Science Humor: A Wide Selection

[dustytretch]

Einstein had a theory about space, and it was about time too.

 

[MojoMcGunner]

Entropy. It's not what is used to be.

 

[Jim Kata]

 

[drom9090]

Police: Guy says he lost his keys in the dark alley.

Sheriff: But he's out here looking for them under the streetlight? Is he drunk?

Police: Nope. Empirical Physicist.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

My wife recently suggested a new, universal unit of measure - the Whatever, abbreviated WE? It can be applied to both SI and non-SI units, and for everything from distance, to force, to charge.

It is the system that she uses whenever she gives me a task to perform.

 

[Borek]

Makes me think about military spacetime - from 3 a.m. to the fence.

 

[micromass]

A guide to math textbook titles

I decided to create the following simple guide to math textbook
titles. Who knows, it might be useful to any undergrads out there :)
Anyone who wants to add to the list or change it, feel free :)1. (TOPIC) for Scientists and Engineers
What Mom would think: Wow! This must be super-difficult!
True translation: The definitions are pure hand-waving.
There are no proofs. Some theorems are actually
false in degenerate cases. Light reading.

2. (TOPIC)
What Mom would think: Tough call, but a good chance
this book is medium-hard in difficulty.
True translation: Tough call, but a good chance this
book is medium-easy in difficulty.

3. Topics in (TOPIC)
What Mom would think: Medium-easy. Armchair reading.
True translation: Difficult. Probably graduate level.
Probably has dozens of open problems mixed in the
exersizes.

4. Introduction to (TOPIC)
What Mom would think: Introductory. Meant for freshmen,
or maybe advanced high school seniors. Boringly easy.
True translation: Tough call, but a good chance this
book is hair-pullingly, agonizingly difficult. A
good rule of thumb: if the "preliminaries" section
goes from naive set theory to functional analysis in
one page, you may be in over your head.

5. Lecture notes in (TOPIC)
What Mom would think: Cursory and simple. No proofs.
Some definitions hand-wavey. Very easy. Good last
minute review before the big exam.
True translation: If you can decrypt this arcane tome,
we'll give you an honorary Ph.D. Slight risk half
the book is in Russian or Hungarian. Not that you'd
probably notice the difference!

Some special cases:

"Advanced Calculus" - a wildcard. Can denote just about anything. I
once bought a book called "Advanced Calculus" and it turned out to be
an Afghani cookbook. Back in undergrad days we used to gamble with
these: place bets on what it's about. I won $20 once this way.

"Modern Algebra" - a highly polarized wildcard. There is a 50/50
chance it's a 7th grade book that'll teach you how to solve "4x+7=2"
and a 50/50 chance it'll reach Lie algebras in the first 15 pages.

"(TOPIC) for the Working Mathematician" - contrary to the title, this
book is not meant for anyone but a math hermit who is prepared to
devote the next 20 years to reading it.

"Chaos Theory" - this book will be very rigorous up to about Lyapunov
exponents. Then the last 4 chapters will be a prolonged whine about
how nobody can agree on a good definition of chaos and even if they
could it's all beyond the scope of this text... ooohh look, pretty
fractals! Much hand-wavey allusion to weather systems without any firm
details. A good read if your sole purpose is to impress laymen.

"Conference Proceedings" - if the equations are handwritten, forget any hope
of understanding. Often found at 2nd hand book shops. A particular favourite
of mine is 'Volume VIIa, Lorentz Group' (so what about the first six
volumes?), Lectures in Theoretical Physics, Univ. Colarado, 1964. I reckon
Einstein walked out of this conference cos it got too much. Mom would tell
all her neighbours. Great on the shelf, until someone in the know actually
quizzes you about it.

"Topological Algebras" - forget it. Throw up a toy set of mathematical
symbols, re-arrange into a line. You will probably understand the resulting
equation more than anything in said topic book.

"A first course in..."

"Elementary .."

"For the laymen .." Simple unless it is written by Penrose - his laymen are
all well-respected Physics lecturers

Undergraduate Series in Mathematics: (TOPIC)

What Mom would think: Oh how nice! A pretty little yellow textbook
with homework problems for one of your classes.

True Translation: Might as well leave out the "Under", most of them
are as difficult as the "Graduate Series in Mathematics" texts and the
odds of one of these books actually being used in your average
undergraduate program are about the same as the odds of your mom
understanding even the first page.

Source: http://jcdverha.home.xs4all.nl/scijokes/1.html

 

[adilsyyed]

He's also not very good at arithmetic - half of pie is approximately 4.27.

(Better for him to use bad arithmetic as an excuse than risk the wrath of MathIsHard)

This post I am quoting is very old, but I wanted to know the logic in your answer. How is half pf pie equal to 4.27 approx.?

 

[dkotschessaa]

Q: What did the undergraduate mathematician live on most of the semester?

Spoiler

A: f(z) = ln(z) -- Riemann Noodles!

 

[AlephZero]

My wife recently suggested a new, universal unit of measure - the Whatever

Somebody got there before you. See https://www.tug.org/docs/metapost/mpman.pdf. bottom of page 12 and page 13.

It has the nice properties that (1) every time you use it, it refers to a new value, (2) there is no way to find out what its value actually is, but (3) in spite of (1) and (2) it's actually useful.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Today I heard a radio news report about a local basketball team. The announcer stumbled a bit and said, "the men's, uh, basketball team". But he was talking so fast that what I heard was "the Mensa basketball team". I immediately thought that they must not win many games... but I'll bet they do a great post-game analysis of their losses.

 

[AlephZero]

If the Mensa basketball team score less than 147 points, do they have to resign?

 

[Borek]

If the Mensa basketball team score less than 147 points, do they have to resign?

147 sounds more like a snooker result.

 

[Lisa!]

it's quite funny ^_^

╔──╗╔═─╕╔─╗╭─═╮╔═─╗　　╒╗
│╒─╛｜╒╗｜╚─╛│╓═╯｜╔╕｜╔─╝｜
｜╚─╗│｜╘╜╔─╗｜╚─╗│｜││｜＋　│
｜╔─╛｜｜　　│　││╭═╛｜│｜｜│　　｜
╘╛　　╘╛　　╚─╛╘╰═╯╘╛╘╜╚─═╛

What's that? I can't read it

 

[mfb]

With some fixes:

╔──╗ ╔═-─╕  ╔─╗  ╭─═╮ ╔═─╗　　 ╒╗
│╒─╛ │╒╗ │  ╚─╛  │╓═╯ │╔╕│  ╔─╝ │
│╚─╗ ││╘-╜  ╔─╗  │╚─╗ ││││  │＋  │
│╔─╛ ││　   │　│  │╭═╛ ││││  │　　│
╘╛　　╘╛     ╚─╛  ╘-═╯ ╘╛╘╜  ╚--─═

Looks like "Friend"

 

[Lisa!]

With some fixes:

╔──╗ ╔═-─╕  ╔─╗  ╭─═╮ ╔═─╗　　 ╒╗
│╒─╛ │╒╗ │  ╚─╛  │╓═╯ │╔╕│  ╔─╝ │
│╚─╗ ││╘-╜  ╔─╗  │╚─╗ ││││  │＋  │
│╔─╛ ││　   │　│  │╭═╛ ││││  │　　│
╘╛　　╘╛     ╚─╛  ╘-═╯ ╘╛╘╜  ╚--─═

Looks like "Friend"

Thanks alot
It was drving me crazy because I looked at it from different angels, yet I wasn't able to read it!

 

[surajt88]

http://cdn.omg-facts.com/2012/10/5/a6a7f3cf3ec30415b80e09209d97fc96.jpg

 

[jtbell]

 

[L4xord]

lol...

 

[gunslinger]

Schrodinger's cat enters a bar and doesn't.

 

[dkotschessaa]

hehe

 

[dkotschessaa]

The person that gave this to me included an explanation, denying me the chance to figure it out myself, unfortunately. For this crowd...

A mathematician finishes a large meal and says:

√(-1/64)

 

[dkotschessaa]

The programmer's wife tells him: "Run to the store and pick up a loaf of bread. If they have eggs, get a dozen."
The programmer comes home with 12 loaves of bread.

(Could also be a logician, I suppose)

 

[Bandarigoda]

lol...

Is this for really?

 

[jtbell]

The programmer comes home with 12 loaves of bread.

He should have come home with 13 loaves of bread.

 

[AmazingLight]

Question: Which of the following is most different from the others?

(A) a P.H.D in Mathematical Biology
(B) a P.H.D in Theoretical Mathematics
(C) a P.H.D in Statistics
(D) a large pepperoni pizza

Answer: (B). The other three can all feed a family of of four.

 

[micromass]

Question: Which of the following is most different from the others?

(A) a P.H.D in Mathematical Biology
(B) a P.H.D in Theoretical Mathematics
(C) a P.H.D in Statistics
(D) a large pepperoni pizza

Answer: (B). The other three can all feed a family of of four.

Not sure if a PhD in mathematical biology is that much better...

 

[Adoniram]

 

[OmCheeto]

How am I not subscribed to this thread?

 

[dkotschessaa]

How am I not subscribed to this thread?

You are now.

 

[sgrondahl]

George Takei posted this picture. Thought you might enjoy it!

George Takei posted this picture. Thought you might enjoy it!

 

[DeIdeal]

This is kind of a bad pun, but I didn't see it in the thread:

What's nutritious and commutes? An Abelian soup.

Ha-ha-Ha-ha!

 

[davenn]

Dave

 

[Borg]

No comment.

 

[davenn]

No comment.

haha :)

 

[Adoniram]

Dave

Cute. Just finished electronics 3310 at UNT last spring too :)

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

 

[davenn]

haha nice one Greg

guess this guy didn't pay much attention in his physics classes...

cheers
Dave

 

[OmCheeto]

I've decided that there are holes in the theory of how semiconductors work.

 

[davenn]

I've decided that there are holes in the theory of how semiconductors work.

hahaha nice one Om :)
Im seriously considering quoting you and that in my sig,

and one for today ...

cheers
Dave

 

[OmCheeto]

hahaha nice one Om :)
Im seriously considering quoting you and that in my sig,

It was inspired by my thinking of which layer of Feynman's onion I could comprehend:

Top layer. This is my comprehension level of the world.

​

Second layer. Makes my head hurt. Inspiration for holes joke:

​

Third layer. I have not a clue.

[PLAIN]http://schools-wikipedia.org/images/161/16169.png[/CENTER]

and one for today ...

cheers
Dave

I see what you did there!

:thumbs:​

 

[davenn]

was a nice little play on words D

 

[JimmyTrow]

I've been hunting for some chemistry puns, but all the good ones Argon.

 

[Adoniram]

 

[davenn]

Today's funny ... with the theme "what happens in Vegas ..."

cheers
Dave

 

[Evo]

Today's funny ... with the theme "what happens in Vegas ..."

cheers
Dave

Good one!

 

[davenn]

OK here's one for my fellow RF engineers

cheers
Dave

 

[BrettJimison]

I was going to tell a chemistry joke, but all my funny jokes argon.

 

[OmCheeto]

​

-------------------------
Sorry if this has been posted before. I'm a busy person...
And it anyone responds; "You forgot the dx!", I will not re-respond, as, I'm outta here!

 

[davenn]

the pic isn't showing, Om

Dave