.1051427/

 

[malawi_glenn]

Have you played billiards with photons or another massless particle?

 

[berkeman]

Further, when discussing rotation, it is not a good idea to use the word "moment" to mean an instant in time.

 

[pinball1970]

It was a great line but would have had been better if I would have posted it for you.
Like a homage.