From: shhong@chiak.kaist.ac.kr (Hong Seongho) Theoretical Physics is a science locally isomorphic to Mathematics. P__________________________________________________________________________ On the heater lies a tile. The teacher asks: "Why does the the tile warmer at the side that lies at the far side of the heater?". The student stammers :"Eh, maybe because of the heat conduction and so?" Teacher: "No, because I just turned it around." P__________________________________________________________________________ Formula: "Energy equals milk chocolate square" P__________________________________________________________________________ benker@cae.wisc.edu Two atoms were walking down the street. One turns to the other and says, "Oh, no! I think I'm an ion!" The other responds, "Are you sure?!?" "Yes, I'm positive!" P__________________________________________________________________________ A hydrogen atom came running into a police station asking for help.... Hydrogen atom: Someone just stole my electron!! Policeman: Are you sure? Hydrogen atom: Yes, I'm positive From: freya@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Smile) policeman: Oh, I thought you were just being negative again. P__________________________________________________________________________ From: dsmillie@superior.carleton.ca (David Smillie) Two sodium atoms are flying around a cyclotron. Suddenly the first atom said to the second, `Hey, I think I've just lost an electron.' `Are you sure?' asked the second atom. `Yeah,' said the first, `I'm positive.' Of course, the _real_ joke is that neither sodium atom could have been flying around the cyclotron in the first place, unless they were _already_ ionized. (collapses to the floor, gasping for breath and chuckling hysterically while everyone else in the room edges nervously away) P__________________________________________________________________________ From: harper@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (John Harper) every couple has its moment, especially P__________________________________________________________________________ From: zdxc0d@amoco.com (David Crowson) Physicists at Harwell have discovered the heaviest element known to science, named Administratum. The new element has no protons or electrons, and has an atomic number of zero. However, it does have one neutron, eight assistant neutrons, ten executive neutrons, 35 vice neutrons and 258 assistant vice neutrons. Administratum has an atomic mass of 311=, since the neutron is only detectable half of the time. Its 312 particles are held together by a force which involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles, called morons. Since it has no electrons, Administratum is completely inert. Nevertheless, its presence can be detected because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. One experiment, which should have lasted only a few days, is still running after 2= years due to the addition of just one milligramme of Administratum. It is weakly active, and has a normal half-life of approximately six months. After this time, it does not actually decay, but undergoes a metamorphosis in which assistant neutrons, executive neutrons, vice neutrons and assistant vice neutrons exchange places. This almost invariably leads to an increase in atomic weight, hence it is self-sustaining. Although it occurs widely, Administratum tends to concentrate around large corporations, research laboratories and government departments. It can especially be found in recently re-organised sites, and there is reason to believe that it is heavily involved in the processes of deforestation and global warming. It should be remembered that Administratum is known to be toxic at all concentrations, and can easily destroy any productive reactions where it is allowed to accumulate. Numerous attempts have been made to determine how Administratum can be controlled to prevent irreversible damage, but results to date are not promising. From: tornberg@netcom.com (Neal E. Tornberg) Research at other laboratories indicates that Administratium occurs naturally in the atmosphere. It tends to concentrate at certain points such as government agencies, large corporations and universities and can usually be found in the newest, best appointed and best maintained buildings. From: Benjamin.J.Tilly@dartmouth.edu (Benjamin J. Tilly) One major problem is that proximity to this substance tends to make the process of getting anything done (such as getting grant money) more time-consuming, which makes the experiments in question extremely time-consuming. P__________________________________________________________________________ Ivan Ivanovich, great russian Scientist does an experiment. He wants to know how fast a thermometer falls down. He takes a thermometer and a light, a candle light. He drops both from the 3rd floor and recognices that they are reaching the ground at the same time. Ivan Ivanovich, great russian scientific writes in his book: A theomometer falls with the speed of light. P__________________________________________________________________________ "" writes: Somewhere there must be a list of ways to measure the height of a building. A student is sitting his Physics exam, and quite an important one at that---maybe his final degree paper or his Oxford Entrance. Anyway, one of the questions on the paper was to the effect of: ``Q: How could one measure the height of a building using a barometer?'' Being a wit, in the exam this chap puts: ``A: Drop the barometer from the top of the building and time its descent. Using the formula `s = ut + a(t^2)/2' and knowing `a' which is `g' we can calculate the height of the building with reasonable accuracy.'' He then goes on to describe in more detail the method he would use. The examiners were a little concerned. Here was one of their star students giving an answer they hadn't at all expected. So they decided to call him in and give him an oral test to decide whether or not to allow the answer which they did admit was perfectly valid. So they called him in and told him he had 15 minutes to make his case. For ten minutes he said nothing but scribbled away furiously. After these ten minutes the atmosphere was getting a little tense---this was meant to be an oral after all, and his degree (or whatever) depended on it. When they pointed this out to him he said that he was just trying to get his thoughts in order as there were so many possible solutions. Here are some of the ones he came up with: ``1: What you wanted me to do, of course, was measure air pressure at the top and bottom of the building, and from the difference and knowing the pressure exerted by a column of air of unit height I should be able to calculate the height of the building. But I thought that would be terribly inaccurate and the answer I gave in the exam and the following ones are all potentially more accurate. 2: Measure the length of shadow cast by the bulding and by the barometer on a sunny day. Knowing the actual height of the barometer one can compute the height of the building. 3: Tie the barometer to the end of a long bit of string and lower the barometer from the top of the building to the ground. Measure the amount of string payed out and you have the height of the building.'' He then gave several more but ended with: ``The best method by far, though, would be to go to the building's janitor and say `If I give you this shiny new scientific barometer will you tell me how high this building is?' '' The student passed his exam. P__________________________________________________________________________ From: nbuchana@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Norm) I don't know if there is a list, but I can think of a way that only requires two people, a stopwatch, and an object to drop. You have one person stand at the top of the building with an object to drop (something that will be slowed little by air resistance--you will have to correct for this if the building is fairly tall). The person on the ground can then signal the person on top to drop the object and then time the fall. The height of the building will then be (neglecting air resistance): height = .5 (9.8) t^2 (in meters of course) Problem solved. It is not the only way to do it obviously but I think it is an interesting way. From: Phil Gustafson The just-released book, "Expert C Programming (Deep C Secrets)", Peter van der Linden, SunSoft/Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0-13-177429-8, lists twenty-one (21) more or less useful ways to measure the height of a building with a barometer. (10) Use the barometer as a paperweight while examining the building plans. From: ljz@panix.com (Lloyd Zusman) Uh ... I may be off base here, but my understanding of the original poster's question was that he or she was looking for some sort of canonical list of responses to the question, "How does one measure the height of a building with a barometer?" There is an apocryphal story about a science professor who asked this question, looking for the "measure the air pressure at the top, etc. ..." solution. But some smart-ass student offered one or more other alternatives, such as ... Drop the barometer from the top floor and measure the time it takes to hit the ground. Offer the barometer to the building owner in return for him telling you the height (already mentioned in this thread). Tie a long cable to the barometer and lower it from the top of the building to the ground, and then measure the length of the cable. etc. etc. I know there are quite a few other answers, too ... can anyone think of any more? From: gt4495c@prism.gatech.edu (Giannhs) Use a barometer to reflect a laser beam from the top and measure the travel time. Track the shadow of the building posisioning a barometer on the ground every hour. Create an explosion on the top and measure the time for the pressure depression indicated on the barometer. From: peter@cara.demon.co.uk (Peter Ceresole) I think it would be simpler to let down a lightly weighted fishing line, mark it, reel it back and measure it at leisure. For fun, how about using sound; fire a starting pistol at the bottom, time the difference of arrival at the top. About a second for the Empire State building, and of course it'd have to be a damn great gun to carry over the howl and screech of downtown Gotham. Also, the detonation might get confused with the sounds of routine crack dealing below. From: dehall@hellcat.ecn.uoknor.edu (David Hall) In response to some question regarding "correct" methods of obtaining an answer, one of my proffs rattled off the following anecdote: Three students are given a barometer and told to determine the height of the clocktower (building at OU). The first student goes to the clock tower and takes two pressure readings; one at the top of the tower and one at the bottom of the tower. Then, based on the pressure differential derrives the correct height. The second student grabs a stopwatch and the barometer and climbs to the top of the tower. He throws the barometer off and times how long it takes to hit the ground. He too derrives the correct height. The third student takes the baromter to the Physical Plant (folks who do all maintanence around here) and says to the janitor, "Hey, I'll give you this cool barometer if you let me see the blueprints to the clocktower." All three students get A's. And then there is trigonometry, gravity force differentials, laser rangefinding.....and the list goes on. P__________________________________________________________________________ From: c1prasad@watson.ibm.com (prasad) Entropy isn't what it used to be... P__________________________________________________________________________ Why did the cat fall off the roof? Because he lost his mu. (mew=sound cats make, mu=coeff of friction) P__________________________________________________________________________ Brownian motion = Jogging girl scout P__________________________________________________________________________ From: mstueben@tjhsst.vak12ed.edu (Michael A. Stueben) Question: What is more useful: the sun or the moon? Answer: The moon, because the moon shines at night when you want the light, whereas the sun shines during the day when you don't need it. P__________________________________________________________________________ Philosophers have long wondered why socks have this habit of getting lost, and why humans always end up with large collections of unmatched odd socks. One school of thought says that socks are very antisocial creatures, and have a deep sense of rivalry. In particular, two socks of the same design have feelings of loathing towards each other and hence it is nearly impossible to pair them (e.g. a blue sock will usually be found nestling up to a black one, rather than its fellow blue sock). On the other hand, quantum theorists explain it all by a generalised exclusion principle --- it is impossible for two socks to be in the same eigen-state, and when it's in danger of happening, one of the socks has to vanish. Indeed the Uncertainty Principle also comes in --- the only time you know where a sock is, is when you're wearing it, and hence unable to be sure exactly how fast it's moving. The moment you stop moving and look at your sock, it then starts falling to pieces, changing colour, or otherwise becoming indeterminate. Either way, socks may possess Colour and Strangeness, but they seem to lack Charm. P__________________________________________________________________________ The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center was known as SLAC, until the big earthquake, when it became known as SPLAC. SPLAC? Stanford Piecewise Linear Accelerator. P__________________________________________________________________________ THE SEX LIFE OF AN ELECTRON (with unhappy ending) One night when his charge was at full capacity, Micro Farad decided to get a cute little coil to discharge him. He picked up Millie Amp and took her for a ride on his megacycle. They rode across the wheat stone bridge, around the sine wave, and into the magnetic field next to the flowing current. Micro Farad, attracted by Millie's characteristic curve, soon had her field fully excited. He laid her on the ground potential, raised her frequency, lowered her resistance, and pulled out his high voltage probe. He inserted it in parallel and began to short circuit her shunt. Fully excited, Millie cried out, "ohm, ohm, give me mho". With his tube at maximum output and her coil vibrating from the current flow, her shunt soon reached maximum heat. The excessive current had shorted her shunt, and Micro's capacity was rapidly discharged, and every electron was drained off. They fluxed all night, tried various connections and hookings until his bar magnet had lost all of its strength, and he could no longer generate enough voltage to sustain his collapsing field. With his battery fully discharged, Micro was unable to excite his tickler, so they ended up reversing polarity and blowing each other's fuses. P__________________________________________________________________________ From: Marcel Melters THE SEX LIFE OF AN ELECTRON ( with happy ending) One night when his charge was pretty high, Micro Farad went to see if he could find a cute little coil to let him discharge. He picked up Milli Amp, and took her for a ride on his Megacycle. They rode accross the wheatstone bridge, along the sine wave and stopped at a magnetic field flowing with current. Micro Farad soon had her resistance at a minimum level. They laid against ground level. Micro Farad then inserted his probe in Milli Amps socket. Mho, Mho, give me Mho, she said. They fluxed all night, trying out various connections. Afterwards Milli Amp tried self-induction and damaged her probe. After this, they went home and oscillated happily ever after. P__________________________________________________________________________ From: schmid@isi.ee.ethz.ch (Hanspeter Schmid) At the physics exam: 'Describe the universe (max. 200 words) and give three examples.' From: garyg@warren.mentorg.com (Gary Gendel) Sometimes real life is stranger than fiction. My physics final came at the time when there was a debate whether to allow calculators in the exams. The Physics department was the first to decide in favor of allowing them, the 3 hour exam had one question: Describe the universe, if Planck's constant were equal to 1. P__________________________________________________________________________ Three Laws of Thermodynamics (paraphrased): First Law: You can't get anything without working for it. Second Law: The most you can accomplish by work is to break even. Third Law: You can't break even. From: John Vinson <74222.2372@CompuServe.COM> Ginsberg's Theorem (The modern statement of the three laws of thermodynamics) 1. You can't win. 2. You can't even break even. 3. You can't get out of the game. 4. THE LAW OF ENTROPY: The perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum. "Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's Theorem: "Every majoy philosophy that attempts to make life seem meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's Theorem. To wit: "1. Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win. "2. Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even. "3. Mysticism is based on the assmuption that you can quit the game." From R.J.ABBOTT@dundee.ac.uk Since using the paraphrased laws of thermodynamics in my .sig the following additions have been sent to me From: potweed@calvados.apana.org.au (Bernard Booth) First Law: You can't bet unless you play. Second Law: The most you can hope for is to break even. Third Law: You can't break even. Fourth Law: Once you're born, you can't even get out of the game! From: N.P.Whittington (N.P.Whittington@spps.hull.ac.uk) Parodies of the laws of thermodynamics, in a science text book. 1. You can't win, you can only break even. 2. You can only break even at absolute zero. 3. You can never reach absolute zero. P__________________________________________________________________________ A promising PhD candidate was presenting his thesis at his final examination. He proceeded with a derivation and ended up with something like: F = -MA He was embarrassed, his supervising professor was embarrassed, and the rest of the committee was embarrassed. The student coughed nervously and said "I seem to have made a slight error back there somewhere." One of the mathematicians on the committee replied dryly, "Either that or an odd number of them!" P__________________________________________________________________________ From: nbuchana@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Norm) A probability is a desperate attempt of chaos to become stable. P__________________________________________________________________________ Heisenberg might have slept here. P__________________________________________________________________________ From: seashore@pirinen.demon.co.uk (Anetta Meriranta Pirinen) Schroedinger's Vet: Specializing in gassed cats and monkeys with Carpal-tunnel syndrome. P__________________________________________________________________________ A Physicist is explaining a picture: "Of course, these are false colours, the red is really yellow, the green is really blue and the white is really brown." P__________________________________________________________________________ Donald Nichols (DoN.): --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero --- P__________________________________________________________________________ HEAVEN IS HOTTER THAN HELL The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that ... The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C. -- From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972 P__________________________________________________________________________ From: sirius@wam.umd.edu (The Human Neutrino = Linda Harden) IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS? 1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen. 2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census)rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each. 3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west(which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour. 4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal anoint, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth. 5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake.The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim)would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force. In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now. From: hjiwa@nor.chevron.com Canonical List Of Holiday Humor Rebuttal: (Jim Mantle, Waterloo Maple Software) Come on, ya gotta believe! I mean, if you can handle flying furry animals, then it's only a small step to the rest. For example; 1) As admitted, it is possible that a flying reindeer can be found. I would agree that it would be quite an unusual find, but they might exist. 2) You've relied on cascading assumptions. For example, you have assumed a uniform distribution of children across homes. Toronto/Yorkville, or Toronto/Cabbagetown, or other yuppie neighbourhoods, have probably less than the average (and don't forget the DINK and SINK homes (Double Income No Kids, Single Income No Kids)), while the families with 748 starving children that they keep showing on Vision TV while trying to pick my pocket would skew that 15% of homes down a few percent. 3) You've also assumed that each home that has kids would have at least one good kid. What if anti-selection applies, and homes with good kids tend to have more than their share of good kids, and other homes have nothing except terrorists in diapers? Let's drop that number of homes down a few more percent. 4) Santa would have to Fedex a number of packages ahead of time, since he would not be able to fly into Air Force Bases, or into tower-controlled areas near airports. He's get shot at over certain sections of the Middle East, and the no-fly zones in Iraq, so he'd probably use DHL there. Subtract some more homes. 5) I just barely passed Physics and only read Stephen Hawking's book once, but I recall that there is some Einsteinian Theory that says time does strange things as you move faster. In fact, when you go faster than the speed of light time runs backward, if you do a straight line projection, connect the dots and just ignore any singularity you might find right at the speed of light. And don't say you can't go faster than the speed of light because I've seen it done on TV. Jean-Luc doesn't have reindeer but he does have matter-antimatter warp engines and a holodeck and that's good enough for me. So Santa could go faster than light, visit all the good children which are not uniformly distributed by either concentration in each home or by number of children per household, and get home before he left so he can digest all those stale cookies and warm milk yech. 6) Aha, you say, Jean-Luc has matter-antimatter warp engines, Santa only has reindeer, where does he get the power to move that fast! You calculated the answer! The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy. Per second. Each. This is an ample supply of energy for the maneuvering, acceleration, etc, that would be required of the loaded sleigh. The reindeer don't evaporate or incinerate because of this energy, they accelerate. What do you think they have antlers for, fighting over females? Think of antlers as furry solar array panels. 7) If that's not enough, watch the news on the 24th at 11 o'clock. NORAD (which may be one of the few government agencies with more than 3 initials in it's name and therefore it must be more trustworthy than the rest) tracks Santa every year and I've seen the radar shots of him approaching my house from the direction of the North Pole. They haven't bombarded him yet, so they must believe too, right? Yet another rebuttal to the rebuttal: Several key points are overlooked by this callous, amateurish "study." 1) Flying reindeer: As is widely known (due to the excellent historical documentary "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the flying reindeer are not a previously unknown species of reindeer, but were in fact given the power of flight due to eating magic acorns. As is conclusively proven in "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (a no punches pulled look at life in Santa's village), this ability has bred true in subsequent generations of reindeer, obviously the magic acorns imprinted their power on a dominant gene sequence within the reindeer DNA strand. 2) Number of households: This figure overlooks two key facts. First of all, the first major schism in the Church split the Eastern Churches, centered in Byzantium, from the Western, which remained centered in Rome. This occurred prior to the Gregorian correction to the Julian calendar. The Eastern churches (currently called Orthodox Churches) do not recognize the Gregorian correction for liturgical events, and their Christmas is as a result several days after the Western Churches'. Santa gets two shots at delivering toys. Secondly, the figure of 3.5 children per household is based on the gross demographic average, which includes households with no children at all. The number of children per household, when figured as an average for households with children, would therefore have to be adjusted upward. Also, the largest single Christian denomination is Roman Catholic, who, as we all know, breed like rabbits. If you don't believe me, ask my four brothers and two sisters, they'll back me up. Due to the predominance of Catholics within Christian households, the total number of households containing Christian children would have to be adjusted downward to reflect the overloading of Catholics beyond a standard deviation from the median. Also, the assertion that each home would contain at least one good child would be reasonable enough if there were in fact an even 3.5 children per household. However, since the number of children per household is distributed integrally, there are a significant number (on the order of several million) of one child Christian households. Even though only children are notoriously spoiled and therefore disproportionately inclined towards being naughty, since it's the holidays we'll be generous and give them a fifty-fifty chance of being nice. This removes one half of the single child households from Santa's delivery schedule, which has already been reduced by the removal of the Orthodox households from the first delivery run. 3) Santa's delivery run (speed, payload, etc.): These all suffer from the dubious supposition that there is only one Santa Claus. The name "Santa" is obviously either Spanish or Italian, two ethnic groups which are both overwhelmingly Catholic. The last name Claus suggests a joint German/Italian background. His beginnings, battling the Burgermeister Meisterburger, suggest he grew up in Bavaria (also predominantly Catholic). The Kaiser style helmets of the Burgermeister's guards, coupled with the relative isolation of the village, suggest that his youth was at the very beginning of Prussian influence in Germany. Thus, Santa and Mrs. Claus have been together for well over one hundred years. If you think that after a hundred years of living at the North Pole with nights six months long that they remain childless, you either don't know Catholics or are unaware of the failure rate of the rhythm method. There have therefore been over five generations of Clauses, breeding like Catholics for over one hundred years. Since they are Catholic, their exponential population increase would obviously have a gain higher than the world population as a whole. There have therefore been more than enough new Santas to overcome the population increase of the world. So in fact, Santa has an easier time of it now than he did when he first started out. Santa dead, indeed; some people will twist any statistic to "prove" their cynical theory. P__________________________________________________________________________ From: billyfish@aol.com (BillyFish) One day in class, Richard Feynman was talking about angular momentum. He described rotation matrices and mentioned that they did not commute. He said that Sir William Hamilton discovered noncommutivity one night when he was taking a walk in his garden with Lady Hamilton. As they sat down on a bench, there was a moment of passion. It was then that he discovered that AB did not equal BA. P__________________________________________________________________________ There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the existence of a "hottest part" implies a temperature difference, and any marginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat engine and make some other part of hell comfortably cool. This is obviously impossible. -- Richard Davisson P__________________________________________________________________________ The study of non-linear physics is like the study of non-elephant biology. P__________________________________________________________________________ Anything that doesn't matter has no mass. P__________________________________________________________________________ From tellen@mtg.mt.com Thu Nov 24 15:19:01 1994 From: "Jean-Maurice Tellenbach" The second world war is the best demonstration of relativity... The high energy density variations of vacuum are mainly produced within brains. The Physicist : "The positron will be dramatically modified by meeting an electron" The President : "You said ... position and ... election ??" P__________________________________________________________________________ From: mj@redbud (MJ Kahn) Q: How many general relativists does it take to change a light bulb. A: Two. One holds the bulb, while the other rotates the universe. From:BRIAN6@VAXC.MDX.AC.UK (cannonical lightbulb collection) Q: How many quantum physicists does it take to change a lightbulb ? A: One. Two to do it, and one to renormalise the wave function. (Explanation - Renormalising the wave function is something that has to be done to a lot of quantum physics calculations to stop the answer being infinity and makes the answer always come out as one.) Q: How many quantum mechanicians does it take to change a light bulb? A: They can't. If they know where the socket is, they cannot locate the new bulb. Q: How many Heisenbergs does it take to change a light bulb? A: If you know the number, you don't know where the light bulb is. Q: How many astronomers does it take to change a light bulb? A: None, astronomers prefer the dark. Q: How many radio astronomers does it take to change a light bulb. A: None. They are not interested in that short wave stuff. The Dark Sucker Theory (courtesy of rec.humor.d) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For years, it has been believed that electric bulbs emit light, but recent information has proved otherwise. Electric bulbs don't emit light; they suck dark. Thus, we call these bulbs Dark Suckers. The Dark Sucker Theory and the existence of dark suckers prove that dark has mass and is heavier than light. First, the basis of the Dark Sucker Theory is that electric bulbs suck dark. For example, take the Dark Sucker in the room you are in. There is much less dark right next to it than there is elsewhere. The larger the Dark Sucker, the greater its capacity to suck dark. Dark Suckers in the parking lot have a much greater capacity to suck dark than the ones in this room. So with all things, Dark Suckers don't last forever. Once they are full of dark, they can no longer suck. This is proven by the dark spot on a full Dark Sucker. The dark which has been absorbed is then transmitted by pylons along to power plants where the machinery uses fossil fuel to destroy it. A candle is a primitive Dark Sucker. A new candle has a white wick. You can see that after the first use, the wick turns black, representing all the dark that has been sucked into it. If you put a pencil next to the wick of an operating candle, it will turn black. This is because it got in the way of the dark flowing into the candle. One of the disadvantages of these primitive Dark Suckers is their limited range. There are also portable Dark Suckers. In these, the bulbs can't handle all the dark by themselves and must be aided by a Dark Storage Unit. When the Dark Storage Unit is full, it must be either emptied or replaced before the portable Dark Sucker can operate again. Dark has mass. When dark goes into a Dark Sucker, friction from the mass generates heat. Thus, it is not wise to touch an operating Dark Sucker. Candles present a special problem as the mass must travel into a solid wick instead of through clear glass. This generates a great amount of heat and therefore it's not wise to touch an operating candle. This is easily proven for lightbulbs too. When you compress a gas, it gets hot, right? So the light bulb gets hot because of all the dark being squished into the wires. Also, dark is heavier than light. If you were to swim just below the surface of the lake, you would see a lot of light. If you were to slowly swim deeper and deeper, you would notice it getting darker and darker. When you get really deep, you would be in total darkness. This is because the heavier dark sinks to the bottom of the lake and the lighter light floats at the top. The is why it is called light. Finally, we must prove that dark is faster than light. If you were to stand in a lit room in front of a closed, dark closet, and slowly opened the closet door, you would see the light slowly enter the closet. But since dark is so fast, you would not be able to see the dark leave the closet. So next time you see an electric bulb, remember that it is not a light emitter but a Dark Sucker. The following line doesn't quite fit into the theory but almost does : - Ever seen the blue glow in vacuum tubes? That's because electrons are blue. P__________________________________________________________________________ From: randy@aplcorejhuapl.edu (Randall C. Poe) Here's a joke on the physicists which could be an absolutely true story in my opinion: The experimentalist comes running excitedly into the theorist's office, waving a graph taken off his latest experiment. "Hmmm," says the theorist, "That's exactly where you'd expect to see that peak. Here's the reason (long logical explanation follows)." In the middle of it, the experimentalist says "Wait a minute", studies the chart for a second, and says, "Oops, this is upside down." He fixes it. "Hmmm," says the theorist, "you'd expect to see a dip in exactly that position. Here's the reason...". P__________________________________________________________________________ From: s5100101@nickel.laurentian.ca Q: What is a tachyon? A: A sub-atomic particle devoid of good taste. P__________________________________________________________________________ From: s5100101@nickel.laurentian.ca Albert Einstein had been working on his theory of relativity a lot and he was just about finished. He was almost ready to publish his work. However, he was under a lot of stress so he thought he would go on vacation to Mexico. Albert had a glorious two week vacation and was having the time of his life. On the last night he was staying there he decided to take a walk along the beach and watch the sunset. As he watched the sun go down he thought of the light of the sun and then the speed of light. You see, he had been using the speed of light in a lot of his calculations but he didn't decided on what symbol to use for it. Greek had been so overused. Just at that moment Senior Wensez was also walking along the beach in the opposite direction. Albert caught him out of the corner of his eye and remarked suddenly, "Do you not zink zat zee speed of light is very fast?" Senior Wensez paused for a moment and replied, "Si." P__________________________________________________________________________ Polymer physicists are into chains. P__________________________________________________________________________ From: Chris Morton (mortoncp@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu) do it collection Dyslexic Particle Physicists do it with hadrons. Particle physicists do it energetically. Physicists do it a quantum at a time. Physicists do it at two places in the universe at one time. Physicists do it attractively. Physicists do it energetically. Physicists do it in black holes. Physicists do it in waves. Physicists do it like Einstein. Physicists do it magnetically. Physicists do it on accelerated frames. Physicists do it particularly. Physicists do it repulsively. Physicists do it strangely. Physicists do it up and down, with charming color, but strange! Physicists do it with Tensors. Physicists do it with black bodies Physicists do it with charm. Physicists do it with large expensive machinery. Physicists do it with rigid bodies. Physicists do it with the help of an absolute Bohr (ouch!). Physicists do it with their vectors. Physicists do it with uniform harmonic motion. Physicists get a big bang. Physics majors do it at the speed of light. Plasma physicists do it with everything stripped off. Astronomers do it all night. Astronomers do it in the dark. Astronomers do it under the stars. Astronomers do it while gazing at Uranus. Astronomers do it with Uranus. Astronomers do it with long tubes. Astronomers do it with stars. Electron microscopists do it 100,000 times. Rocket scientists do it with higher thrust. Quantum mechanics do it in leaps. Spectroscopists do it until it hertz. Spectroscopists do it with frequency and intensity. P__________________________________________________________________________ Why did the chicken cross the road? Zeno of Elea: To prove it could never reach the other side. Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast. Newton: 1) Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross the road. 2) It was pushed on the road. 3) It was pushed on the road by another chicken, which went away from the road. 4) It was attracted to a chicken on the other side of the road. Wolfgang Pauli: There already was a chicken on this side of the road. P__________________________________________________________________________ From: sirius@wam.umd.edu (The Human Neutrino) HEAVY BOOTS About 6-7 years ago, I was in a philosophy class at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (good science/engineering school) and the teaching assistant was explaining Descartes. He was trying to show how things don't always happen the way we think they will and explained that, while a pen always falls when you drop it on Earth, it would just float away if you let go of it on the Moon. My jaw dropped a little. I blurted "What?!" Looking around the room, I saw that only my friend Mark and one other student looked confused by the TA's statement. The other 17 people just looked at me like "What's your problem?" "But a pen would fall if you dropped it on the Moon, just more slowly." I protested. "No it wouldn't." the TA explained calmly, "because you're too far away from the Earth's gravity." Think. Think. Aha! "You saw the APOLLO astronauts walking around on the Moon, didn't you?" I countered, "why didn't they float away?" "Because they were wearing heavy boots." he responded, as if this made perfect sense (remember, this is a Philosophy TA who's had plenty of logic classes). By then I realized that we were each living in totally different worlds, and did not speak each others language, so I gave up. As we left the room, my friend Mark was raging. "My God! How can all those people be so stupid?" I tried to be understanding. "Mark, they knew this stuff at one time, but it's not part of their basic view of the world, so they've forgotten it. Most people could probably make the same mistake." To prove my point, we went back to our dorm room and began randomly selecting names from the campus phone book. We called about 30 people and asked each this question: 1. If you're standing on the Moon holding a pen, and you let go, will it a) float away, b) float where it is, or c) fall to the ground? About 47 percent got this question correct. Of the ones who got it wrong, we asked the obvious follow-up question: 2. You've seen films of the APOLLO astronauts walking around on the Moon, why didn't they fall off? About 20 percent of the people changed their answer to the first question when they heard this one! But the most amazing part was that about half of them confidently answered, "Because they were wearing heavy boots." P__________________________________________________________________________ From: Tim.Nelson@Canada.ATTGIS.COM (list of Old * Never Die, they just) OLD ASTRONAUTS never die, they just go to another world OLD ATOMS never die, they just decay OLD LASER PHYSICISTS never die, they just become incoherent OLD METEORS never die, they just burn up OLD NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS never die, they just go off-line OLD PLANETS never die, they just lose their attraction OLD THERMODYNAMICISTS never die, they just achieve their state - - of maximum entropy P__________________________________________________________________________ From: joeshmoe@world.std.com (Jascha Franklin-Hodge) (List of Taglines) Plasma is another matter. Interstellar Matter is a Gas It's worse than that, it's physics, Jim! "Apple" (c) 6024 b.c., Adam & Eve "Apple" (c) Copyright 1767, Sir Isaac Newton. "The faster you go, the shorter you are" - Einstein A stitch in time would have confused Einstein. And God said: E = +mv} - Ze}/r ...and there *WAS* light! All that glitters has a high refractive index. Black Holes are Out of Sight Black Holes were created when God divided by zero! Black holes really suck... The Universe is a big place... perhaps the biggest The Hubbell works fine; all that stuff IS blurry! Do radioactive cats have 18 half-lives? Friction can be a drag sometimes. Going the speed of light is bad for your age. Gravity: Not just a good idea...it's the LAW. How many weeks are there in a light year? Jet Engine Theory -Suck, Squeeze, Bang, Blow! Power corrupts, but we need electricity. Resistance Is Useless! (If < 1 ohm) Supernovae are a Blast P__________________________________________________________________________ Two electron convicts are sitting in a jail cell together. The first one says, "What are you in for?" The second one says, "For attempting a forbidden transition." P__________________________________________________________________________ Q: How does Santa deliver presents all over the world on Christmas Eve? A: With Rudolf the red-shift reindeer. P__________________________________________________________________________ Gravity brings me down Neutrinos have bad breadth (J.F. FreemanIII, Raleigh, N.C.) P__________________________________________________________________________ Q: What do physicist enjoy doing the most at baseball games? A: The 'wave'. P__________________________________________________________________________ Q: What is uttered by a sick duck? A: Quark! P__________________________________________________________________________ Q: What is an astronomical unit? A: One helluva big apartment P_________________________________________________________________________ Q: How many kinds of physicists are there? A: Three. Those who can count and those who can't. P__________________________________________________________________________ Law of Selective Gravity: An object will fall so as to do the most damage. Jenning's Corollary: The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet. P__________________________________________________________________________ The Heineken Uncertainty Principle: You can never be sure how many beers you had last night. P__________________________________________________________________________ From:ozbrown@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Paul Raymond "OZZY" Brown) Spell Checked and reformatted by Nathan Mates (nathan@cco.caltech.edu) As scientists and concerned citizens, we applaud the recent trend towards legislation which requires the prominent placing of warnings on products that present hazards to the general public. Yet we must also offer the cautionary thought that such warnings, however well-intentioned, merely scratch the surface of what is really necessary in this important area. This is especially true in light of the findings of 20th century physics. We are therefore proposing that, as responsible scientists, we join together in an intensive push for new laws that will mandate the conspicuous placement of suitably informative warnings on the packaging of every product offered for sale in the United States of America. Our suggested list of warnings appears below. WARNING: This Product Warps Space and Time in Its Vicinity. WARNING: This Product Attracts Every Other Piece of Matter in the Universe, Including the Products of Other Manufacturers, with a Force Proportional to the Product of the Masses and Inversely Proportional to the Distance Between Them. CAUTION: The Mass of This Product Contains the Energy Equivalent of 85 Million Tons 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 and How Fast It Is Moving. (Note: This one is optional on the grounds that Heisenburg was never quite sure that his principle was correct) 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 Be Responsible for Any Damages or Inconvenience That May Result. READ THIS BEFORE OPENING PACKAGE: According to Certain Suggested Versions of the Grand Unified Theory, the Primary 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 Implied Herein, the Consumer Is Warned That This Process Will Ultimately Lead to the Heat Death of the Universe. 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, the Consumer 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 That This Confers No Legal Rights Above and Beyond Those Applicable to Three-Dimensional Objects, Since the Seven New Dimensions Are "Rolled Up" into Such a Small "Area" That They Cannot Be Detected. PLEASE NOTE: Some Quantum Physics Theories Suggest That When the Consumer Is Not Directly 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 Used in 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 Another Universe Subsequently Re-emerge, the Existence of This Product in That Universe Cannot Be Guaranteed. (The above is from Volume 36, Number 1 of The Journal of Irreproducible Results. Copyright 1991 Blackwell Scientific Publications Inc.) Cartoon Law of Physics P__________________________________________________________________________ From: ftp.cco.caltech.edu, maintained by Nathan Mates (nathan@cco.caltech.edu) Cartoon Law I Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over. Cartoon Law II Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease. Cartoon Law III Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyses this reaction. Cartoon Law IV The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it inevitably unsuccessful. Cartoon Law V All principles of gravity are negated by fear. Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight. Cartoon Law VI As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once. This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A `wacky' character has the option of self-replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required. Cartoon Law VII Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot. This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science. Cartoon Law VIII Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify. Corollary: A cat will assume the shape of its container. Cartoon Law IX Everything falls faster than an anvil. *P________________________________________________________________________ From: James W Walden "Truth decays into beauty, while beauty soon becomes merely charm. Charm ends up as strangeness, and even that doesn't last, but up and down are forever." - The Laws of Physics *P________________________________________________________________________ From: jasonp@wam.umd.edu (Jason Stratos Papadopoulos) PROOF THE EARTH IS FLAT Hello. If anyone out there watched a Learning Channel show "In Search of the Edge of the World", they heard some pretty bizarre (though creative) conclusive proofs the earth is flat. A sampler: According to the theory of continental drift, all the continents can shift about the surface of the earth as if on a bed of some viscous fluid. Were the earth round and rotating, centrifugal force would make all the continents slosh to the equator, but this is a contradiction, as it is not the actual case. QED A plumb bob always points to the center of the earth (assuming the earth is a sphere). Then a plumb bob used by someone else in a different place would make a different angle to an impartial observer. Since builders use plumb bobs to make buildings stick straight up, any building of sufficient size would then be larger on the top floor than on the bottom floor, but this is a contradiction. QED And a few refutations of established results: Ptolemy (?) proposed the earth was round and proved it by figuring its radius based on the angle the sun made with Alexandria on the same day it was directly over another city (7.2 deg.). Flat Earthers insist that this is only an assumption; if the earth was flat the experiment would still yield meaningful results, since the system is then a right tri- angle and the sun would therefore be 4,000 miles away. And for all those who need visual proof and are satisfied with satellite photos, Flat Earthers cite Einstein's general theory of relativity and its proclaiming that light bends in the presence of massive objects; thus what is actually flat appears to cameras as round. This phenomenon also explains why ships appear to rise out of the horizon. Finally, a story I read elsewhere: a researcher at some lab once got a letter from a very distressed Flat Earther, who had heard that the Soviets (I guess 1950s?) were going to detonate a nuclear bomb. Newton's third law would then dictate that the (flat) earth would then tilt toward the USSR, and everybody would slide off. The researcher wrote back that all was well, and that we in U.S. of A. planned to detonate a similar bomb at the same instant on OUR end of the world, thus cancelling the torque the Soviet bomb created. The researcher was given a dressing-down when the Flat Earther wrote a letter of commendation and praise to the researcher's boss. *P_________________________________________________________________________ jotero@ix.netcom.com (Jose Otero) Astromers's pickupline:your telescope or mine? From: becker@hal4.usm.uni-muenchen.de (Sylvia R. Becker) ...my computer doesn't understand me anymore... might be a possibility, too. *P_________________________________________________________________________ From: sdnaik@iastate.edu The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it miows (sp?) in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat. - Albert Einstein *P_________________________________________________________________________ From: an216284@anon.penet.fi (YUMMYYAMS) Overheard after a student failed a physics test miserably: Nuclear, Hydrogen, Atomic, My test- They can all be bombs. *P_________________________________________________________________________ From: kovarik@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca (Zdislav V. Kovarik) A math&physics student was hit by a brick falling from a house. He fainted, but came to after a while and started smiling. The onlookers were worried, so they asked him why the smile. "I just realized how lucky I am because the kinetic energy is only half m v squared." *P_________________________________________________________________________ From: kim@shell.portal.com (Kim DeVaughn) "Quantum mechanics, hmmm. You put a cat in a box, along with a hammer and some poison and a radioactive isotope ... I forget exactly how this goes. Anyway, keep some bandages on hand, because I guarantee the cat won't be happy." -Jack-Jack Snyder +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -- Joachim Verhagen Email:J.C.D.Verhagen@fys.ruu.nl Department of molecular biofysics, University of Utrecht Utrecht, The Netherlands.