science & math humour

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ByGautam G Soman

For For For For

NeuralNet

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neuraldtnet



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H i ,

T h s s a c o l l e c t o n o f h u m o u r n s c e n c e a n d m a t h e m a t c s . A l l t h e c o n t e n t s

f r o m v a r o u s w e b s t e s . O n l y t h e f o r m a t t n g a n d P D F s m n e .

Data Compiled From:

OXymoron Humour Archive <mailto:[email protected]>

MathOnLine <http://www.math.utah.edu/~cherk/mathonline.html>

Mathematical humor

collected by Andrej and Elena Cherkaev

Andrej's homepage http://www.math.utah.edu/~cherk/index.html

Elena's homepage <http://www.math.utah.edu/~elena>

F o r b e t t e r p r e s e n t a t o n o f m a t t e r I h a v e d v d e d t n t o v a r o u s s e c t o n s . T h e y a r e

a s f o l l o w s :

1. Chemistry Pages 03-14

2. Physics Pages 15- 25

3. Mathematics Pages 26- 37

4. Scientists & Mathematicians Pages 38- 50

5. Anecdotes About Great Minds Pages 51- 60

I h a v e e n j o y e d t h s s t u f f m m e n s e l y … . o p e y o u f n d t e n j o y a b l e t o o ! !

Y

,

G



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CHEMISTRYChemical Dictionary

THE LAST WORDThe Ultimate Scientific Dictionary

Activation Energy: The useful quantity of energy available in one cup of coffee.

Bunsen Burner: A device invented by Robert Bunsen (1811-1899) for brewingcoffee in the laboratory, thereby enabling the chemist to be poisoned withouthaving to go all the way to the company cafeteria.

Butyl: An unpleasant-sounding word denoting an unpleasant-smelling alcohol.

Chemical: A substance that:1) An organic chemist turns into a foul odor;2) an analytical chemist turns into a procedure;3) a physical chemist turns into a straight line;

4) a biochemist turns into a helix;5) a chemical engineer turns into a profit.

Chemical Engineering: The practice of doing for a profit what an organic chemistonly does for fun.

Clinical Testing: The use of humans as guinea pigs. (See also PHARMACOLOGY and TOXICOLOGY)

Computer Resources: The major item of any budget, allowing for the acquisitionof any capital equipment that is obsolete before the purchase request is released.

Evaporation Allowance: The volume of alcohol that the graduate students candrink in a year's time.

Exhaustive Methylation: A marathon event in which the participants methylateuntil they drop from exhaustion.

Flame Test: Trial by fire.

Inorganic Chemistry: That which is left over after the organic, analytical, andphysical chemists get through picking over the periodic table.

Natural Product: A substance that earns organic chemists fame and glory whenthey manage to systhesize it with great difficulty, while Nature gets no credit formaking it with great ease.

Organic Chemistry: The practice of transmuting vile substances into publications.



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Partition Function: The function of a partition is to protect the lab supervisorfrom shrapnel produced in laboratory explosions.

Pass/Fail: An attempt by professional educators to replace the traditionalacademic grading system with a binary one that can be handled by a large digital

computer.

Pharmacology: The use of rabbits and dogs as guinea pigs. (See also CLINICALTESTING, TOXICOLOGY).

Physical Chemistry: The pitiful attempt to apply y=mx+b to everything in theuniverse.

Pilot Plant: A modest facility used for confirming design errors before they are built into a costly, full-scale production facility.

Quantum Mechanics: A crew kept on the payroll to repair quantums, whichdecay frequently to the ground state.

Research: (Irregular noun) That which I do for the benefit of humanity, you dofor the money, he does to hog all the glory.

Scientific Method: The widely held philosophy that a theory can never be proved,only disproved, and that all attempts to explain anything are therefore futile.

SI: Acronym for "Systeme Infernelle".

Spectrophotometry: A long word used mainly to intimidate freshman nonmajors.

Toxicology: The wholesale slaughter of white rats bred especially for thatpurpose. (See also CLINICAL TESTING, PHARMACOLOGY).-------------------------------------------------------From: "Gautam Subbarao" <[email protected]>

My name is Bond - Covalent Bond.

What emotional disorder does a gas chomatograph suffer from?Separation anxiety

A small piece of sodium which lived in a test tube fell in love with the Bunsen burner:"Oh Bunsen, my flame. I melt whenever I see you . . .", the sodium pined."It's just a phase you're going through", replied the Bunsen burner.

Have you heard the one about a chemist who was reading a book about helium?He just couldn't put it down.



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Q: What weapon can you make from the Chemicals Potassium, Nickel and Iron? A: KNiFe.

"Welcome to Entropy Burgers -- may I take your order?"

"I put in disorder a long time ago. The service here is getting worse all the time."

"My experience Gibbs me reason to believe you."

"I know the waitress who asked that, too. Her name's Ellen Omega. She really made me thermally dynamic. So, I asked her out. I tell you, when she don't like you, she really Boltz, man. Women like that are never distributed normally among the population."

"What kind of Poisson would say something like this?"------------------------------------------------------These were printed on bumper stickers and given out at an American ChemicalSociety meeting 10 or 12 years ago:It takes alkynes to make a world.------------------------------------------

Florence Flask was ... dressing for the opera when she turned to her husband andscreamed, "Erlenmeyer! My joules! Someone has stolen my joules!""Now, now, my dear," replied her husband, "keep your balance and reflux amoment. Perhaps they're mislead.""No, I know they're stolen," cried Florence. "I remember putting them in my burette ... We must call a copper."Erlenmeyer did so, and the flatfoot who turned up, one Sherlock Ohms, said the

outrage looked like the work of an arch-criminal by the name of Lawrence Ium."We must be careful -- he's a free radical, ultraviolet, and dangerous. Hisgirlfriend is a chlorine at the Palladium. Maybe I can catch him there." Withthat, he jumped on his carbon cycle in an activated state and sped off along thereaction pathway ...

-- Daniel B. Murphy, "Precipitations"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- And why does a white bear melt in water?Because it's polar.------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of my T-shirts has the symbols:

C Ho Co La Te"Better living through Chemistry"-----------------------------------------------------------------------Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds.Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. -- Mike Adams-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!The Invisible KillerDihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncountedthousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidentalinhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there.

Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those whohave become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.Dihydrogen monoxide:

• is also known as hydroxyl acid, and is the major component of acid rain.• contributes to the "greenhouse effect."• may cause severe burns.

• contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.• accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.• may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile

brakes.• has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.

Contamination Is Reaching Epidemic Proportions!Quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been found in almost every stream,lake, and reservoir in America today. But the pollution is global, and thecontaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. DHMO has caused millions of dollars of property damage in the midwest, and recently California.Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:

• as an industrial solvent and coolant.• in nuclear power plants.• in the production of styrofoam.• as a fire retardant.• in many forms of cruel animal research.• in the distribution of pesticides. Even after washing, produce remains

contaminated by this chemical.• as an additive in certain "junk-foods" and other food products.

Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can bedone to stop them because this practice is still legal . The impact on wildlife isextreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer!The Horror Must Be Stopped!The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or useof this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic health of this

nation." In fact, the navy and other military organizations are conductingexperiments with DHMO, and designing multi-billion dollar devices to controland utilize it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military research facilitiesreceive tons of it through a highly sophisticated underground distributionnetwork. Many store large quantities for later use.

Visit DHMO Central <http://www.cis.udel.edu/~way/DMRD>



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Chemical Analysis Of Man

Element: Man Symbol: Ah Mass: ranges from 50Kg to 200KgDiscover: Eve Occurrences: Found following dual element Wo often inhigh concentration near a perfect Wo specimen. (Experimental evidence: any

beach on any coast)

Physical properties:Obnoxious when mixed with C*H*-OH (any alcohol) Tends to fall into very low energy state dirrectly after reaction with Wo (Snore ... zzzzz) Gains considerablemass as specimen ages, loses reactive nature. Rarely found in pure form after14th year. Often damaged as a direct result of unlucky reaction with poluted formof the Wo common ore.

Chemical properties: All forms desire reaction with Wo even when no further reaction is possible. May react with several Wo isotopes in short period under extremely favorableconditions. Usually willing to react with what ever is available. Reaction Ratesrange from aborted/non- existant to Pre-interaction effects (which tend to turnthe specimen bright red and send it to react with Sa, the sex analysist) Reactionstyles vary from extremely slow, calm and wet to violent/bloody.

Storage:Best results apparently near 18 for high reaction rate, 25-35 for favourablereaction style.

Uses:Heavy boxes, top shelves, long walks late at night, free dinners for Wo ...

Tests:Pure specimen will rarely reveal purity, while reacted specimens broadcastinformation on many wavelengths.

Caution:Tends to react extremely violently when other Man interferes with reaction to aparticular Wo specimen. Otherwise very malleable under correct conditions.

Based on an unoriginal email forwarded by Sue Sinclair, May 1995. -------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a story of two students who wanted to celebrate the long and light summerevening by fishing in their boat in the Norwegian fjord. But first they went to thelab, grabbed a bottle with the magic label 96%, and set off. After some time, theone said to the other:- I am afraid we have done something wrong. This is not ethanol,it is sulphuric acid.- I know. I have just peed a hole in the boat.-------------------------------------------------------------------------



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Finally Released: The Source Of Administratium

Scientists have released the secret of the source of Administratium; Administratium is refined from a repulsive amorphous material similar to a thick petroleum tar but much more viscous and sticky. This substance is known as

Bureaucratite.Bureaucratite should be avidly avoided as it almost completely freezes progress. Anything unfortunate enough to venture into a deposit of Bureaucratite isinstantly trapped and becomes entirely coated with the bituminous mess,although it may take weeks or months to sink out of sight into a deposit. Many creatures, long extinct, have been discovered within such quagmires but betterpreserved than those found in ice or tar pits.Extraction from a deposit, should one be so lucky, is always excrutiatingly longand painful and rarely completely successful. Many unfortunates are haunted by innocuous bits of the stuff which always turn up in the most unexpected placesand inconvenient times. People unlucky enough to have been exposed to bureaucratite have exhibited dangerously raised blood pressures, heart rates and bodily temperatures along with extremes of emotion. Based on an unoriginal email forwarded by Ron von Schilling, September 1999.

---------------------------------------------From: Paul Armitage <peba#NoSpam.totalise.co.uk>... and here's a nice phrase my old chemistry teacher taught us:"All that glitters is not gold, but at least it contains free electrons"----------------------------------------------..CHAPTER 5: AN OVERVIEW OF ORGANIC REACTIONS

Dan was shopping for some organic bean sprouts when he bumped into

Melissa. "Oh! You like organic stuff too?" he asked. "Yes," she said, "and I know this great organic cafe..."..CHAPTER 11: REACTIONS OF ALKYL HALIDES: NUCLEOPHILICSUBSTITUTIONS AND ELIMINATIONS

"Oh no," thought Dan. She already has a boyfriend. I must substitute myself forhim! But how?

And then a light came on in his mind. "I can eliminate him using an alkyl halidenucleophile!"..CHAPTER 30: THE ORGANIC CHEMISTRY OF METABOLIC PATHWAYS

And so, they lived happily ever after on the pathway of love...------------------------------------------------------Remember, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate!--------------------------------------------------------------------------

A male polar bear and a female brown bear are sitting at a bar.Polar Bear: Sorry babe, I just don't think the chemistry is right.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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The Chemist's Recipie For Chocolate Chip Cookies

The following recipie for chocolate chip cookies recently appeared in Chemical &Engineering News (C&EN, Jun 19, 1995, p. 100). It was attributed to Jeannene Ackerman of Witco Corp.

Ingredients:1. 532.35 cm3 gluten2. 4.9 cm3 NaHCO33. 4.9 cm3 refined halite4. 236.6 cm3 partially hydrogenated tallow triglyceride5. 177.45 cm3 crystalline C12H22O116. 177.45 cm3 unrefined C12H22O117. 4.9 cm3 methyl ether of protocatechuic aldehyde8. Two calcium carbonate-encapsulated avian albumen-coated protein9. 473.2 cm3 theobroma cacao10. 236.6 cm3 de-encapsulated legume meats (sieve size #10)To a 2-L jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat-transfercoefficient of about 100 Btu/F-ft2-hr add one, two, and three with constantagitation.In a second 2-L reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at 100 rpmadd four, five, six, and seven until the mixture is homogeneous.To reactor #2 add eight followed by three equal portions of the homogeneousmixture in reactor #1. Additionally, add nine and ten slowly with constantagitation. Care must be taken at this point in the reaction to control any temperature rise that may be the result of an exothermic reaction.Using a screw extrude attached to a #4 nodulizer place the mixture piece-meal ona 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm). Heat in a 460K oven for a period of time that is inagreement with Frank & Johnston's first order rate expression (see JACOS, 21,

55), or until golden brown.Once the reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25 deg. C heat-transfer tableallowing the product to come to equilibrium.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------ON A CHEMISTRY TEST at Midpark High School in Middleburg Heights, Ohio,one question concerned how to clean the floor after a chemical-powder spill. Indetail, I described the liquid I would combine with the powder in order todissolve it with chemical bonding and electron transfer. I was pleased withmy grasp of molecular structure until the exams were handed back. Ourteacher asked another student to read her answer. She suggested a broom and

a dustpan to sweep up the spill -- and got full credit.

--Contributed to "Tales Out of School" by Joe Astorino© 1996 The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. All rights reserved.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------"Not all chemicals are bad. For instance, without hydrogen and oxygen wecannot make water, an essential ingredient in beer"----------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanylglutamin- ylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolyl-phenylalanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglu-taminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanyl-

glycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylala-nylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylgluta-minylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylgly-cylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionyl-leucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleu-cylprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylva-lylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanyltyro-sylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleu-cylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphe-nylalanylarginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylala-nylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanylas-partylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosyl-glycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycyl- valylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleu-cylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparagi-nylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylse-rylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanyl-glycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalylly-sylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylpro-lylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalyl-glutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine, n.:

The chemical name for tryptophan synthetase A protein, a1,913-letter enzyme with 267 amino acids.

-- Mrs. Bryne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and-----------------------------------------------------------------This was a story told to us by our chemistry master at school. A female student wished to make some potassium hydroxide solution (aqueous) and decided tothrow a large lump of potassium into a bucket of water. Her professor observed what she was about to do, out of the corner of his eye and hurried towards her,and after confirming this was what she was intending to do, asked her first to stirthe water in the bucket for five minutes before adding the potassium. She waspuzzled and ran after him to ask the purpose of this action.

'It will give me time to get away' said the professor.

------------------------------------------------------------- Why did the chicken cross the road?

According to Le Chatelier:The chicken crossed the road because there were too many moles of chickenon the reactants side of the road equilibrium.--------------------------------------------------------------------------



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A ubiquitous Fe-rich Male compound - FeMale - posesses a considerable numberof beneficial properties. Frequently highly decorative in the native form, FeMaleis a proven aphrodisiac and a versatile detergent. There are also reasons to believe that FeMale plays a crucial role in human reproduction and child-rearing.

Despite the existence of vast archives of experimental data, the reaction pathwaysinvolving FeMale are at best poorly understood.

FeMale is unstable in an oxydizing atmosphere and has been known tospontaneously ignite at room temperature. As a consequence FeMale is ratherdifficult to work with.

The magnetic behaviour points towards polymorphism. It varies from sample tosample ranging from moderately antiferromagnetic to very strongly ferromagnetic. Curiously, some antiferromagnetic specimens appear to undergo aspin transition when exposed to alcohol-rich atmospheres (the well documentedBeer-Goggles effect).

Given the availability of reactive Fe, FeMale forms readily in Male- dominatedenvironments and under favourable circumstances may persist over geologicaltime. FeMale may thus prove to be of considerable importance on a global scaleas an Fe- and Male- reservoir.------------------------------------------------------------------

Teacher: Johnny, what's H2SO4?Johnny : Er, hang on. I know this one. It's on the tip of my tongue...Teacher: Well spit it out quick, it's sulphuric acid!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Top Ten Ways To Get Thrown Out Of The Chemistry Lab10. Pretend an electron got stuck in your ear, and insist on describing thesound to others.9. Give a cup of liquid nitrogen to a classmate and ask, "Does this tastefunny to you?"8. Consistently write three atoms of potassium as "KKK."7. Mutter repeatedly, "Not again... not again... not again."6. When it's very quiet, suddenly cry out, "My eyes!"5. Deny the existence of chemicals.

4. Begin pronouncing everything your immigrant lab instructor saysexactly the way he/she says it.3. Casually walk to the front of the room and urinate in a beaker.2. Pop a paper bag at the crucial moment when the professor is about topour the sulphuric acid1. Show up with a 55-gallon drum of fertilizer and express an interest infederal buildings.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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Last Words Of A Chemist...1. And now the tasting test.2. May that become hot?3. And now a little bit from this...4. ... and please keep that test tube alone!

5. And now shake it a bit.6. Why is there no label on this bottle?7. In which glass was my mineral water?8. The bunsen burner *is* out!9. Why does that stuff burn with a green flame?!?10. *H* stands for Nitrogen - and that does *not* burn...11. Oh, now I have spilt something...12. First the acid, then the water...13. And now the detonating gas problem.14. This is a completely safe experimental setup.15. Where did I put my gloves?16. Oh no, wrong beaker...17. The fire alarm is just being tested.18. Now you can take the protection window away...19. And now keep it constant at 24 degrees celsius, 25... 26... 27...20. Peter can you please help me. Peter!?! Peeeeeteeeeer?!?!?!?21. Is 15 seconds too long?22. Something is wrong here...23. Where did all those holes in my kettle come from?24. Trust me - I know what I am doing.25. And now a cigarette...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Q: What did one titration say to the other? A: Let's meet at the endpoint!

Q: What do you pay a policeman attending evening chemistry classes? A: Copper Nitrate

1. What did one atom tell another?- I think I lost an electron- Are you sure?- Yes, I'm positive.

2. A small piece of sodium which lived in a testube fell in love with a Bunsen burner. "Bunsen! my flame! I melt whenever I see you" said the sodium.The bunsen burner replied :"It's just a phase you're going through".

3. Heisenberg is out for a drive when he's stopped by a traffic cop. The cop says: "Do you know how fast you were going? Heisenberg replies: "No, but I know where I am".



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4. A neutron walks into a bar; he asks the bartender: " How much for a beer?"The bartender looks at him and says: "For you, it's no charge".

5. Why did the white bear dissolve in water?- Because it was polar.

6. What do you call a tooth in a glass of water?- A one molar solution.

7. What do dipoles say in passing?- Have you got a moment?

9. What do you do with a dead chemist?- Barium

10. What weapon can you make from the elements potassium, nickel and iron?- A KNiFe.

12. What happens when electrons lose their energy?- They get Bohr'd.

13. What did one titration tell the other?- Let's meet at the endpoint.

14. Why are chemists great for solving problems?- They have all the solutions.

15. Do you know what happened to the chemist who was reading a book about

Helium?- He just couldn't put it down.

16. A florence flask was getting dressed for the opera. All of a sudden shescreamed: "Erlenmeyer, my joules! Somebody has stolen my joules!". Thehusband replied: "Take it easy honey, do not overreact. We'll find a solution".

17. Why do chemistry professors like to teach about ammonia?- Because it's basic stuff.

19. What did the match tell the flame?

-Baby, you make me lose my head.

21. How many moles are in a guacamole?-Avocado's number.

22. Why did the ice cube get divorced?-His wife said he was too cold.



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23. Why did Carbon marry Hydrogen?-They bonded well from the minute they met.

24. What kind of ghosts haunt chemistry faculties?- Methylated spirits.

25. If H20 is water what is H204?-Drinking, bathing, washing, swimming. . .

28. Two guys were taking chemistry at the University of Massachusetts. They didpretty well on all the quizzes, midterms and exams and had a solid "A" going intothe final. They were so confident that the weekend before finals they decided togo out and party. They had a great time, however, they were hung over the nextday and didn't make it to the final on time. After the final, they met with theprofessor to explain why they were late. They told him that they "had a flat tire"on their way to school. They didn't have a spare and couldn't get help for a longtime, that's why they were late in getting to campus. The professor thought it overand told them they could make up the final the next day. The two guys wererelieved. The next day the professor placed them in separate rooms and handedthem the test booklet. They looked at the first problem which was worth 5 points.It was a simple question involving molarity calculations. "Cool" they thought."This is gonna be easy". They answered the question and turned the page. They were not prepared, however, for what they saw on the next page. It said: (95points) Which tire?

29. How do chemists do it?Chemists do it reactively Chemists do it on the bench

Electrochemists have more potentialPolymer chemists do it in chains

30. A psychotic chemist came home from work and had a big fight with his wife.In the heat of the moment, he grabbed a bottle of some lethal chemical substanceand forced her to drink it while he screamed: " Die Ethyl, die". The wife droppeddead on the floor and the neighbors who were watching the scene, decided to callthe police. The policemen arrived and arrested the chemist. One of them asked: Was there any reason for you to kill your wife? The chemist replied: " There wasno chemistry between us. We never bonded well although we tried.In thecompound where we lived, our temperaments collided. She always responded

negatively to my comments. Our relationship was unstable. There was nopossible solution. She had an attitude and I was explosive. Finally, I overreacted.But now I'm glad it's over. I'm in equilibrium again.I will feel free even behind theirons."

******************************************************



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PHYSICS

My friend once saw a question like this on his physics final: How would you use a

baramoter to find the height of a building.1. Find someone who knows how tall the building is, and trade him the barometerfor the information.< teacher rejects: not a property characteristic of the barometer>2. Measure the height of the barometer. Scale the side of the building, measuringits height in barometer-units.< rejected: uses no basic scientific principles>3. Drop the barometer from the top of the building. Measure the time until it hitsthe street. Correcting for the mass/surface ratio of the instrument, use basicacceleration equation to find the height.< rejected: barometer is no longer a barometer>4. Tie string to top of barometer. Lower from roof to almost ground. Swing.

Period of pendulum can be used to find distance from barometer's Center of Gravity to top of building. Add displacement from CG to bottom of barometer;this is height.< rejected: does not incorporate barometer's intended function>5. Take the barometer outside on a sunny day, measure its shadow and the buildings shadow.< rejected: cloudy today>6. Sell the barometer. Purchase a tape measure long enough to measure theheight of the building.< rejected: this is not a business course.>7. Give the barometer as a prize to the one who comes up with the most accuratemeasurement of the building's height.< rejected: you have to return the barometer after you finish.>8. Measure the barometric pressure at the top and bottom of the building. Plug

these into the equation in the book and spit out the answer.< accepted: Finally, what the teacher wanted.>

• Time

My Extra Second Well, folks, we get an extra second today at 7 P.M.. CST (USA) on July 1, 1994. What are YOU going to do with all this extra time on your hands? Personally, I'vedecided to save mine. I figure if I live at least 60 years, that gives me one extraminute. I'm asking God to give me that one saved-up minute on my death bed

when they all think I've finally croaked to raise back up and get that one last wordin edgewise! [email protected] or [email protected]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Time Travel Seminar

To whom it may concern,There will be a seminar given on the subject of time travel in the 21st century.It will be held on Thursday, January 1, 1920 at 12:00:01AM.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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Buttered Toast And Cats

Q. This question was posed to the Usenet Oracle: If you drop a buttered piece of bread, it will fall on the floor butter-side down. If a cat is dropped from a window or other high and towering place, it will land on it's feet. But what if you attach a

buttered piece of bread, butter-side up to a cat's back and toss them both out the window? Will the cat land on it's feet? Or will the butter splat on the ground? -Mike

A. And in response, thus spake the Oracle: Even if you are too lazy to do theexperiment yourself you should be able to deduce the obvious result. The laws of butterology demand that the butter must hit the ground, and the equally strictlaws of feline aerodynamics demand that the cat can not smash it's furry back. If the combined construct were to land, nature would have no way to resolve thisparadox. Therefore it simply does not fall.That's right you clever mortal (well, as clever as a mortal can get), you havediscovered the secret of antigravity! A buttered cat will, when released, quickly move to a height where the forces of cat-twisting and butter repulsion are inequilibrium. This equilibrium point can be modified by scraping off some of the butter, providing lift, or removing some of the cat's limbs, allowing descent.Most of the civilized species of the Universe already use this principle to drivetheir ships while within a planetary system. The loud humming heard by mostsighters of UFOs is, in fact, the purring of several hundred tabbies. The oneobvious danger is, of course, if the cats manage to eat the bread off their backsthey will instantly plummet. Of course the cats will land on their feet, but thisusually doesn't do them much good, since right after they make their gracefullanding several tons of red-hot starship and pissed off aliens crash on top of them. And now a few words on solving the problem of creating a ship using the

aforementioned anti-gravity device. One could power a ship by means of cats heldin suspended animation (say, about -190 degrees Celsius) with buttered breadstrapped to their backs, thus avoiding the possibility of collisions due totempermental felines. More importantly, how do you steer, once the cats are allheld in stasis?I offer a modest proposal: We all know that wearing a white shirt at an Italianrestaurant is a guaranteed way to take a trip to the laudromat. Plaster the outsideof your ship with white shirts. Place four nozzles symmetrically around the ship, which is, of course, saucer shaped. Fire tomato sauce out in proportion to thedirections you want to go. The ship, drawn by the shirts, will automatically follow the sauce.

If you use t-shirts, you won't go as fast as you would by using, say, expensivedress shirts. This does not work as well in deep gravity wells, since the tomatosauce (now falling down a black hole, perhaps) will drag the ship with it, despitethe counter force of the anti-gravity cat/butter machine. Your only hope at thatpoint is to jettison enormous quantities of Tide. This will create the well-knownGravitational Tidal Force.

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LasersToday, thanks to men like Edison and Franklin, and frogs like Galvini's, wereceive almost unlimited benefits from electricity. For example, in the pastdecade scientists developed the laser, an electronic appliance that emits a beam

of light so powerful that it can vaporize a bulldozer two thousand yards away, yetso precise that doctors can use it to perform delicate operations on the humaneyeball, provided they remember to change the power setting from "VAPORIZEBULLDOZER" to "DELICATE." ... also from the book Bad Habits by Dave Barry (it's superb).

Why The Sky Is BlueBy John Ciardi

I don't suppose you happen to know Why the sky is blue? It's because the snow Takes out the white. That leaves it cleanFor the trees and grass to take out the green.Then pears and bananas start to mellow, And bit by bit they take out the yellow.The sunsets, of course, take out the red And pour it into the ocean bedOr behind the mountains in the west. You take all that out and the restCouldn't be anything else but blue.Look for yourself. You can see it's true.

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Sun LightThat reminds me of an exchange which I observed back then, at the University of Arizona. A couple were walking across campus just ahead of me. As we passed thenewly sodded area around a recently completed building, the coed commentedabout how fast the grass was growing."Yes," nodded her date knowingly, "that's because of the extra hour of daylight itgets.""Oooh," she said, as her eyes widened and she gave this paragon of wisdom anadmiring glance. Bob Terry [email protected]

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Snail Humor When a snail crossed the road, he was run over by a turtle. Regainingconsciousness in the emergency room, he was asked what caused the accident. "Ireally can't remember," the snail replied. "You see, it all happened so fast."

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Electricity :Hamster Power: 42 ways to get electric power from hamsters

1. Ignite in large numbers. Use heat released to drive steam turbine.2. Kidnap and threaten to torture. Extort ransom from animal-rights activists andother anti-cruelty types: demand payment in the form of electric current.

3. Drop hamsters from great heights. Use like turbine to generate electricity.4. Drop large numbers of hamsters into tar pit, wait a few million years, drill forcrude oil at same location to run electric turbine.5. Convince hamsters they're really lemmings. Show cliff to hamsters. Installturbine halfway down cliff.7. Densely pack hamsters into flywheel shape. Spin rapidly. Attach generator.8. Put hamster on electricity-generating treadmill. Feed back small portion of generated electricity into hamster brain pleasure center. Watch him generate hislittle heart out!9. Seal large quantity of hamsters in air tight holding tanks. Add water. Allow suitable time to pass for decomposition. Collect methane gas resulting. Put gas infuel cells.10. Smush mucho hamsters in a trough, use the drippings/blood to run a waterwheel for hydroelectric power.12. Skin hamster. Melt animal fat into tallow and then form candles. Heat steamturbine.13. Switch hamsters for P6 chips coming of Intel assembly lines. Saved electricity will be enormous. Cover performance loss by releasing new version of WindowsNT at the same time. -gwh14. (This is, undoubtedly, the way to get the most power from them) Combine thehamster with an equal mass of antimatter -- a anti-hamster if you will. Thenharness the massive energy release for power....15. Mail the electric company a dead hamster every day until they give you power

for free.16. Take thousands of hamsters into orbit -- when the orbit decays, they will heatup the atmosphere. With enough hamsters, you could raise the planetstemperature as much as you want.17. Pull the hamster out of root@soda's ass. Then when they turn red &embarrassed, use the heat from their red face to drive a Carnot engine.18. Emmass enormous quantities of hamsters until it reaches enough mass to begin hamster fusion in the core. Use solar cells to convert radiation to electricity.19. Throw in more hamsters to (above) until the hamster star goes supernova... you couldn't want any more energy than that...20. Repeat with another mass of hamsters... spin the resulting neutron-hamsters

around each other in a binary orbit... use gravity waves to rotate hydro-turbine.21. Give them little magnetic collars, and run them through a maze of coiled wires.22. Reduce hamster to their component atoms. Compress the resulting plasmauntil it fuses. Transfer the released energy via heat/engine or energy conversionscheme of your choice. -ERic23. Drop hamster into black hole. Use photovoltaics to release the radiatedenergy.



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Simple ExperimentHere is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical lesson: Ona cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach your hand into a friend'smouth and touch one of his dental fillings. Did you notice how your friendtwitched violently and cried out in pain? This teaches us that electricity can be a

very powerful force, but we must never use it to hurt others unless we need tolearn an important electrical lesson. Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"

Electrical CircuitIt also teaches us how an electrical circuit works. When you scuffed your feet, youpicked up batches of "electrons", which are very small objects that carpetmanufacturers weave into carpets so they will attract dirt. The electrons travelthrough your bloodstream an collect in your finger, where they form a spark thatleaps to your friend's filling, then travels down to his feet and back into thecarpet, thus completing the circuit. Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"

Amazing FactIf you scuffed your feet long enough without touching anything, you would buildup so many electrons that your finger would explode! But this is nothing to worry about unless you have carpeting. Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"

ElectronsElectricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles, called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking. Electronstravel at the speed of light, which in most American homes is 110 volts per hour.This is very fast. In the time it has taken you to read this sentence so far, anelectron could have traveled all the way from San Francisco to Hackensack, New Jersey, although God alone knows why it would want to. Dave Barry, "The

Taming of the Screw"

CurrentThe five main kinds of electricity are alternating current, direct current, lightning,static, and European. Most American homes have alternating current, whichmeans that the electricity goes in one direction for a while, then goes in the otherdirection. This prevents harmful electron buildup in the wires. Dave Barry, "TheTaming of the Screw"

Electronics A friend of mine has a theory about things electronic- they operate on smoke. It is

very important for each component to have the correct amount of smoke, whichis sealed inside at the factory. If this smoke ever gets out, the part is no longerfunctional. This is true- how many times have you ever seen an electrical orelectronic device work right after smoke has been emitted?



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• Relativity I was going how fast???

Let us assume that you get a car that can travel the speed of light and you begin tounravel these age old mysteries... WHEN SUDDENLY... You are faced with aneven more dreadful question

If you're driving at the speed of light and get pulled over by an Oakwood Taxi-cop... What kind of fine are you gonna pay?? And believe me you are gonna pay...He ain't gonna buy the line.."669,600,000 mph!! That's impossible, my car shimmies at 500,000,000 mph!" And he ain't gonna take the excuse that you didn't realize how fast you weregoing... "Didn't you notice the Blue Shift ,son." After doing some research (No, I did not recently get a ticket) I found that the faircity of Oakwood charges $1 for every 1 mph over the speed limit. So if you werepulled over for doing 669,600,000 in a 35 zone you would be charged$669,599,965 + a $33 court fee = $669,599,998. This does not include suchsubsequent fines as reckless operation, not wearing a seat belt, and DWI (Let's

face it if you stopped for an Oakwood cop while doing light speed , you'd have to be drunk. Oakwood is roughly 2 miles across... You'd be out of his jurisdiction in0.00001 Seconds) A couple of other stats concerning a car capable of light speed. You'd flip theodometer in .537 seconds and need to change the oil every .053 seconds. I don'teven want to get into the amount of gas it would use and at the current gas pricesmaybe a ticket isn't your first concern.

Faster Then CQ: Why is the speed of light only 186,000 miles per second? Can't science do better than this? A: Yes, you're right. It's a disgrace that light only goes a measly 186,000 miles persecond, but physicists are working on the problem. There is already a prototype vehicle that goes 200,000 miles per second, but the headlights shine at only 186,000 miles per second. This is equivalent to driving down the freeway the wrong way with the headlights not only *out* but also chasing you down theroad. This is why so many scientists today no longer own a driver's license. Ask Dr. Science

Slow LightQ: What would happen if the speed of light were only sixty miles per hour? A: As we approach the speed of light, the aging process slows down. So, if thespeed of light were sixty miles per hour, we would have even more people

speeding, especially older people trying to stay young. As a matter of fact, physics would demand that we go faster than the speed of light. The safest thing is todrive at a steady sixty to keep time and the highway patrol off our necks. Airplanes would become obsolete in this slow light world, because you would begoing so fast, relatively speaking, that you'd be back before you even left. This would make business trips unnecessary and lead to economic collapse. So, toanswer your question, life, if the speed of light were sixty miles per hour, would be youthful, fast, and dark. Ask Dr. Science



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Strange Signs"MAN WANTED To work nuclear fission isotope molecule reactive counters andthree-phase cyclotronic uranium photosynthesizers. No experience necessary."

Product Warnings

The following are possible product warnings that might be required on a packageof any and every product, based on the laws of physics.

• WARNING:This Product Warps Space and Time in Its Vicinity.

• CAUTION:The Mass of This Product Contains the Energy Equivalent of 85 MillionTons of TNT per Net Ounce of Weight.

• HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE:

This Product Contains Minute Electrically Charged Particles Moving at Velocities in Excess of Five Hundred Million Miles Per Hour.

• CONSUMER NOTICE:Because of the "Uncertainty Principle," It Is Impossible for the Consumer

to Find Out at the Same Time Both Precisely Where This Product Is andHow Fast It Is Moving.

• ADVISORY:There is an Extremely Small but Nonzero Chance That, Through a Process

Know as "Tunneling," This Product May Spontaneously Disappear from

Its Present Location and Reappear at Any Random Place in the Universe,Including Your Neighbor's Domicile. The Manufacturer Will Not BeResponsible for Any Damages or Inconvenience That May Result.

• READ THIS BEFORE OPENING PACKAGE: According to Certain Suggested Versions of the Grand Unified Theory, thePrimary Particles Constituting this Product May Decay to Nothingness Within the Next Four Hundred Million Years.

• THIS IS A 100% MATTER PRODUCT:In the Unlikely Event That This Merchandise Should Contact Antimatter

in Any Form, a Catastrophic Explosion Will Result.

• PUBLIC NOTICE AS REQUIRED BY LAW: Any Use of This Product, in Any Manner Whatsoever, Will Increase the

Amount of Disorder in the Universe. Although No Liability Is ImpliedHerein, the Consumer Is Warned That This Process Will Ultimately Leadto the Heat Death of the Universe.



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• NOTE:The Most Fundamental Particles in This Product Are Held Together by a

"Gluing" Force About Which Little is Currently Known and Whose Adhesive Power Can Therefore Not Be Permanently Guaranteed.

• ATTENTION:Despite Any Other Listing of Product Contents Found Hereon, theConsumer is Advised That, in Actuality, This Product Consists Of 99.9999999999% Empty Space.

• NEW GRAND UNIFIED THEORY DISCLAIMER:The Manufacturer May Technically Be Entitled to Claim That This

Product Is Ten Dimensional. However, the Consumer Is Reminded ThatThis Confers No Legal Rights Above and Beyond Those Applicable toThree dimensional Objects, Since the Seven New Dimensions Are "RolledUp" into Such a Small "Area" That They Cannot Be Detected.

• PLEASE NOTE:Some Quantum Physics Theories Suggest That When the Consumer Is NotDirectly Observing This Product, It May Cease to Exist or Will Exist Only in a Vague and Undetermined State.

• COMPONENT EQUIVALENCY NOTICE:The Subatomic Particles (Electrons, Protons, etc.) Comprising This

Product Are Exactly the Same in Every Measurable Respect as Those Usedin the Products of Other Manufacturers, and No Claim to the Contrary May Legitimately Be Expressed or Implied.

• HEALTH WARNING:Care Should Be Taken When Lifting This Product, Since Its Mass, and

Thus Its Weight, Is Dependent on Its Velocity Relative to the User.

• IMPORTANT NOTICE TO PURCHASERS:The Entire Physical Universe, Including This Product, May One Day

Collapse Back into an Infinitesimally Small Space. Should AnotherUniverse Subsequently Re-emerge, the Existence of This Product in ThatUniverse Cannot Be Guaranteed.



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Unified Field Theory By Tim Joseph

In the beginning there was Aristotle, At objects at rest tended to remain at rest,

And objects in motion tended to come to rest, And soon everything was at rest, And God saw that it was boring.

Then God created Newton, And objects at rest tended to remain at rest,But objects in motion tended to remain in motion, And energy was conserved and momentum was conserved and matter was conserved, And God saw that it was conservative.

Then God created Einstein, And everything was relative, And fast things became short, And straight things became curved, And the universe was filled with inertial frames, And God saw that it was relatively general, but some of it was especially relative.

Then God created Bohr, And there was the principle, And the principle was quantum, And all things were quantified,

But some things were still relative, And God saw that it was confusing.

Then God was going to create Ferguson, And Ferguson would have unified, And he would have fielded a theory, And all would have been one,But it was the seventh day, And God rested, And objects at rest tend to remain at rest.

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Are You A Physicist? You might be a Physics Student...

• if you have no life - and you can PROVE it mathematically.• if you know vector calculus but you can't remember how to do long

division.• if you've actually used every single function on your graphing calculator.

• if it is sunny and 70 degrees outside, and you are working on a computer.• if you always do homework on Friday nights.• if you know how to integrate a chicken and can take the derivative of

water.• if you think in "maths."• if you've calculated that the World Series actually diverges.

• if you hesitate to look at something because you don't want to break downits wave function.

• if you have a pet named after a scientist.• if you laugh at jokes about mathematicians.• if the Humane Society has you arrested because you actually performed

the Schrodinger's Cat experiment.

• if you can translate English into Binary.• if you have to bring a jacket with you, in the middle of summer, because

there's a wind-chill factor in the lab.• If you are completely addicted to caffeine.

• if you avoid doing anything because you don't want to contribute to theeventual heat-death of the universe.

• if you consider ANY non-science course "easy."•

if when your professor asks you where your homework is, you claim tohave accidentally determined its momentum so precisely, that accordingto Heisenberg it could be anywhere in the universe.

• if the "fun" center of your brain has deteriorated from lack of use.

• if you understood more than five of these indicators.• if you make a hard copy of this list, and post it on your door.

If these indicators apply to you, there is good reason to suspect that you might beclassified as a physics student. I hope this clears up any confusion.

Created by Jason Lisle.

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Kid's Ideas About ScienceFrom the Boston Globe: The beguiling ideas about science quoted here weregleaned from essays, exams, and class room discussions. Most were from 5th and6th graders. They illustrate Mark Twain's contention that the 'most interestinginformation comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.'

Question: What is one horsepower? Answer: One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second. You can listen to thunder after lightening and tell how close you came to gettinghit. If you don't hear it, you got hit, so never mind.Talc is found on rocks and on babies.The law of gravity says no fair jumping up without coming back down. When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms.But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions. When people run around and around in circles we say they are crazy. Whenplanets do it we say they are orbiting.Someday we may discover how to make magnets that can point in any direction.Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change back into asun in the daytime. Water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees. There are 180 degrees between freezing and boiling because there are 180 degrees between north andsouth. A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants to go.There are 26 vitamins in all, but some of the letters are yet to be discovered.Finding them all means living forever.There is a tremendous weight pushing down on the center of the Earth because of so much population stomping around up there these days.Many dead animals in the past changed to fossils while others preferred to be oil.Some oxygen molecules help fires burn while others help make water, so

sometimes it's brother against brother.Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have never beenable to make out the numbers.In looking at a drop of water under a microscope, we find there are twice as many H's as O's.I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and thatis the important thing.Clouds just keep circling the earth around and around. And around. There is notmuch else to do.Humidity is the experience of looking for air and finding water. We keep track of the humidity in the air so we won't drown when we breathe.

Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a dogs tongue will kill the strongestman.Thunder is a rich source of loudness.Isotherms and isobars are even more important than their names sound.It is so hot in some places that the people there have to live in other places.

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MATHEMATICS

97.3% of all statistics are just made up.-----------------------------------------------------Did you hear the one about the statistician?

Probably...-----------------------------------------------------------3 out of 4 Americans make up 75% of the population.-----------------------------------------------------------Death is 99 per cent fatal to laboratory rats.----------------------------------------------------Some say the pope is the greatest cardinal.But others insist this cannot be so, as every pope has a successor.-------------------------------------------------------Theorem:

All positive integers are interesting.

Proof: Assume the contrary. Then there is a lowest non-interesting positive integer. But,hey, that's pretty interesting! A contradiction.---------------------------------------------------Theorem: All horses have an infinite number of legs.Proof (By Intimidation): Everyone would agree that all horses have an even number of legs. It is also well-known that horses have forelegs in front and two legs in back. 4+2=6 legs, whichis certainly an odd number of legs for a horse to have! Now the only number thatis both even and odd is infinity; therefore all horses have an infinite number of

legs.-------------------------------------------------------------------Theorem: A cat has nine tails.Proof: No cat has eight tails. A cat has one tail more than no cat. Therefore, a cat hasnine tails.--------------------------------------------------------------------1+1=3, for very large values of 1.-------------------------------------------------------------------Dean to the physics department: "Why do I always have to give You guys so much

money, for laboratories and expensive equipment and stuff. Why couldn't You belike the maths department? All they need is money for pencils, paper, and wastepaper baskets. Or even better, like the philosophy department. All they needis money for pencils and paper!"---------------------------------------------------- Answering machine message: "The number you have dialed is imaginary. Pleaserotate your phone 90 degrees and try again."--------------------------------------------------------------------



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Question:How many times can you subtract 7 from 83, and what is left afterwards? Answer:I can subtract it as many times as I want, and it leaves 76 every time.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Question: Why did the chicken cross the Möbius Strip? Answer:To get to the other... um... er...-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Question: What's the difference between a mathematician and a physicist? Answer: A mathematician thinks that two points are enough to define a straight line whilea physicist wants more data.--------------------------------------------------------------

If it wasn't for Thomas Edison, we'd all be watching TV to the light of a candle.-----------------------------------------------------------------------There are three types of mathematicians:Those who can count, and those who can't count.--------------------------------------------------------------------------

It has been proved that women only ever use 12% of their brain. The other half isnever used.

------------------------------------------------------------------ As Derivation approached, all functions fled, except the Natural Exponential:

- "Don't you fear me?" says Derivation.- "I am e to the x, you can't touch me."- "Oh, but who says I differentiate along x?"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A student comes to the department with a shiny new cup, the sort of which youget when having won something. He explained:I won it in the MD Math Contest. They asked what 7 + 7 is. I said 12 and got 3rdplace!---------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q: What do you get when you add 2 apples to 3 apples?

Answer: A senior high school math problem.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Teacher: Now suppose the number of sheep is x...Student: Yes sir, but what happens if the number of sheep is not x?



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Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?Is it really just to get to the other side?

Scientific explanations:The fittest chickens cross roads. [Darwin]

The road moved beneath the chicken. [Einstein]Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest, chickens in motion cross roads. [Newton] We're not sure which side of the road the chicken was on. [Heisenberg]There was already a chicken on this side of the road. [Pauli]

Unscientific ones:For fun. [Epicurus]It had a dream. [Martin Luther King Jr.]Because the road was there. [Sir Edmund Hilary]If you saw me coming you'd cross the road too! [Mr. T.]Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out. [Torquemada]None of your business: We own the chicken and we own the road. [Bill Gates]The chicken did not --I repeat: did not-- cross the road. [Richard Nixon]The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated. [Mark Twain]That's the way it is. [Walter Cronkite]I missed one? [Colonel Sanders]Define "road". [Bill Clinton]

Philosophical perspectives:It was a historical inevitability. [Karl Marx]It is in the nature of chickens to cross roads. [Aristotle]He was exercising his natural right to liberty. [John Locke]Gaze too long across the Road and the Road gazes across you. [Nietzsche]

The possibility was encoded into the objects "chicken" and "road". [Wittgenstein]If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature. [Buddha]

Spinoff:Q: Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip? A: To get to the same side.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A lecturer tells some students to learn the phone-book by heart.The mathematicians are baffled: `By heart? You kidding?'The mathematicians are baffled: `By heart? You kidding?'

The physics-students ask: `Why?'The engineers sigh: `Do we have to?'The chemistry-students ask: `Till next Monday?'The accounting-students (scribbling): `Till tomorrow?'The laws-students answer: `We already have.'The medicine-students ask: `Should we start on the Yellow Pages?'



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Our Top Picks Of Funny Units... In the Troy system of units, the millihelen is the amount of beauty required tolaunch one ship. Its value in natural units [natural beauty] is about0.001098612. A microhelen is roughly the amount of beauty required to motivate one sailor.

The microcentury is 52 minutes and 35.76 seconds and was introduced by EnricoFermi as the "standard" duration of a lecture period. It's equal to exactly 3155.76s, as an exact submultiple of the scientific Julian century, which is defined to beequal to 36525 days of 86400 (SI) seconds each.

The attoparsec (apc) is the only official SI unit in this dubious bunch, it's equal toabout an inch (or 1¼", more precisely, 3.08567758 cm)... Well, as they say, "Givesome people an attoparsec and they'll take 16.09344 tera-ångströms."

A nanoacre is exactly 4.0468564224 mm2.

The microfortnight is about one second (more precisely, 1.2096 s).

The furlong per fortnight is about 2 ft per hour (0.1663 mm/s).

The millicochrane and microcochrane are submultiples of a unit of subspacedistortion, named after Zefram Cochrane (2030-2117).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An insane mathematician gets on a bus and starts threatening everybody: "I'llintegrate you! I'll differentiate you!!!" Everybody gets scared and runs away. Only

one lady stays. The guy comes up to her and says: "Aren't you scared, I'll integrate you, I'll differentiate you!!!" The lady calmly answers: "No, I am not scared, I ame^x ."

The shortest math joke: let epsilon be < 0

Q: how many times can you subtract 7 from 83, and what is left afterwards? A: I can subtract it as many times as I want, and it leaves 76 every time.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the Moebius strip? A: To get to the other ... er, um ...

Q: Why did the mathematician name his dog "Cauchy"? A: Because he left a residue at every pole.

Two mathematicians are studying a convergent series. The first one says: "Do yourealize that the series converges even when all the terms are made positive?" Thesecond one asks: "Are you sure?" "Absolutely!"



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MnemonicsMnemonics Neatly Eliminate Man's Only Nemesis:Insufficient Cerebral Storage...My Nasty Editor Might Occasionally Not Interpret Commas...

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.[Operator Precedence: Parentheses, Exponent, Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract]

Important! Very eXcellent Learning Can Demand Memorizing.[Roman numerals: I V X L C D M]

King Hector Doesn't (Usually) Drink Cold Milk.[Original Metric Prefixes (1793): kilo, hecto, deca, (unity), deci, centi, milli]

Dairy Cows Make Milk Not Pink Fruit, Airhead![Metric submultiples: deci, centi, milli, micro, nano, pico, femto, atto]

Those Girls Can Flirt And Other Queer Things Can Do.[Mohs' scale: Talc, Gypsum, Calcite, Fluorite, Apatite, Orthoclase, Quartz, Topaz,Corundum, Diamond]

Pregnant Virgins Never Reveal the Truth[Ideal Gas Law: PV = nRT ]

OIL RIG[Redox Reactions: Oxidation Is Loss (of electrons); Reduction Is Gain.]

Cary Grant eXpects Unanimous Votes In Movie Reviews.

[Electromagnetic spectrum, highest frequency first: Cosmic rays, Gamma rays,X-rays, Ultraviolet, Visible, Infrared, Microwaves, Radio waves]

My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets.[Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto]Mon vieux, tu m'as jetté sur une nouvelle planète.[Mercure, Vénus, Terre, Mars, Jupiter, Saturne, Uranus, Neptune, Pluton]

Roy G. Biv (Richard Of York Gave Battle in Vain)[Colors of the Rainbow: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Numerical valuesCount the number of letters in each word to obtain each digit of the number. (A ten-letter word represents a zero digit.)

c = 299792458 m/s [= Speed of Light = Einstein's Constant]- My ingenious astronomy student remembers an easy light mnemonic.- We guarantee certainty, clearly referring to this light mnemonic.



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e = 2.718281828459045235360287471352662497757247...- By omnibus, I traveled to Brooklyn.[271828 -- David Mage]- It enables a numskull to memorize a quantity of numerals.[2718281828 -- Gene Widhoff]

- I'm forming a mnemonic to remember a function in analysis.[2718281828 -- Maxey Brooke]- It repeats: A constant of calculus, a constant of calculus.[2718281828 -- Jeffrey Strehlow]- To distrupt a playroom is commonly a practice of children.[2718281828 -- Joseph J Guiteras]- To express e, remember to memorize a sentence to simplify this.[27182818284 -- John L. Greene]- We require a mnemonic to remember e whenever we scribble math texts.[271828182845 -- Joona Palaste (of Helsinki; 2004-11-07 e-mail)]

p = 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751...- Yes, I have a number. [31416]- How I wish I could calculate Pi nearly right. [314159265]- See, I have a rhyme assisting my feeble brain. [314159265]- May I have a large container of coffee? Thank you. [3141592653]

The Evolution Of Math Teaching1960s: A peasant sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His costs amount to 4/5 of hisselling price. What is his profit?

1970s: A farmer sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His costs amount to 4/5 of his

selling price, that is, $8. What is his profit?

1970s (new math): A farmer exchanges a set P of potatoes with set M of money. The cardinality of the set M is equal to 10, and each element of M is worth$1. Draw ten big dots representing the elements of M. The set C of productioncosts is composed of two big dots less than the set M. Represent C as a subset of M and give the answer to the question: What is the cardinality of the set of profits?

1980s: A farmer sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His production costs are $8, andhis profit is $2. Underline the word "potatoes" and discuss with your classmates.

1990s: A farmer sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His or her production costs are0.80 of his or her revenue. On your calculator, graph revenue vs. costs. Run thePOTATO program to determine the profit. Discuss the result with students in your group. Write a brief essay that analyzes this example in the real world of economics.(Anon: The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 101, No. 5, May 1994)-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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Top Ten Excuses For Not Doing Homework:• I accidentally divided by zero and my paper burst into flames.• Isaac Newton's birthday.• I could only get arbitrarily close to my textbook. I couldn't actually reach

it.

• I have the proof, but there isn't room to write it in this margin.• I was watching the World Series and got tied up trying to prove that it

converged.• I have a solar powered calculator and it was cloudy.• I locked the paper in my trunk but a four-dimensional dog got in and ate

it.

• I couldn't figure out whether i am the square of negative one or i is thesquare root of negative one.

• I took time out to snack on a doughnut and a cup of coffee.• I spent the rest of the night trying to figure which one to dunk.• I could have sworn I put the homework inside a Klein bottle, but this

morning I couldn't find it.Warning! It is against the rule to use these excuses in classes!

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Two male mathematicians are in a bar. The first one says to the second that theaverage person knows very little about basic mathematics. The second onedisagrees, and claims that most people can cope with a reasonable amount of math.The first mathematician goes off to the washroom, and in his absence the second

calls over the waitress. He tells her that in a few minutes, after his friend hasreturned, he will call her over and ask her a question. All she has to do is answerone third x cubed.She repeats "one thir -- dex cue"?He repeats "one third x cubed".Her: `one thir dex cuebd'? Yes, that's right, he says. So she agrees, and goes off mumbling to herself, "one thir dex cuebd...".The first guy returns and the second proposes a bet to prove his point, that mostpeople do know something about basic math. He says he will ask the blonde waitress an integral, and the first laughingly agrees. The second man calls overthe waitress and asks "what is the integral of x squared?".

The waitress says "one third x cubed" and while walking away, turns back andsays over her shoulder "plus a constant!"

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Quotes From Math Students And Lecturers

"This is a one line proof...if we start sufficiently far to the left.""The problems for the exam will be similar to the discussed in the class. Of course, the numbers will be different. But not all of them. Pi will still be 3.14159...

""Roses are red, Violets are blue,Greens' functions are boring And so are Fourier transforms."

"Sex and drugs? They're nothing compared with a good proof!"

"Do you love your math more than me?""Of course not, dear - I love you much more.""Then prove it!""OK... Let R be the set of all lovable objects..."

A graduate student of mathematics who used to come to the University on footevery day arrives one day on a fancy new bicycle. "Where did you get the bikefrom?" his friends asked. "It's a `thank you' present", he explains, "from thatfreshman girl I've been tutoring. Yesterday she called me and told that she hadpassed her math final and wanted to drop by to thank me in person. She arrivedat my place on her bicycle. When I had let her in, she took all her clothes off,smiled at me, and said: `You can get from me whatever you desire!'" One of hisfriends remarks: "You made a really smart choice when you took the bicycle.""Yeah", another friend adds, "just imagine how silly you would have looked in agirl's clothes - and they wouldn't have fit you anyway!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dictionary Of Definitions Of Terms Commonly Used In Math.Lectures.

The following is a guide to terms which are commonly used but rarely defined. Inthe search for proper definitions for these terms we found no authoritative, noreven recognized, source. Thus, we followed the advice of mathematicians handeddown from time immortal: "Wing It."

CLEARLY:I don't want to write down all the "in- between" steps.

TRIVIAL:If I have to show you how to do this, you're in the wrong class.OBVIOUSLY:I hope you weren't sleeping when we discussed this earlier, because I refuse torepeat it.RECALL:I shouldn't have to tell you this, but for those of you who erase your memory tapes after every test...



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WLOG (Without Loss Of Generality):I'm not about to do all the possible cases, so I'll do one and let you figure out therest.IT CAN EASILY BE SHOWN:Even you, in your finite wisdom, should be able to prove this without me holding

your hand.CHECK or CHECK FOR YOURSELF:This is the boring part of the proof, so you can do it on your own time.SKETCH OF A PROOF:I couldn't verify all the details, so I'll break it down into the parts I couldn't prove.HINT:The hardest of several possible ways to do a proof.BRUTE FORCE (AND IGNORANCE):Four special cases, three counting arguments, two long inductions, "and apartridge in a pair tree."SOFT PROOF:One third less filling (of the page) than your regular proof, but it requires twoextra years of course work just to understand the terms.ELEGANT PROOF:Requires no previous knowledge of the subject matter and is less than ten lineslong.SIMILARLY: At least one line of the proof of this case is the same as before.CANONICAL FORM:4 out of 5 mathematicians surveyed recommended this as the final form for theirstudents who choose to finish.TFAE (The Following Are Equivalent):If I say this it means that, and if I say that it means the other thing, and if I say

the other thing...BY A PREVIOUS THEOREM:I don't remember how it goes (come to think of it I'm not really sure we did this atall), but if I stated it right (or at all), then the rest of this follows.TWO LINE PROOF:I'll leave out everything but the conclusion, you can't question 'em if you can't see'em.BRIEFLY:I'm running out of time, so I'll just write and talk faster.LET'S TALK THROUGH IT:I don't want to write it on the board lest I make a mistake.

PROCEED FORMALLY :Manipulate symbols by the rules without any hint of their true meaning (popularin pure math courses).QUANTIFY:I can't find anything wrong with your proof except that it won't work if x is amoon of Jupiter (Popular in applied math courses).PROOF OMITTED:Trust me, It's true.



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Theorems Here, the powerful mathematical methods are successively applied to the"real life problems".

Interesting Theorem:

All positive integers are interesting.Proof: Assume the contrary. Then there is a lowest non-interesting positive integer. But,hey, that's pretty interesting! A contradiction.

Theorem:There are two groups of people in the world; those who believe that the world can be divided into two groups of people, and those who don't.

Theorem: The world is divided into two classes: people who say "The world is divided intotwo classes",and people who say: The world is divided into two classes: people who say: "The world is divided into two classes",and people who say: The world is divided into two classes: people who say ...

There are three kinds of people in the world; those who can count and those whocan't.

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary math,and those who don't.

There really are only two types of people in the world, those that DON'T

DO MATH, and those that take care of them.

Cat Theorem: A cat has nine tails.Proof:No cat has eight tails. A cat has one tail more than no cat. Therefore, a cat hasnine tails.

Salary Theorem The less you know, the more you make.Proof: Postulate 1: Knowledge is Power.

Postulate 2: Time is Money .As every engineer knows: Power = Work / Time And since Knowledge = Power and Time = Money It is therefore true that Knowledge = Work / Money .Solving for Money , we get:Money = Work / Knowledge Thus, as Knowledge approaches zero, Money approaches infinity, regardless of the amount of Work done.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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Q: What does the zero(0) say to the the eight (8)? A: Nice belt!

Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.

Math problems? Call 1-800-[(10x)(13i)2]-[sin(xy)/2.362x]."Divide fourteen sugar cubes into three cups of coffee so that each cup has an oddnumber of sugar cubes in it." "That's easy: one, one, and twelve." "But twelve isn'todd!" "Twelve is an odd number of cubes to put in a cup of coffee..."

A statistician can have his head in an oven and his feet in ice, and he will say thaton the average he feels fine.

Q: Did you hear the one about the statistician? A: Probably....

The Light Bulb ProblemQ: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A1: None. It's left to the reader as an exercise. A2: None. A mathematician can't screw in a light bulb, but he can easily prove the work can be done.

How many numerical analysts does it take to replace a lightbulb??3.9967: (after six iterations).

How many professors does it take to replace a lightbulb??One: With eight research students, two programmers, three post-docs and a

secretary to help him.How many university lecturers does it take to replace a lightbulb??Four: One to do it and three to co-author the paper.How many graduate students does it take to replace a lightbulb??Only one: But it takes nine years.How many math department administrators does it take to replace a lightbulb?None: What was wrong with the old one then???

How We Do It ... Aerodynamicists do it in drag. Algebraists do it in a ring, in fields, in groups.

Analysts do it continuously and smoothly. Applied mathematicians do it by computer simulation.Banach spacers do it completely.Bayesians do it with improper priors.Catastrophe theorists do it falling off part of a sheet.Combinatorists do it as many ways as they can.Complex analysts do it between the sheetsComputer scientists do it depth-first.



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Cosmologists do it in the first three minutes.Decision theorists do it optimally.Functional analysts do it with compact support.Galois theorists do it in a field.Game theorists do it by dominance or saddle points.

Geometers do it with involutions.Geometers do it symmetrically.Graph theorists do it in four colors.Hilbert spacers do it orthogonally.Large cardinals do it inaccessibly.Linear programmers do it with nearest neighbors.Logicians do it by choice, consistently and completely.Logicians do it incompletely or inconsistently.(Logicians do it) or [not (logicians do it)].Number theorists do it perfectly and rationally.Mathematical physicists understand the theory of how to do it, but have difficulty obtaining practical results.Pure mathematicians do it rigorously.Quantum physicists can either know how fast they do it, or where they do it, butnot both.Real analysts do it almost everywhereRing theorists do it non-commutatively.Set theorists do it with cardinals.Statisticians probably do it.Topologists do it openly, in multiply connected domains Variationists do it locally and globally.

Cantor did it diagonally.

Fermat tried to do it in the margin, but couldn't fit it in.Galois did it the night before.Mðbius always does it on the same side.Markov does it in chains.Newton did it standing on the shoulders of giants.Turing did it but couldn't decide if he'd finished.

A Slice Of Pi

******************3.141592653589791640628620899

231725359408810975665432664091710365

******************************************************



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Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician Jokes

The “Odd Primes” Joke

A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers,

(greater than 2), are prime. Their responses:Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is acounter-example so the statement is false"Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and sois 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty."Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime."

Adding other professions to the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all oddintegers are prime."Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-

example - claim is false.Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is aprime ...Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ...Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation faultLawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, althoughthere appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there existssubstantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. Thefollowing brief presents the case for nine's primeness...Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived culturalenvironment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural

enrichment program.Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime,five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime...Bush: What's nine got against being prime? I'll bet it won't allow the pledge of allegiance to be said in our schools either.Richard Nixon: Put nine on the enemies list. I'm gonna get that number.Rec.humor poster: one is prime, one is prime, one is prime, one is primeProfessor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise forthe student.Computational linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9is a very odd prime,...

Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime...Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish!Measure nontheorist: there are exactly as many odd numbers as primes (Euclid,Cantor), and exactly one even prime (namely 2), so there must be exactly one oddnonprime (namely 1).New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMNBUSINESS!



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Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the nextrelease,...C programmer: 03 is prime, 05 is prime, 07 is prime, 09 is really 011 whicheveryone knows is prime,...

BASIC programmer: What's a prime?COBOL programmer: What's an odd number?Programmer: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 7's a prime, 7's a prime,...Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- we'll do for you the best we can,...Computer Software Salesperson: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be primein the next release,...Biologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- results have not arrived yet,... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,...Lawyer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- there is not enough evidenceto prove that it is not a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducing 10% tax and5% other obligations.Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is aprime, 11 is a prime...Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries tosuppress it...

The “Calculation” Jokes Three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist & an engineer, took their finaltest for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one".The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he

said: I have proven its a natural numberThe physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better maake it three, just to be safe.

A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three timesthree is.The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttonsand announced: "9.0000".The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00

+/- 0.02".The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half anhour. He the returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I haveproved that it is unique!



- 40 -

The “Fire!” Joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when afire broke out in their respective rooms.The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes,

she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, andmeasured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep.The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucetsfull-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after afew minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven*that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep.

Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in ahotel while attending a technical seminar.The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees afire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a firein the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating theflame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire withthe minimum amount of water and energy needed.Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. He goes to the hall, seesthe fire and then the fire hose. He thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, asolution exists!' and then goes back to bed.

A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. Thephysicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the firesuccessfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffeeand talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematicianstands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved...

The “Herding Sheep” Joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The

engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence aroundthem, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radiusaround the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring,"This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician islast. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence aroundhimself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!"



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The “Black Sheep” Joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying inScotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in themiddle of a field.

"How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!"To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!"The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "InScotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least oneside of which is black."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watchingpeople going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. Firstthey see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they noticethree persons coming out of the house.The physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate."The biologist: "They have reproduced".The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will beempty again."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineerspied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!"said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You'reincompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by

three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting forhours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon,and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," anddrifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously amathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because whatshe said was completely true, but utterly useless."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How they knew it was a deer:The physicist observed that it behaved in a deer-like manner, so it must be a deer.The mathematician asked the physicist what it was, thereby reducing it to apreviously solved problem.The engineer was in the woods to hunt deer, therefore it was a deer.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------



- 42 -

Pi What is the value of PI?Mathematician: approximately 3.1415927..Physicist: it's 3.14Engineer: a little more than 3

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Similarly, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given 50 poundsto measure the height of a building.The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the anglesubtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishesthe height of the building.The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the buildingand drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, heestablishes the height of the building.The engineer puts forty pounds into his pocket. By slipping the doorman theother ten, he establishes the height of the building.

Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2000. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A chemist, a physicist, and a geologist were walking along a beach when thephysicist suddenly said that he wanted to measure the depth of the sea, and thenhe jumped into the sea. The geologist said that he wanted to see the seabed andhe followed suit. The chemist waited for a while for them to reappear and thenconcluded, "physicists and geologists are soluble in sea water."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Measurement Techniques A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given 50 pounds tomeasure the height of a building.

The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the anglesubtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishesthe height of the building.

The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the buildingand drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he

establishes the height of the building.

The engineer puts forty pounds into his pocket. By slipping the doorman theother ten, he establishes the height of the building.

Taken from the electronic bulletin of the Network of Student Physical Societies,1994 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



- 43 -

Conclusions...

A Mathematician, a Biologist and a Physicist are sitting in a street cafe watchingpeople going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. Firstthey see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice

three persons coming out of the house.The Physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate."The Biologist: "They have reproduced".The Mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will beempty again." Based on an unoriginal email forwarded by Pauline Sinclair <http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mert0043/>, July 1996. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Top 10 Traits Of The PseudoscientistSociety is developing a new breed of "intellect": the pseudoscientist. Too lazy todo real work to research a topic, the pseudoscientist is armed with a strongcuriousity, an enlarged ego, and a dose of authoritian paranoia. You might be a pseudoscientist if:

• You believe your subscription to Analog provides the necessary background to argue with PhD scientists.

• You think "real" science is mostly developed in garages or hobby rooms.• You think scientists are inflexible to changing paradigms (using one of

pseudoscientists' favorite terms). See definition of "Science."• You think the government, big business, or traditional scientists are in a

conspiracy to prevent the pseudoscientists from showing the "truth" to therest of the world, motivated by such movies as "Chain Reaction."

• You think science is purely to start a business and make money.• You think it's cool to announce impossible-sounding claims to the media without a peer review process (see #4 above), expository discussion, or

other legitimizing process. You may believe the US Patent Office is alegitimizing process, if they aren't in conspiracy with #4 above.

• You're aiming for the Einsteinian turn-science-upside-down revolution of thought and universal understanding, based on your two years of highschool physics and a copy of Omni magazine.

• You think highly suspicious behavior is actually the way people protectthemselves from intellectual theft.

• Your ego is large enough to tell the world that its understanding of theuniverse has always been wrong, and your fantastic, undocumented,

unverified, unrecorded, and unreproducable experiment proves it.• Your college degree (if you have one) and your pseudoscientist interests

have absolutely nothing in common. For instance, you may be arguingabout fusion with a PhD in nuclear physics (and inflating your ego by doing so), while you only have a nursing degree.

Based on an original Usenet posting to sci.physics.fusion<news:sci.physics.fusion> by Jeramie Hicks July 1997.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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BreakdownFour engineers were travelling by car to a seminar, when unfortunately, the vehicle broke down.The chemical engineer said "Obviously, some constituent of the fuel has causedthis failure to occur."

The mechanical engineer replied "I disagree, I would surmise that an enginecomponent has suffered a catastrophic structural failure."The electrical engineer also had a theory. "I believe an electrical component hasceased to function, thereby causing an ignition malfunction."The software engineer thought for some time. When at last he spoke he said"What would happen if we all got out and then got back in again?" Based on an unoriginal email forwarded by Pauline Sinclair <http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mert0043/> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another Fire! A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when afire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ranover to his desk, pulled out his CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluiddynamics equations. After a couple minutes, he threw down his pencil, got agraduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. He threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep.The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the tapsfull-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep.The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began workingthrough theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes,put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can*

put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Based on an unoriginal email forwarded by Pauline Sinclair <http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mert0043/>, July 1996. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------On a train to a large convention there were a bunch of engineers and a bunch of chemists. Each of the engineers had a train ticket. The group of chemists had only ONE ticket for all of them. The engineers started laughing, figuring the chemists were going to get caught and thrown off the train. When one of the chemists, the lookout, said "Here comes the conductor", all of the chemists went into the bathroom. The engineers were puzzled.The conductor came aboard, said "tickets please" and got tickets from all the

engineers. He then went to the bathroom and knocked on the door and said"ticket please". The chemists stuck the ticket under the door. The conductor took it and moved on. A few minutes later the chemists came out of the bathroom. Theengineers felt really stupid.On the way back from the convention, the group of engineers decided that they would try that method, too. They bought one ticket for the whole group. They metup with the chemists in the same car.



- 45 -

Again, the engineers started snickering at the chemists. This time NONE of thechemists had tickets. When the lookout said, "Conductor coming!", all thechemists went to one bathroom and all the engineers went to the other bathroom.Before the conductor came on board, one of the chemists left their bathroom,knocked on the engineers' bathroom, and said "Ticket please."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A doctor, a lawyer, and a mathematician were discussing the relative merits of having a wife or a mistress.The lawyer says: "For sure a mistress is better. If you have a wife and want adivorce, it causes all sorts of legal problems."The doctor says: "It's better to have a wife because the sense of security lowers your stress and is good for your health."The mathematician says: " You're both wrong. It's best to have both so that whenthe wife thinks you're with the mistress and the mistress thinks you're with your wife - you can do some mathematics." A mathematician and an engineer attend a lecture by a physicist. The topicconcerns Kulza-Klein theories involving physical processes that occur in spaces with dimensions of 9, 12 and even higher. The mathematician is sitting, clearly enjoying the lecture, while the engineer is frowning and looking generally confused and puzzled. At the end, the engineer has a terrible headache, whereasthe mathematician comments about the wonderful lecture.E: "How do you understand this stuff?"M: "I just visualize the process."E: "How can you *possibly* visualize something that occurs in 9-dimensionalspace?"M: "Easy, first visualize it in N-dimensional space, then let N be 9"-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Approaches to find the value of 2+2.

Engineer (after 3 minutes, with a slide rule): "The answer is precisely 3.9974."Physicist (after 6 hours of experiments): "The value is approximately 4.002, withan error of plus-or-minus 0.005."Mathematician (after a week of calculation): "Well, I haven't found an answer yet but I *can* prove that an answer exists."Philosopher: "But what do you mean by 2+2?"Logician: "Please define 2+2 more precisely." Accountant: Closes all the doors and windows, looks around carefully, then asks"What do you want the answer to be?"Computer Hacker: Breaks into the NSA super-computer and gives the answer.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possibledesigners of the human body.One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints." Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections."The last said, "Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic wastepipeline through a recreational area?"-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



- 46 -

A mathematician is asked to design a table. He first designs a table with no legs.Then he designs a table with infinitely many legs. He spend the rest of his lifegeneralizing the results for the table with N legs (where N is not necessarily anatural number).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In some foreign country a priest, a lawyer and an engineer are about to beguillotined.The priest puts his head on the block, they pull the rope and nothing happens --he declares that he's been saved by divine intervention -- so he's let go.The lawyer is put on the block, and again the rope doesn't release the blade, heclaims he can't be executed twice for the same crime and he is set free too.They grab the engineer and shove his head into the guillotine, he looks up at therelease mechanism and says, "Wait a minute, I see your problem..."

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Two male mathematicians are in a bar. The first one says to the second that theaverage person knows very little about basic mathematics. The second onedisagrees, and claims that most people can cope with a reasonable amount of math. The first mathematician goes off to the washroom, and in his absence thesecond calls over the waitress. He tells her that in a few minutes, after his friendhas returned, he will call her over and ask her a question. All she has to do isanswer one third x cubed. She repeats "one thir -- dex cue?" He repeats "one thirdx cubed". Her: "one thir dex cuebd?" "Yes, that's right", he says. So she agrees,and goes off mumbling to herself, "one thir dex cubed...". The first guy returnsand the second proposes a bet to prove his point, that most people do know something about basic math. He says he will ask the blonde waitress an integral,

and the first laughingly agrees. The second man calls over the waitress and asks"What is the integral of x squared?". The waitress says "one third x cubed" and while walking away, turns back and says over her shoulder "plus a constant!"

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A doctor, an architect, and a politician were arguing about whose profession wasthe oldest. In the course of their arguments, they got all the way back to theGarden of Eden.The doctor says: The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve wasmade from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible

surgical feat.The architect says: But if you look at the Garden itself, in the beginning there waschaos and void, and out of that, the Garden and the world were created. So Godmust have been an architect.The politician smiles: Yes, but who do you think created the chaos ?

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An engineer, a physicist, a mathematician, and a mystic were asked to name thegreatest invention of all time. The engineer chose fire, which gave humanity power over matter. The physicist chose the wheel, which gave humanity thepower over space. The mathematician chose the alphabet, which gave humanity power over symbols. The mystic chose the thermos bottle.

"Why a thermos bottle?" the others asked."Because the thermos keeps hot liquids hot in winter and cold liquids cold insummer.""Yes -- so what?""Think about it." said the mystic reverently. That little bottle -- how does it*know*?"---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A mathematician and an engineer are on desert island. They find two palm trees with one coconut each. The engineer climbs up one tree, gets the coconut, eats.The mathematician climbs up the other tree, gets the coconut, climbs the othertree and puts it there. "Now we've reduced it to a problem we know how to solve."----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Milk ProductionThe USDA once wanted to make cows produce milk faster, to improve the dairy industry. So, they decided to consult the foremost biologists and recombinantDNA technicians to build them a better cow. They assembled this team of greatscientists, and gave them unlimited funding. They requested rare chemicals, weird bacteria, tons of quarantine equipment, there was a horrible typhusepidemic they started by accident, and, 2 years later, they came back with the"new, improved cow." It had a milk production improvement of 2% over theoriginal.

They then tried with the greatest Nobel Prize winning chemists around. They worked for six months, and, after requisitioning tons of chemical equipment, andpoisoning half the small town in Colorado where they were working with a toxiccloud from one of their experiments, they got a 5% improvement in milk output.The physicists tried for a year, and, after ten thousand cows were subjected toradiation therapy, they got a 1% improvement in output.

Finally, in desperation, they turned to the mathematicians. The foremostmathematician of his time offered to help them with the problem. Upon hearingthe problem, he told the delegation that they could come back in the morning and

he would have solved the problem. In the morning, they came back, and hehanded them a piece of paper with the computations for the new, 300% improvedmilk cow.The plans began: "A Proof of the Attainability of Increased Milk Output fromBovines: Consider a spherical cow......"

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CowsIan writes: Farmer smith was not satisfied with the yield of his milk cows, so hedecided to called in an animal psychologist, an engineer and a physicist to try andimprove matters. All three inspected the farm and the cows and made thererecommendations.

The animal psychologist went first, "If you paint the milking shed green the cows will be happier and happy cows will give more milk."Then came the turn of the engineer. "If you narrow the milking stalls by 10centimeters you will be able to add an extra stall and thus be able to milk an extracow in the same time."Farmer Smith was very happy so far, now it came to the turn of the physicist. Hegot out a black board and started drawing an elaborate diagram. Then he startedto talk: "First, we approximate the Cow as a sphere of radius r."

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A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were traveling through Scotland when they saw a black sheep through the window of the train."Aha," says the engineer, "I see that Scottish sheep are black.""Hmm," says the physicist, "You mean that some Scottish sheep are black.""No," says the mathematician, "All we know is that there is at least one sheep inScotland, and that at least one side of that one sheep is black!"

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A mathematician, a physicist, an engineer went again to the races and laid theirmoney down. Commiserating in the bar after the race, the engineer says, "I don'tunderstand why I lost all my money. I measured all the horses and calculated

their strength and mechanical advantage and figured out how fast they couldrun..."The physicist interrupted him: "...but you didn't take individual variations intoaccount. I did a statistical analysis of their previous performances and bet on thehorses with the highest probability of winning...""...so if you're so hot why are you broke?" asked the engineer. But before theargument can grow, the mathematician takes out his pipe and they get a glimpseof his well-fattened wallet. Obviously here was a man who knows somethingabout horses. They both demanded to know his secret."Well," he says, "first I assumed all the horses were identical and spherical..."-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A physicist and a mathematician are sitting in a faculty lounge. Suddenly, thecoffee machine catches on fire. The physicist grabs a bucket and leap towards thesink, filled the bucket with water and puts out the fire. Second day, the same twosit in the same lounge. Again, the coffee machine catches on fire. This time, themathematician stands up, got a bucket, hands the bucket to the physicist, thusreducing the problem to a previously solved one.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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Several scientists were all posed the following question: "What is 2 * 2 ?"The engineer whips out his slide rule (so it's old) and shuffles it back and forth,and finally announces "3.99".The physicist consults his technical references, sets up the problem on hiscomputer, and announces "it lies between 3.98 and 4.02".

The mathematician cogitates for a while, then announces: "I don't know what theanswer is, but I can tell you, an answer exists!".Philosopher smiles: "But what do you mean by 2 * 2 ?"Logician replies: "Please define 2 * 2 more precisely."The sociologist: "I don't know, but is was nice talking about it".Behavioral Ecologist: "A polygamous mating system".Medical Student : "4" All others looking astonished : "How did you know ??"Medical Student : :I memorized it."------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An chemist, a physicist, and a mathematician are stranded on an island when acan of food rolls ashore. The chemist and the physicist comes up with many ingenious ways to open the can. Then suddenly the mathematician gets a brightidea: "Assume we have a can opener ..."-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------New York (CNN): At John F. Kennedy International Airport today, a highschool mathematics teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while inpossession of a compass, a protractor and a graphical calculator. According to law enforcement officials, he is believed to have ties to the Al-Gebra network. He will be charged with carrying weapons of math instruction. It was later discoveredthat he taught the students to solve their problem with the help of radicals!---------------------------------------------------------------------------One day a farmer called up an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician andasked them to fence of the largest possible area with the least amount of fence.

The engineer made the fence in a circle and proclaimed that he had the mostefficient design.The physicist made a long, straight line and proclaimed "We can assume thelength is infinite..." and pointed out that fencing off half of the Earth wascertainly a more efficient way to do it.The Mathematician just laughed at them. He built a tiny fence around himself and said "I declare myself to be on the outside."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A mathematician organizes a lottery in which the prize is an infinite amount of money. When the winning ticket is drawn, and the jubilant winner comes to

claim his prize, the mathematician explains the mode of payment: "1 dollar now,1/2 dollar next week, 1/3 dollar the week after that..."------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A mathematician decides he wants to learn more about practical problems. Hesees a seminar with a nice title: "The Theory of Gears." So he goes. The speakerstands up and begins, "The theory of gears with a real number of teeth is wellknown ..."------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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When a statistician passes the airport security check, they discover a bomb in his bag. He explains. "Statistics shows that the probability of a bomb being on anairplane is 1/1000. However, the chance that there are two bombs at one plane is1/1000000. So, I am much safer..."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q: What will a logician choose: a half of an egg or eternal bliss in the afterlife? A: A half of an egg! Because nothing is better than eternal bliss in the afterlife, and ahalf of an egg is better than nothing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A physicist has been conducting experiments and has worked out a set of equations which seem to explain his data. He asks a mathematician to check them. A week later, the mathematician calls "I'm sorry, but your equations arecomplete nonsense." "But these equations accurately predict results of experiments. Are you sure they are completely wrong? "To be precise, they arenot always a complete nonsense. But the only case in which they are true is thetrivial one where the field is Euclidean..."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------To mathematicians, solutions mean finding the answers. But to chemists,solutions are things that are still all mixed up.

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A Mathematician (M) and an Engineer (E) attend a lecture by a Physicist. Thetopic concerns Kulza-Klein theories involving physical processes that occur inspaces with dimensions of 9, 12 and even higher. The M is sitting, clearly enjoying

the lecture, while the E is frowning and looking generally confused and puzzled.By the end the E has a terrible headache. At the end, the M comments about the wonderful lecture.E: "How do you understand this stuff?"M: "I just visualize the process"E: "How can you POSSIBLY visualize something that occurs in 9-dimensionalspace?"M: "Easy, first visualize it in N-dimensional space, then let N go to 9"

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ANECDOTESHi, Well, this is my most favourite section…..anecdotes about some of the greatestminds in human history… particularly scientists and mathematicians. Enjoy!! Yours,

Gautam.*****************************************

Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)One student in Rutherford's lab was very hard-working. Rutherford had noticedit and asked one evening: - Do you work in the mornings too?- Yes, - proudly answered the student sure he would be commended.- But when do you think? - amazed Rutherford.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Einstein : “It is hard to teach in a co-ed college since guys are only looking on

girls and not listening to the teacher.”He was objected that they would be listening to HIM very attentively, forgettingabout any girls.“But such guys won't be worth teaching!!” - replied the great man.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------During a lecture, Professor Dirac made a mistake in an equation he was writingon the blackboard. A courageous student raises his finger and says timidly :"Professor Dirac, I do not understand equation 2.".Dirac continues writing without any reaction. The student supposes Dirac has notheard him and raises his finger again, and says, louder this time: "ProfessorDirac, I do not understand equation 2."

No reaction. Somebody on the first row decides to intervene and says: "ProfessorDirac, that man is asking a question.""Oh," Dirac replies, “I thought he was making a statement ."---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Einstein never has to dress well. When Einstein's Wife told him to dress properly when going to the office heargued:"Why should I? Everyone knows me there." When he was told to dress properly for his first big conference:"Why should I? No one knows me there."---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was well known to Pauli's co-workers that Pauli should be kept away fromexperiments. When he came near any experiment it would go wrong andinstruments would go broke. This became known as the Pauli Effect.One day an important experiment went wrong without any apparent reason.Pauli was not even around, so this was very strange .... until they discovered a few days later that Pauli was in the train that was passing the building at the time of the crash.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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One day while Mr. Edison and I were were calling on Luther Burbank inCalifornia, he asked us to register in his guest book. The book had a column forsignature, another for home address, another for occupation and a final oneentitled 'Interested in'. Mr. Edison signed in a few quick but unhurried

motions...In the final column he wrote without a moment's hesitation:' Everything.'-- Henry Ford, _My Friend Mr. Edison_

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------How about the story of the MIT student who cornered the famous John vonNeumann in the hallway:Student: "Er, excuse me, Professor von Neumann, could you please help me witha calculus problem?"John: "Okay, sonny, if it's real quick -- I'm a busy man."Student: "I'm having trouble with this integral."John: "Let's have a look."(A brief pause here)"Alright, sonny, the answer's two-pi over 5."Student: "I know that, sir, the answer's in the back -- I'm having trouble derivingit, though."John: "Okay, let me see it again."(Another pause)"The answer's two-pi over 5."Student (frustrated): "Uh, sir, I know the answer , I just don't see how to derive it."John: "Whaddya want, sonny, I worked the problem in two different ways!"

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Albert Einstein apparently referred to formal occasions, parties etc as "feedingtime at the zoo"!

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In the period that Einstein was active as a professor, one of his students came tohim and said: "The questions of this year's exam are the same as last years!""True," Einstein said, "but this year all answers are different."

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It is told that in 1921 George de Hevesey suspected that the leftovers from hisdinner were not thrown away, but kept for the next day. To check that he added aminimal amount of a radioactive substance to his leftovers. The next day hetested the goulash soup that was served to him with a Geiger counter. The soup was indeed radioactive. And this way radioactive tracers were discovered.



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Bischoff, one of the leading anatomists of Europe, thrived in the 1870s. Hecarefully measured brain weights, and after many years' accumulation of muchdata he observed that the average weight of a man's brain was 1350 grams, that of a woman only 1250 grams.This at once, he argued, was infallible proof of the mental superiority of men over

women. Throughout his life he defended this hypothesis with the conviction of azealot. Being the true scientist, he specified in his will that his own brain beadded to his impressive collection.The postmortem examination elicited the interesting fact that his own brain weighed only 1245 grams. -- Scientific American [March 1992]

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Einstein once went to a restaurant. The waiter placed a menu-card before him.Unfortunately Einstein had left his reading glasses home, so he said to waiter,"Would you please read it out to me?"The waiter hesitated a bit and then replied," I would have been glad to Sir, but Iam also an illiterate like you."

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While lecturing on 'ideal gases' one day, Ludwig Boltzmann casually mentioned anumber of complex calculations. Near the end of the class, the students, utterly unable to follow his progress, asked Boltzmann to do his calculations on the blackboard.He apologized and promised to do better next time... Soon enough, the nextlesson arrived."Gentlemen," Boltzmann began, "if we combine Boyle's law with Charles's law we

get the equation pv = psub 0 vsub 0 (1 + a t)... Now it is clear that sub a S sup b =f(x) dx x (a), so pv = RT and sub V S f(x,y,z) dV = 0. It is as simple as one and oneequals two."Then, suddenly recalling his promise from the previous class, he dutifully wrote"1 + 1 = 2" on the blackboard before continuing with the lecture.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In 1966 Richard Feynman, a passionate drummer, was asked by a Swedishencyclopedia publisher to supply a photograph of himself "beating the drum togive a human approach to a presentation of the difficult matter that theoreticalphysics represents."

Feynman's reply: Dear Sir, The fact that I beat a drum has nothing to do with thefact that I do theoretical physics. Theoretical physics is a human endeavor, one of the higher developments of human beings, and the perpetual desire to prove thatpeople who do it are human by showing that they do other things that a few otherhumans do (like playing bongo drums) is insulting to me. I am human enough totell you to go to hell. Yours, RPF.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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While musing upon the subject of thermodynamics one day, Lord Kelvinsuddenly realized that his wife was discussing plans for an afternoon excursion."At what time," he asked, glancing up, "does the dissipation of energy begin?"

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Physicist James Franck was among the professors who examined the twenty-three-year-old Robert Oppenheimer for his doctorate at Gottingen University.Upon emerging from the oral examination, Franck appeared somewhat shaken.

"I got out of there just in time," the professor explained. "He was beginning to ask me questions!"

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THE CLASSICAL scholar Gilbert Murray one day encountered Einstein sitting inthe quadrangle of Christ Church, Oxford. The exiled scientist was deep inthought, with a serene and cheerful expression on his face.Murray asked Einstein what he was thinking about."I am thinking that, after all,” murmured the great genius, “Sun is a very smallstar!!"---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Niels Bohr had a propensity for thinking aloud, often using a convenient studentor colleague as a sounding board. On one occasion, Bohr, in search of company after a week-long ocean voyage, entered Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study,cornered two colleagues (Abraham Pais and Wolfgang Pauli) into an office, satthem down, and proceeded to muse at length on quantum theory.They were finally able to interrupt - two hours later.

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After Einstein had fled from Hitler's Germany, one hundred Nazi professorspublished a book condemning his theory of relativity. "If I were wrong," Einsteinsaid in his defense, "one professor would have been enough."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Scientific American once ran a competition offering several thousand dollars for

the best explanation of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity in threethousand words."I'm the only one in my entire circle of friends who is not entering," Einsteinruefully remarked. "I don't believe I could do it."

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The great mathematician Waclaw Sierpinski was old and rather absent-minded.Once he had to move to a new place for some reason. His wife didn't trust him very much, so when they stood down on the street with all their things, she said:“ - Now, you stand here and watch our ten trunks, while I go and get a taxi.”She left and left him there, eyes somewhat glazed and humming absently.

Some minutes later she returned, presumably having called for a taxi.Says Mr. Sierpinski :“ - I thought you said there were ten trunks, but I've only counted nine.”“ - No, they're TEN!”“ - No, count them: 0, 1, 2, ..."-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One day, one of Albert Einstein's assistants expressed his joy that experimentalresults had confirmed the General Theory of Relativity."But I knew that the theory was correct," Einstein calmly remarked. The assistantthen asked what he would have done had his predictions not been confirmed."Then," Einstein replied, "I would have felt sorry for our dear God - the theory iscorrect."

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Von Neumann supposedly had the habit of simply writing answers to homework assignments on the board (the method of solution being, of course, obvious) when he was asked how to solve problems. One time one of his students tried toget more helpful information by asking if there was another way to solve theproblem. Von Neumann looked blank for a moment, thought, and then answered, "Yes".

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Einstein once wrote to a fifteen-year-old girl who had written for help on ahomework assignment:"Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics; I can assure you that mineare much greater."

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Ernst Eduard Kummer (1810-1893), a German algebraist, was sometimes slow atcalculations. Whenever he had occasion to do simple arithmetic in class, he

would get his students to help him. Once he had to find 7 x 9. "Seven times nine,"he began, "Seven times nine is er -- ah --- ah -- seven times nine is. . . .""Sixtyone,"a student suggested. Kummer wrote 61 on the board."Sir," said another student, "it should be sixty-nine." "Come, come, gentlemen, itcan't be both," Kummer exclaimed. "It must be one or the other."

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The following problem can be solved either the easy way or the hard way.Two trains 200 miles apart are moving toward each other; each one is going at aspeed of 50 miles per hour. A fly starting on the front of one of them flies back and forth between them at a rate of 75 miles per hour. It does this until the trainscollide and crush the fly to death. What is the total distance the fly has flown?

One could solve the problem the hard way with pencil and paper by summing aninfinite series of distances. The easy way is as follows: Since the trains are 200miles apart and each train is going 50 miles an hour, it takes 2 hours for thetrains to collide. Therefore the fly was flying for two hours. Since the fly wasflying at a rate of 75 miles per hour, the fly must have flown 150 miles. That's allthere is to it. When this problem was posed to John von Neumann, he immediately replied,"150miles.""It is very strange," said the poser, "but nearly everyone tries to sum the infiniteseries.""What do you mean, strange?" asked Neumann. "That's exactly how I did it!"

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EINSTEIN went to look at a kibbutz while on a visit to Palestine in 1921. Heasked many questions of the 22-year-old girl who was head of the youngcommunity. One question was,"What is the relationship here of men to women?"Thinking that he was one of the many visitors who thought that women werecommon property in the kibbutz, she stammered, very embarrassed,"But, Herr Professor, each man here has one woman."Einstein's eyes twinkled. He took the girl's hand and said,

"Don't be alarmed at my question - by 'relationship' we physicists meansomething rather simple, and that is… how many men are there and how many women?"

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IN 1931 Charlie Chaplin invited Albert Einstein, who was visiting Hollywood, to aprivate screening of his new film City Lights. As the two men drove into towntogether, passersby waved and cheered. Chaplin turned to his guest andexplained:"The people are applauding you because none of them understands you and

applauding me because everybody understands me."

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In his lecture, Von Neumann formulated a theorem and said: "The proof isobvious". Then he thought for a minute, left the lecture room, returned after 15minutes and happily concluded: "It is indeed obvious!"



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Around the time when Cold War started, Bertrand Russell was giving a lecture onpolitics in England. Being a communist in a conservative women's club, he wasnot received well at all: the ladies came up to him and started attacking him with whatever they could get their hands on. The guard, being an English gentleman,did not want to be rough to the ladies and yet needed to save Russell from them.

Guard shouted, "He is a great mathematician!" The ladies ignored him. Theguard said again, "He is a great philosopher !" The ladies ignore him again.In desperation, finally, he said, "But his brother is an earl !" Bert was saved.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the birth of his sister Maja, the two and a half year old Albert Einstein wastold he would now have something to play with. After looking at the baby he complained "Yes... but where are its wheels?"

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IN 1898, young Albert Einstein applied for admission to the Munich TechnicalInstitute and was turned down. The young man, the Institute declared, "showed no promise" as a student. By 1905, he had formulated his special theory of relativity .

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------On one occasion, Paul Erdös met another mathematician and asked him wherehe was from. "Vancouver," the mathematician replied. "Oh, then you must know my good friend Elliot Mendelson," Erdös said.The reply was…. "I AM your good friend Elliot Mendelson."

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Albert Einstein (1879-1955) [German physicist] Albert Einstein, who fanciedhimself as a violinist, was rehearsing a Haydn string quartet. When he failed forthe fourth time to get his entry in the second movement, the cellist looked up andsaid, "The problem with you, Albert, is that you simply can't count."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In the period that Einstein was active as a professor, one of his students came tohim and said: "The questions of this year's exam are the same as last years!""True," Einstein said, "but this year all answers are different."

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The French scientist Andre Ampere was on his way to an important meeting atthe Academy in Paris. In the carriage he got a brilliant idea which he immediately wrote down ... on the seat of the carriage: dH=ipdl/r^2. As he arrived he paid the driver and ran into the building to tell everyone.Then he found out his notes were on the carriage and he had to hunt through thestreets of Paris to find his notes on wheels.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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Before they immigrated to the US, the Einsteins endured the severe economicsituation in post WWI Germany. Mrs. E saved old letters and other scrap paperfor Albert to write on and so continue his work. Years later, Mrs. Einstein waspressed into a public relations tour of some science research center. Dutifully sheplodded through lab after lab filled with gleaming new scientific napery, The

American scientists explaining things to her in that peculiarly condescending way we all treat non-native speakers of our own language. Finally she was usheredinto a high-chambered observatory, and came face to face with another, larger,scientific contraption. "Well, what's this one for?" she muttered. "Mrs. Einstein, we use this equipment to probe the deepest secrets of the universe," cooed thechief scientist. "Is THAT all!" snorted Mrs. E. "My husband did that on the back of old envelopes!"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Justus von Liebig (1803-1873) one day was approached by his assistant who allexcited informed him that he had just discovered the formula for an universalsolvent. Liebig asked: - "And what is a universal solvent?" Assistant: - "One thatdissolves all substances." Liebig: - "Where are you going to keep that solvent,eh??!!!"

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Walther Nernst, the famous German physical chemist, developed an electriclamp, known as the "Nernst lamp", which he sold for a very large sum of money. A colleague of his, not without sarcasm, asked him whether his next project will be making diamonds. Nernst answered, -"No, I can afford to buy diamonds now,so I don't need to make them".

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As a child, Einstein began to talk very late. His parents were obviously worried. At last, at the dinner table one night, he broke his silence to say, "The soup is toohot."Greatly relieved, his parents asked why he had never said a word before. Albert replied, "Because up to now everything was in order ."

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This story is told about the mathematician Arne Beurling: When PhD candidateshe was supervising came to him with their finished theses he would read the lastfew pages of the thesis, then pull out a paper from his desk, look at it for a few moments and then say "Well, that seems to be the right answer, You can submitit".

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EINSTEIN'S wife was once asked if she understood her husband's theory of relativity."No," she replied loyally, "but I know my husband and I know he can be trusted."

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As the joint meeting of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society wasdispersing [this was 6 November 1919, when the results of the eclipse expeditionthat confirmed Einstein's prediction of the bending of light by gravity wereannounced], Ludwig Silberstein came up to Arthur Eddington and said,"Professor Eddington, you are considered as one of three persons in the world who understands Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity."On this Eddington seemed to be lost in thought.Silberstein continued, "Don't be modest, Mr. Eddington,"Eddington replied, "On the contrary, I am trying to think who the third personis."------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EINSTEIN QUOTES "Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love"

I do not know how World War III would be fought. But I can tell you how World War IV will be fought: With sticks and stones.

"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'Srelativity."

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

"God does not play dice with the universe." -- Einstein "Who are you to tell God what to do?" -- Bohr "God not only plays dice, but sometimes throws them where they cannot

be seen." -- Hawking

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm notsure about the first.”

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival

of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet"

"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to yourgrandmother."

“I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details.”

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[… and here are my personal favourites!! -- G]

Norbert Wiener was very absent minded. The following story is told about him:

They moved from Cambridge to Newton. His wife was certain that he wouldforget that they had moved and where they had moved to. So she wrote down thenew address on a piece of paper, and gave it to him. In course of the day, aninsight occurred to him. He reached in his pocket, found a piece of paper on which he furiously scribbled some notes, thought it over, decided it was faulty,and threw the piece of paper away.

At the end of the day he went home (to the old address in Cambridge, of course). When he got there he realized that they had moved, that he had no idea wherethey had moved to, and that the piece of paper with the address was long gone.Fortunately inspiration struck. There was a young girl sitting on the steps and heconceived the idea of asking her.

"Excuse me, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert Wiener and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved to?"

To which the young girl replied, "Yes Daddy, mummy said this would happen…"

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The story is told of an atheist scientist, a friend of Sir Isaac Newton, who knockedon the door and came in after Newton had just finished making his solar systemmachine (i.e. one of the machines like the one in the science museum where you

crank the handle and the planets and moons move round).

The man saw the machine and said `how wonderful' and went over to it andstarted cranking the handle and the planets went round. As he was doing this heasked “who made this?”Sir Isaac stopped writing and said “nobody did”. Then he carried on writing.

The man said `You didn't hear me. Who made the machine?' Newton replied `Itold you. Nobody did.' He stopped cranking and turned to Isaac `Now listenIsaac, this marvelous machine must have been made by somebody - don't keepsaying that nobody made it.'

At which point Isaac Newton stopped writing and got up. He looked at him andsaid `Now isn't it amazing. I tell you that nobody made a simple toy like that and you don't believe me. Yet you gaze out into the solar system - the intricatemarvelous machine that is around you - and you dare say to me that no one madethat. I don't believe it'.

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science & math humour

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