Science/Math/Computer Geeks... what are your favorite pun jokes...

[Endangered Specie]

Ive noticed through my classes that in these classes, *everyone* loves to crack puns (usually so 'bad' they are funny bc of the badness) and they are quite high in number.

To start: Never say "I/You see" around me when having just talked about light speed. ;)

[Angelus]

1. "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

:evilgrin:

Stupid, I know.

[Endangered Specie]

5. cute, real cute.

[Tina H]

6. In one of Steven Pinker's books

he goes over the 5 grammatically correct interpretations of "time flies like an arrow":

Another example: consider the sentence "Time flies like an arrow.", which may be interpreted in five ways:

Time passes in the same way an arrow passes (i.e., time goes quickly).

You clock flies in the same way you clock arrows.

You clock flies in the same way an arrow clocks flies.

You clock flies that (look) like an arrow.

Flies (specifically, time flies) prefer arrows.



Fascinating stuff, to me at least.

[WillyBrandt]

2. What's the speed of time?

One second per second

[Endangered Specie]

3. Depends on how fast your going though...

Relativity.

[Angelus]

4. Yeah...time goes infinitely slower in black hole.

Bad pun.

[Lisa]

7. Einstein used to walk around the Princeton campus ...

... often just sitting down anywhere on the pavement when ideas came to him.

A colleague who was escorting visitors around whispered to them, "He sits on the concrete to think about the abstract."



p.s. I have to admit that I very rarely come up with science jokes by myself. One occasion when I did, I was working at a field station up north for a climatology research team. Our boss came up to check on us -- something we dreaded, because he was terribly energetic, and had the habit of ordering us onto the tundra at daybreak (after which he would return to the bunkhouse for a nap, leaving us out there).

Two of the guys had hangovers and just rolled over when he stomped into our quarters and started shouting "wakey wakey!". I wasn't as blotto, but still, it was something like 3 AM (they don't call it "the land of the midnight sun" for nothing). I said, "Wayne! Q*'s barely positive!" Apparently this made it into Canadian physical geographers' lore, because I've heard this story repeated a couple of times, from people at different colleges. (One of them even claimed that I was the one with the hangover, which isn't true!)

(for the uninitiated: Q*, or Q-star, is the term used by energy balance climatologists to denote "net all-wave radiation" -- it follows a predictable daily curve with a maximum at (solar) noon, and sliding into the negatives after sunset)

[Endangered Specie]

11. ohhh I like that one

[Lisa]

15. thanks! "abstract" has another meaning in those circles too ...

He could have been figuring one out for his next publication!

[DieboldMustDie]

8. There are 10 types of people in this world...

those who understand binary, and those who don't. ;)

[pagerbear]

12. LOL

[TOhioLiberal]

22. My favorite is:

5 out of 4 people have trouble with fractions!

[Endangered Specie]

24. I thought that was a dislexia joke...

8 out of 1 people have dislexia.


on edit: I still will probably use the fraction one though :)

[Interrobang]

43. Dyslexia for cure found, 11 at film!

A physicist thinks reality is an approximation to his equations.

Hmmm... :)

[charlie]

46. Old MacDonald had dyslexia

Oh-ai-oh-ai-eeeeee!

[Tina H]

31. in binary I think 10 is 4 (decimal)

00
01
10
11

not 2 (decimal) as your post suggests.

[LynzM]

34. No, it's definitely 2

00 = 0
01 = 1
10 = 2
11 = 3
100 = 4

[Tina H]

36. Even your post contemplates 5 (decimal) categories n/t

[Rabrrrrrr]

47. Huh?

:shrug:

10 (binary) = 2 (decimal)

[LynzM]

53. I don't understand

What you're trying to say... binary isn't categories, they're direct translations. I don't want to sound condescending, so please try again to explain what you meant?

[Tina H]

54. sorry, my explantions from last night get an f minus

To try to clear things up:

1. Yes 10 (binary) translates to 2 (decimal) when the numerals are considred as scalar, analogue quantities.

2. However:

I was trying to point out that when we count integers, we tend to start from one (or unity) when we count in base 10, but we tend to start from zero when we count in base two.

In this "counting successive integers" sense 10 (binary) is the third integer we would count and is therefore analogous to 3 (decimal). In the "10 types of people" quote, I think "10" is being used in this "counting" sense, rather than in the scalar quantity sense noted above in item 1. The quote really implies that there are 3 types of people. Maybe I am a type 3.

[LynzM]

55. Ah, gotcha.

Makes sense now.

[LynzM]

33. I love that one!

Had it as my screensaver at work... dimwit across from me asked me what "bin-airy" was... LMAO. Thanks for proving my point!

[LastKnight]

9. regarding the equation for magnetic force... and other E&M jokes...

magnetic force = BIL*sin(theta)

our instructor used to give us crap about wanting to 'kill bill' by the time we where done. (he had just seen volume 1)

also... he would walk in singing "Ohm, Ohm on the range"

we wouldnt get any assignments during the E&M unit... we would get 'Ohmwork'

thiers alot more, but ill spare you all, and thats just from one day.

hes a great teacher, but his jokes are sometimes hard to take.


EDIT: fixed my equation, you can tell i payed attention, huh? :D

-LK

[Endangered Specie]

10. ever try "swing low... sweet char-ges"

Id have to meet this guy.

[LastKnight]

16. during the relativity chapter...

people would complain they didnt have enough time to get thier stuff done... and he would tell us to 'make time'... and then laugh at us.

hes a bit of a smartass, but still pretty cool.

-LK

[Endangered Specie]

18. Relativity jokes are fun...

If you say your gone for 5 minutes, but are really gone for longer... you know what to do.

[LastKnight]

21. yea there were no shortage of time jokes...

considering this guy has a twin, and kinda nervous about his hair going white before his twin's... we really opened up on him with the twin paradox jokes...

"get in the spaceship Mr B. and come back in 10 years, your twin will have whiter hair than you will then... i gaurentee it, as long as you travel fast enough."

see, not funny unless your a complete geek like me

-LK

[Endangered Specie]

23. Oh, I am a complete geek....

I once called a general solution (that we thought to be interesting), an ADMIRAL solution

[LynzM]

35. 2 of my favorite terrible prof quotes...

"Oh, I see, you're double-negativing me"... ?

and the one that still baffles me, after adding two lines to a diagram on the board, "Notice, they're anti-diagonal" ... I think it means they form an X ....

[DieboldMustDie]

26. There was a young woman named Flight

Who traveled much faster than light
She left home one day
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

52. Outrageously bad jokes are EXCELLENT teaching tools

Students NEVER forget them.

[Donkeyboy75]

13. It takes alkynes to make the world go 'round.

Chem geek here.

[Endangered Specie]

14. One never says "basically:" in a chem class either...

especially when discussing acid/base stuff.

[qwertyMike]

25. Hexa-Nitroso Benzene - C6(NO)6

Excellent contaceptive.
Says NO in six different positions.


NO
|
/ \
NO- -NO
| |
NO- -NO
\ /
|
NO

You get the idea - bad drawing
VERY unstable :)

[Donkeyboy75]

27. Great one! Great meaning bad, of course.

[Endangered Specie]

30. Lithium and Molybdenum are walking down the street...

Lithium says: Oh, wait I think I lost an electron
Molybdenum : are you positive?

[Ilsa]

17. A silly joke that ended with this punchline:

"The squaw on the hide of the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides."

[Lisa]

19. did you hear about the two corpuscles who loved in vein?

(there are just too many medical/anatomy puns out there ...)

[Tina H]

20. Trivia question:

name the universal constant quantity modulated into the following carrier sentence:

How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.

[Tina H]

44. Nobody answered, so here is the answer:

pi

the modulated characteristic of the carrier is the number of letters in each word

[Speck Tater]

28. An onldie, but a goodie

The Indian chief had three wives. To his first wife he gave a buffalo hide and she bore him a son. To the second wife he gave an antelope hide and she bore him a son. To the third wife he gave a hippopotamus hide and she bore him TWO sons thus proving that the squaw of the hippopotomus is equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides.

[Scottie72]

29. The answer is

42

EOM

[bhunt70]

32. ugh puns suck, lowest form of humor, even ahead of slapstick.

[Lizz612]

37. Bio joke

We were talking about dioecious plants and the prof puts up a slide of the female Cannabis sativa and says "I'm sure none of you know what this is. I know, excuse me, I've heard that the female of the species, seen here, is more desirable. This is due to the high oil content of the female reproductive organs. The oil is even more desirable if the female plant is raised in the absence of any male plants."

[Lizz612]

42. Hint

:smoke:

[fortyfeetunder]

38. For the advanced math geeks

Make Differential Equations an integral part of your life ...BAHAHA!

[Endangered Specie]

39. Normally I would find this funny...

but on the count that I have a Diff Eq Final Wednesday... you get the picture.

Never drink before a calculus test:
Dont Drink and Derive

[fortyfeetunder]

40. Just relax, you will rock on the final

I wish you the best on your final.

[Endangered Specie]

41. Many thanks...

Actually Im not as worried about that one as others, I feel fairly confident (relatively speaking) about it.

Its that time of year on college campuses, cram cram cram.

[JVS]

45. What's purple and commutes?

an Abelian grape.

[TXlib]

49. *groan*

I forgot that one.

[TXlib]

48. What does a mathematician do when constipated?

Works it out with a pencil!

[TXlib]

50. Funny answering machine message

"The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone by 90 degrees, and try again."

[Endangered Specie]

57. *arrrgh* nice

[Endangered Specie]

58. *arrrgh* nice

[Quahog]

51. What did the limestone say to the geologist?

"Don't take me for granite."

[denverbill]

56. Maybe this doesn't fit, but I still like it.

The Barometer Story

"Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.

I read the examination question: "Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer." The student had answered: "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building."

The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this.

I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six
minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he hadn't written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him
and asked him to please go on.

In the next minute, he dashed off his answer, which read:

"Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^2, calculate the height of the building."

At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit.

While leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were. "Well," said the student, "there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer.

For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building, and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building."

"Fine," I said, "and others?"
"Yes," said the student, "there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units." "A very direct method."

"Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the
barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building, in principle, can be calculated."

"On this same tack, you could take the barometer to the top of the
building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession".

"Finally," he concluded, "there are many other ways of solving the problem. Probably the best," he said, "is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: 'Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer."

At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the
conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.