Physics Humor

Classroom Questions

Are you serious?

   Sirius is a star in the constellation Canis Major. I am not self-luminous.  I am not bright enough to be a star. Therefore I cannot be Sirius.

Are you joking?

   Do I look like Jerry Seinfeld?

Are you kidding?

   I am not breeding goats.

Are you telling the truth?

   I have not spoken to Sojourner.

Are you for real?

   Do I look like I am connected to a fishing rod?

Are you honest?

   Do I look like a robin sitting on little blue eggs?

Fun With Metric prefixes

Translate the following:

10¹ cards

10⁶ phone

10⁻⁶ scope

10⁻⁶ phone

10⁻² pede

10⁻³ pede

10⁹ ly (two pronunciations)

10¹² bull

10⁻⁹ 10⁻⁹ (said by what person on what old television show)

2×10³ mockingbird

2×10² with it

10⁻³ Vanilli

10⁻¹ mate

10⁻¹² bo St. (Chap Stick personality)

10 ² grade

10 ²¹ Marx

10⁻¹⁸ boy

10⁹ lo

10¹² firma

10¹⁵ bull

10¹⁸ m

10⁶ bucks

10³ what

serial 10³

10⁶ lo maniac

10¹ dent

10 −3 tary

10 ⁹ goat

10 ¹⁸ tude

Mechanics

A Party of Famous Physicists

One day, all of the world's famous physicists decided to get together for a tea luncheon. Fortunately, the doorman was a grad student, and able to observe some of the guests...
Everyone gravitated toward Newton, but he just kept moving around at a constant velocity and showed no reaction.
Einstein thought it was a relatively good time.
Coulomb got a real charge out of the whole thing.
Cavendish wasn't invited, but he had to show Newton how to find G.
Cauchy, being the only mathematician there, still managed to integrate well with everyone.
Thompson enjoyed the plum pudding.
Pauli came late, but was mostly excluded from things, so he split.
Pascal was under too much pressure to enjoy himself.
Ohm spent most of the time resisting Ampere's opinions on current events.
Hamilton went to the buffet tables exactly once.
Volta thought the social had a lot of potential.
Hilbert was pretty spaced out for most of it.
Heisenberg may or may not have been there.
The Curies were there and just glowed the whole time.
van der Waals forced himself to mingle.
Wien radiated a colorful personality.
Millikan dropped his Italian oil dressing.
de Broglie mostly just stood in the corner and waved.
Hollerith liked the hole idea.
Stefan and Boltzman got into some hot debates.
Everyone was attracted to Tesla's magnetic personality.
Compton was a little scatter-brained at times.
Bohr ate too much and got atomic ache.
Watt turned out to be a powerful speaker.
Hertz went back to the buffet table several times a minute.
Faraday had quite a capacity for food.
Oppenheimer got bombed.

Lorries

A fellow was following a truck in heavy traffic. Every block or so, when they were stopped at a stop light, the driver of the truck would jump out of the cab with a big stick and bang on the side of the cargo bay. He'd then jump back into the cab in time to drive away when the signal changed.

The first fellow observed this for several miles, until he could stand it no longer. The next time the truck driver jumped out with the stick, the first fellow jumped out and ran up to him. "I'm sorry to bother you," he said, over the din of the banging, "but I am very curious; could you tell me what you are doing?"

Without breaking rhythm, the truck driver replied, "Sure, Mac. Ya see, this here's a six-ton truck but I've got eight tons of canaries aboard, so I've gotta keep two ton of them flying all the time so I don't break an axle".

Newton's Laws of Spam

Newton's 1st Law of Spam: A slab of spam at rest will remain at rest unless it decides to get up and move...

Newton's 2nd Law of Spam: A slab of spam in motion will remain in motion because everyone moves out of the way when they see it coming.

Newton's 3rd Law of Spam: For every action involving a slab of spam there is an equal and opposite reaction. ex. - Eat spam, Hurl spam.

Barometer joke

My friend once saw a question like this on his physics final: How would you use a barometer to find the height of a building.

1. Find someone who knows how tall the building is, and trade him the barometer for the information. Teacher rejects: not a property characteristic of the barometer

2. Measure the height of the barometer. Scale the side of the building, measuring its 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 hits the street. Correcting for the mass/surface ratio of the instrument, use basic acceleration 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 the height 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 accurate measurement 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. Oh! You want that boring stuff from the beginning of the term! What is something this simple doing on the final? Anyone who doesn't know that has already dropped. I assumed you wanted us to think!

Gravity

IT'S NOT JUST A GOOD IDEA; IT'S THE LAW!

Original Author: GEO1 @ PSUADMIN; 03/24/94

Correction

Actually, there's no such thing as gravity... the world just sucks! Brian Pearson; 04/01/94

We can defeat gravity.

The problem is the paperwork involved.

Heavy Boots

About 1983, 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."

I say, science education must be at an all time peak !!!

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 its 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 the experiment 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 strict laws 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 this paradox. Therefore it simply does not fall.

That's right you clever mortal (well, as clever as a mortal can get), you have discovered 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 in equilibrium. 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 drive their ships while within a planetary system. The loud humming heard by most sighters of UFOs is, in fact, the purring of several hundred tabbies. The one obvious danger is, of course, if the cats manage to eat the bread off their backs they will instantly plummet. Of course the cats will land on their feet, but this usually doesn't do them much good, since right after they make their graceful landing 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 held in suspended animation (say, about -190 degrees Celsius) with buttered bread strapped to their backs, thus avoiding the possibility of collisions due to temperamental felines. More importantly, how do you steer, once the cats are all held in stasis?

I offer a modest proposal: We all know that wearing a white shirt at an Italian restaurant is a guaranteed way to take a trip to the laundromat. Plaster the outside of 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 the directions 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, expensive dress shirts. This does not work as well in deep gravity wells, since the tomato sauce (now falling down a black hole, perhaps) will drag the ship with it, despite the counter force of the anti-gravity cat/butter machine. Your only hope at that point is to jettison enormous quantities of Tide. This will create the well-known Gravitational Tidal Force.

Temperature

"Absolute zero is cool."

Superconductor

Researchers in Fairbanks Alaska announced last week that they have discovered a superconductor which will operate at room temperature.

Cold Fusion: Looney Theory of the Week

"Hey Mike?"

"Yeah, Gabe?"

"We got a problem down on Earth. In Utah."

"I thought you fixed that last century!"

"No, no, not that. Someone's found a loophole in the physics program. They're getting energy out of nowhere."

"Blessit! Lemme check..."< tappity clickity tappity> "Hey, I thought I fixed that! All right, let me find my terminal."< tappity clickity tap... save... compile> "There, that ought to patch it."

Boy Scout Story (true)

Three years ago, when we took the scout troop of which I'm an assistant scoutmaster to summer camp, the first aid class got a first hand look at frostbite, not an easy task on a 98 degree Arkansas day. Two of the boys were playing with a can of deodorant and discovered evaporative cooling. Being the aforementioned 98 degrees, one of them thought it would be cool (bad pun-I know) to keep spraying it on. Before long the damage had been done.

Other Interpretation of Dreams

Last week I took a horrible stats test (a required course for all first year psych grad students at my university), and afterwards I was plagued with some of the worst dreams I've had in my lengthy college career. The worst one, however, was when not only did I fail the test, but I received a negative 40. I distinctly remember commenting in my dream "Only in North Dakota can you get 40 below zero on a test." (For those that don't know, it gets mighty cold up here, and 40 below zero is the same on both the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales. And come January, that'll be the daily high temp!) David

Heaven is hotter than Hell

It is perhaps worth pointing out that Heaven is actually hotter than Hell. My full source for this is a book called "A Random Walk in Physics", published by the UK Institute of Physics, but apparently the original is in Applied Optics, II, A14 (1972).

In summary, the argument uses Isaiah 30:26 "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." After various complex arguments (and using the Stefan-Boltzmann fourth-power law, which is familiar to you all, I'm sure) this gives the equation: (H/E)^4 = 50, where H is the temperature of Heaven and E is the temperature of Earth. This implies the temperature of Heaven is 525 deg. C. By contrast, the temperature of Hell must be less than 445 deg. C, the temperature of the lake of boiling sulphur (see Rev 21:8.) If it were any hotter, the sulphur would be a gas, not a lake. Thus Heaven is hotter than Hell.

Hell is the same temperature

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

Sound

Things That Don't Make Any Noise

Paint

Bricks

The Moon

A banana

Electricity

Small spiders

Busted amplifiers

One hand clapping

People who are dead

Disconnected speakers

Explosions in a vacuum

Clocks that have stopped

Anything floating in space

A dormouse wearing slippers

Someone who's lost their voice

Trees falling in a forest if there's nobody there to hear them

Stealth fighter

An acoustic-guided submunition call the BAT may be good against tanks, but not against an F-117. A reader who works on the stealth fighter in Saudi Arabia says bats (the natural ones) occasionally work their way into F-117 hangers [sic]. One night a hungry bat turned right into an F-117 rudder and fell stunned to the floor. He flew away groggily, leaving behind a heightened impression of the aircraft's stealth. "I don't know what the radar return is for the vertical tails of the F-117 but I always thought it had to be more than an insect's," the reader said. "I guess I was wrong." There may be some "science" in this -- the ultrasound wavelengths used by bats are roughly the same as X-band radar. (From Aviation Week and Space Technology, Oct 17, 1991 excerpted without permission)

Light

Darksuckers

DARK CONSPIRACY INVOLVING ELECTRICAL POWER COMPANIES SURFACES: Updated 8/7/88

For years the electrical utility companies have led the public to believe they were in business to supply electricity to the consumer, a service for which they charge a substantial rate. The recent accidental acquisition of secret records from a well known power company has led to a massive research campaign which positively explodes several myths and exposes the massive hoax which has been perpetrated upon the public by the power companies. The most common hoax promoted the false concept that light bulbs emitted light; in actuality, these 'light' bulbs actually absorb DARK which is then transported back to the power generation stations via wires. A more descriptive name has now been coined; the new scientific name is for the device is DARKSUCKER.

This newsletter introduces a brief synopsis of the darksucker theory, which proves the existence of dark and establishes the fact that dark has great mass, and further, that dark is the fastest known particle in the universe. Apparently, even the celebrated Dr. Albert Einstein did not suspect the truth.. that just as COLD is the absence of HEAT, LIGHT is actually the ABSENCE of DARK... light does not really exist! The basis of the darksucker theory is that electric light bulbs suck dark. Take for example, the darksuckers in the room where you are. There is much less dark right next to them than there is elsewhere, demonstrating their limited range. The larger the darksucker, the greater its capacity to suck dark. Darksuckers in a parking lot or on a football field have a much greater capacity than the ones in used in the home, for example.

It may come as a surprise to learn that darksuckers also operate on a celestial scale; witness the Sun. Our Sun makes use of dense dark, sucking it in from all the planets and intervening dark space. Naturally, the Sun is better able to suck dark from the planets which are situated closer to it, thus explaining why those planets appear brighter than do those which are far distant from the Sun. Occasionally, the Sun actually oversucks; under those conditions, dark spots appear on the surface of the Sun. Scientists have long studied these 'sunspots' and are only recently beginning to realize that the dark spots represent leaks of high pressure dark because the Sun has oversucked dark to such an extent that some of actually leaks back into space. This leakage of high pressure dark frequently causes problems with radio communications here on Earth due to collisions between the dark particles as they stream out into space via the black 'holes' in the surface of the Sun.

As with all manmade devices, darksuckers have a finite lifetime. Once they are full of dark, they can no longer suck. This condition can be observed by looking for the black spot on a full darksucker when it has reached maximum capacity... you have surely noticed that dark completely surrounds a full darksucker because it no longer has the capacity to suck dark at all.

A candle is a primitive darksucker. A new candle has a white wick. You will notice that after the first use the wick turns black, representing all the dark which has been sucked into it. If you hold a pencil next to the wick of an operating candle, the tip will turn black because it got in the way of the dark flowing into the candle. Unfortunately, these primitive darksuckers have a very limited range and are hazardous to operate because of the intense heat produced.

There are also portable darksuckers called flashlights. The bulbs in these devices cannot handle all of the dark by themselves, and must be aided by a dark storage unit called a battery. When the dark storage unit is full, it must be either emptied (a process called 'recharging') or replaced before the portable darksucker can continue to operate. If you break open a battery, you will find dense black dark inside, evidence that it is actually a compact dark storage unit.

The darksuckers on your automobile are high capacity units with great range, thus they require much larger dark storage units mounted under the hood of the vehicle. Since there is far more dark available in the winter season, automobile dark storage units reach capacity more frequently than they do in the summer, requiring 'recharging', or in severe cases, total replacement.

Dark has great mass. When dark is drawn into a darksucker, friction caused by the speed of the dark particles (called anti-photons) actually generates substantial heat, thus it is unwise to touch an operating dark sucker. Candles represent a special problem, as the dark must travel into a solid wick instead of through clear glass. This generates a great amount of heat, making it very dangerous to touch an operating candle.

Because dark has such great mass, it is very heavy. If you swim just below the surface of a lake, you see a lot of 'light' (absence of dark, to be more precise). As you go deeper and deeper beneath the surface, you notice it gets darker and darker. When you reach a depth of approximately fifty feet, you are in total darkness. This is because the heavier dark sinks to the bottom of the lake, making it appear 'lighter' near the surface.

The power companies have learned to use the dark that has settled to the bottom of lakes by pushing it through turbines, which generate electricity to help push the dark into the ocean where it may be safely stored for their devious purposes.

Prior to the development of turbines, it was much more difficult to get the dark from the rivers and lakes to the ocean. The Indians recognized this problem, and developed means to assist the flow of dark on its long journey to the ocean. When on a river in a canoe traveling in the same direction as the flow of dark, they paddled slowly, so as not to impede the flow of dark; but when they traveled against the flow of dark, they paddled vigorously to help propel the dark along its way.

Scientists are working feverishly to develop exotic new instrumentation with which to measure the actual speed and energy level of dark. While such instrumentation is beyond the capabilities of the average layman, you can actually perform a simple test to demonstrate the unbelievable speed of dark, right in your own home.

All that is required for the simple test is a closed desk drawer situated in a bright room. You know from past experience that the tightly shut drawer is FULL of dark. Now, place your hand firmly on the drawer's handle.

Quickly yank the drawer open.. the dark immediately disappears, demonstrating the blinding speed with which the dark travels to the nearest darksucker!

The secrets of dark are at present known only to the power companies. Dark must be very valuable, since they go to such lengths to collect it in vast quantities. By some well hidden method, more modern power 'generation' facilities have devised methods to hide their collection of dark. The older facilities, however, usually have gargantuan piles of solidified dark in huge fenced in areas. Visitors to these facilities are told the huge black piles of material are supplies of coal, but such is not the case.

The power companies have long used code words to hide their activities; D.C. is Dark Conspiracy, whole A.C. is Alternate Conspiracy. The intent of the A.C. is not yet known, but the D.C. is rapidly yielding its secrets to the probing eyes and instruments of honest scientists around the world. New developments are being announced every day and we promise to keep the public informed of these announcements as they occur via this newsletter. Les Dark, Editor

Lasers

Today, thanks to men like Edison and Franklin, and frogs like Galvini's, we receive almost unlimited benefits from electricity. For example, in the past decade 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, yet so precise that doctors can use it to perform delicate operations on the human eyeball, provided they remember to change the power setting from "VAPORIZE BULLDOZER" to "DELICATE." ... also from the book Bad Habits by Dave Barry (it's superb).

Why the Sky is Blue by 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 clean

For 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 bed

Or behind the mountains in the west.

You take all that out and the rest

Couldn't be anything else but blue.

Look for yourself. You can see it's true.

Sun light

That 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 the newly sodded area around a recently completed building, the

coed commented about how fast the grass was growing.

"Yes," nodded her date knowingly, "that's because of the extra hour of daylight it gets."

"Oooh," she said, as her eyes widened and she gave this paragon of wisdom an admiring glance. Bob Terry

RATerry@SAUmag.edu

Optician

Q: What do you call an eye doctor who works in the islands off Alaska?

A: An Optical Aleutian.

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've decided to save mine. I figure if I live at least 60 years, that gives me one extra minute. 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 word in edgewise! BO10@UTMARTN.BITNET or asanders@utm.edu

Snail Humor

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

Time Travel

Those three boys are in the schoolyard bragging of how great their fathers are.

The first one says: "Well, my father runs the fastest. He can fire an arrow, and start to run, I tell you, he gets there before the arrow".

The second one says: "Ha! You think that's fast! My father is a hunter. He can shoot his gun and be there before the bullet".

The third one listens to the other two and shakes his head. He then says: "You two know nothing about fast. My father is a civil servant. He stops working at 4:30 and he is home by 3:45"!!

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.

Please to have marked your calendars.

updated 28 May 95

Electricity

Hydraulic analogy of electricity

Electrical question: A long time ago, when I was in the Marines studying electronic repair, one of my instructors poses the following question... "If electricity flows in a manner similar to water, why is it then that the electrons don't spill out of the outlets in a room and drown us? Or is that where we get static electricity? Just think of the implications... We would have to go around grounded, or at the very least, wearing garments made of insulated materials. Hmmmm... David

James Thurber wrote a very funny story about his great-aunt, who believed (among other strange things) that if a socket didn't have a plug in it, all the electricity was spilling on the floor. (If I remember correctly) She would stalk around the house, plugging things into open sockets and crying 'AH-HA' each time.

Picking huckleberries

A friend of the family went camping not too long ago. The mountains of Idaho, Washington and Montana are filled with huckleberries this time of year, so she was told to bring something to collect the fruit in. She brought the vacuum sweeper. When asked what she was going to plug it in to, she answered, "A current bush." Jan Kucera: kuc@fce.vutbr.cz

G. Westinghouse History

You say Edison was the greatest one of all, but don't forget George Westinghouse. Edison was famous for D.C. (direct current) which incidentally, we named our nation's capitol after. But Westinghouse was famous for A.C. (He bought it from Tesla) and the Westinghouse Electric Co. So anyway, the descendants of these two got together and created a band, hence AC/DC. Thusly, if you create AC with DC all you get is noise. So George Westinghouse is famous for noise. If you hear any noise, in your car or house or anywhere else, thank him.

Electricians Ten Commandments.....

1. Beware of lightning that lurketh in an uncharged condenser lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most embarrassing manner

2. Cause thou the switch that supplieth large quantities of juice to be opened and thusly tagged, that thy days may be long in this earthly vale of tears.

3. Prove to thyself that all circuits that radiateth, and upon which thy worketh, are grounded and thusly tagged lest they lift thee to a radio frequency potential and causeth thee to make like a radiator, too.

4. Tarry thou not amongst these fools that engage in intentional shocks for they are not long for this world and are surely unbelievers.

5. Take care that thou useth the proper method when thou takest the measures of high-voltage circuits, that thou dost not incinerate both thee and thy test meter, for verily, though thou has no company property number and can be easily replaced, the test meter has one and, as a consquence, the loss of which bringeth much woe unto a purchasing agent.

6. Take care that thou tamperest not with interlocks and safety devices, for this incurreth the wrath of the chief electrician and bring the fury of the engineers on his head.

7. Work thou not on energized equipment for if thou doest so, thy friends will surely be buying beers for thy widow and consoling her in certain ways not generally acceptable to thee.

8. Verily, verily I say unto thee, never service equipment alone, for electrical cooking is a slow process and thou might sizzle in thy own fat upon a hot circuit for hours on end before thy maker sees fit to end thy misery and drag thee into his fold.

9. Trifle thee not with radioactive tubes and substances lest thou commence to glow in the dark like a lightning bug, and thy wife be frustrated and have not further use for thee except for thy wages.

10. Commit thou to memory all the words of the prophets which are written down in thy Bible which is the National Electrical Code, and giveth out with the straight dope and consoleth thee when thou hast suffered a ream job by the chief electrician.

Simple experiment

Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical lesson: On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach your hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings. Did you notice how your friend twitched 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 to learn an important electrical lesson. Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"

Electrical circuit

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

Amazing Fact

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

Electrons

Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles, called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking. Electrons travel 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, an electron 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"

Current

The five main kinds of electricity are alternating current, direct current, lightning, static, and European. Most American homes have alternating current, which means that the electricity goes in one direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in the wires. Dave Barry, "The Taming 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, which is sealed inside at the factory. If this smoke ever gets out, the part is no longer functional. This is true, how many times have you ever seen an electrical or electronic device work right after smoke has been emitted?

Relativity

I was going how fast???

The following message was written by a couple of guys at the University of Dayton. Recently I have been pestered with a series of deeply scientific questions... All evolving out of the age old question... If you're driving at the speed of Light and you turn your headlights on... What happens?

These were quickly followed by: If you're driving at the speed of light and...

Turn your radio on... What station do you get?

Hit an on coming freight train...

Stick your head out the window...

Turn on the windshield washer jets...

Honk your horn...

Downshift into first...

These are all fascinating (and deeply disturbed) questions. But let us assume that you get a car that can travel the speed of light and you begin to unravel these age old mysteries... WHEN SUDDENLY... You are faced with an even 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 were going... "Didn't you notice the Blue Shift, son?"

After doing some research (No, I did not recently get a ticket) I found that the fair city of Oakwood charges $1 for every 1 mph over the speed limit. So if you were pulled 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 such subsequent 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 in 0.00001 seconds)

A couple of other stats concerning a car capable of light speed. You'd flip the odometer in .537 seconds and need to change the oil every .053 seconds. I don't even want to get into the amount of gas it would use and at the current gas prices maybe a ticket isn't your first concern.

But just think... You'll be able to answer all those complicated questions... Be the first to own a light-speed car...

Q: 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 per second, 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 the road. This is why so many scientists today no longer own a driver's license.

Ask Dr. Science

Slow Light

Q: 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 the speed 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 to drive 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 be going 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, to answer your question, life, if the speed of light were sixty miles per hour, would be youthful, fast, and dark. Ask Dr. Science

Stupid Light

Q: Why do objects become shorter and wider as they approach the speed of light?

A: There are two different kinds of light here, the light that fills our days and the light that fills our beers and diet sodas. The objects that become shorter and wider are those that consume too much light beer. The so-called "couch potato syndrome" could be more a side-effect of gravity than of light, though the light emitted from a TV set seems to have an adverse effect on weight. TV light, or, as science calls it, "stupid light," seems to create an urge in couch potatoes to drink gallons of light beer. Why, we don't know. Stupid light contrasts with smart light, which is the intelligent radiation we get from the sun and Eveready batteries. When we approach the speed of smart light we don't get shorter and wider; we get dark, bump into things, and fall down. So, if you plan on breaking the light barrier, I advise you not to. Turn on the TV and crack a couple of cold ones. You'll be fat, but you'll be safe. Ask Dr. Science

Quantum

Heisenberg Uncertainty of Bananas

Note that bananas always curve to the left when held in the right hand.

Oh, no, guys. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle apples here. It isn't that the banana always curves to the left, it's that the curvature of the banana in Einsteinian space is unknowable to us. Now, a Newtonian banana, falling from a tree, might indeed not intend any transgression of the law, but in observing it we change it. The one thing we can be sure of, though, is that it didn't really fall, a serpent pushed it. 4/17/95, Georgianna<ULHENRY@VM.CC.OLEMISS.EDU>

No, the uncertainty comes in when to stop spelling... ananana...

Schrodinger's Cat

Wanted poster in post office in physics land:

Wanted

$10,000 reward.

Schrodinger's Cat.

Dead or Alive

nweaver@ocf.berkeley.edu (Nicholas Weaver)

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

If you know how fast you're driving, you must be lost. (Probably Douglas Adams originally)

Experimental

Twinkies as food?

In an effort to clarify questions about the purported durability and unusual physical characteristics of Twinkies, I subjected the Hostess snack logs to the following experiments:

Exposure: A Twinkie was left on a window ledge for 4 days, during which time an inch and a half of rain fell. Many flies were observed crawling across the Twinkie's surface, but contrary to hypothesis, birds - even pigeons - avoided this potential source of substance. Despite the rain and prolonged exposure to the sun, the Twinkie retained its original color and form. When removed, the Twinkie was found to be substantially dehydrated. Cracked open, it was observed to have taken on the consistency of industrial from insulation; the filling however, retained its advertised "creaminess".

Radiation: A Twinkie was placed in a conventional microwave oven, which was set for precisely 4 minutes - the approximate cooking time for bacon. After 20 seconds, the oven began to emit the Twinkie's rich, characteristic aroma of artificial butter. After one minute, this aroma began to resemble the acrid smell of burning rubber. The experiment was aborted after 2 minutes 10 seconds when thick, foul smoke began billowing from the top of the oven. A second Twinkie was subjected to the same experiment; this Twinkie leaked molten white filling. When cooled, this now epoxy-like filling bonded the Twinkie to its plate, defying gravity: it was removed only upon application of a butter knife.

Extreme Force: A Twinkie was dropped from a ninth floor window, a fall of approximately 120 feet. It landed right side up, then bounced onto its back. The expected "splatter" effect was not observed. Indeed, the only discernible damage to the Twinkie was a narrow fissure on its underside; otherwise, the Twinkie remained structurally intact.

Extreme Cold: A Twinkie was placed in a conventional freezer for 24 hours. Upon removal, the Twinkie was not found to be frozen solid, but its physical properties had noticeably "slowed". The filling was found to have the approximate consistency of acrylic paint, while exhibiting the mercury-like property of not adhering to practically any surface. It was noted that the Twinkie had generously absorbed the freezer odors.

Extreme Heat: A Twinkie was exposed to a gas flame for 2 minutes. While the Twinkie smoked and blackened and the filling in one of its "cream holes" boiled, the Twinkie did not catch fire. It did, however, produce the same "burning rubber" aroma noticed in the irradiation experiment.

Immersion: A Twinkie was dropped into a large bucket filled with water. The Twinkie floated momentarily, then began to list and sink. Viscous yellow tendrils ran off its lower half, possibly consisting of a water-soluble artificial coloring. After 2 hours, the Twinkie bloated substantially. Its coloring was now a very pale tan - in contrast to the yellow, urine like water that surrounded it. The Twinkie bobbed when touched, and had a gelatinous texture. After 72 hours the Twinkie had increased roughly 200 percent of its original size. The water had turned opaque, and a small, fan shaped spray of filling had leaked from one of the "cream holes". Unfortunately, efforts to remove the Twinkie for further analysis were abandoned when, under light pressure the Twinkie disintegrated into an amorphous cloud of debris. A distinctly sour odor was noted.

Summary: The Twinkie's survival of a 120 foot drop, along with some of the unusual phenomena associated with the "creamy filling" and artificial coloring, should give pause to those observers who would unequivocally categorize the Twinkie as "food". Further clinical inquiry is required before any definite conclusions can be drawn.

Angles

Isn't it meaningless to speak of a 45 degree angle unless you specify Fahrenheit or Celsius?

A 45 degree angle describes the shape of one hit by 15 3rd degree black belts.

Comparisons

Milk production

The USDA once wanted to make cows produce milk faster, to improve the dairy industry. So, they decided to consult the foremost biologists and recombinant DNA technicians to build them a better cow. They assembled this team of great scientists, and gave them unlimited funding. They requested rare chemicals, weird bacteria, tons of quarantine equipment, there was a horrible typhus epidemic 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 the original. They then tried with the greatest Nobel Prize winning chemists around. They worked for six months, and, after requisitioning tons of chemical equipment, and poisoning half the small town in Colorado where they were working with a toxic cloud 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 to radiation therapy, they got a 1% improvement in output.  Finally, in desperation, they turned to the mathematicians. The foremost mathematician of his time offered to help them with the problem. Upon hearing the 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 he handed them a piece of paper with the computations for the new, 300% improved milk cow.  The plans began: "A Proof of the Attainability of Increased Milk Output from Bovines: Consider a spherical cow..."

Cows

Ian writes: Farmer smith was not satisfied with the yield of his milk cows, so he decided to called in an animal psychologist, an engineer and a physicist to try and improve matters. All three inspected the farm and the cows and made there recommendations.

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 10 centimeters you will be able to add an extra stall and thus be able to milk an extra cow in the same time."

Farmer Smith was very happy so far, now it came to the turn of the physicist. He got out a black board and started drawing an elaborate diagram. Then he started to talk: "First, we approximate the Cow as a sphere of radius r."

That's pretty good. A friend of mine, here in Agricultural Engineering, has an inflatable cow. He brings it out for parties [volleycow, etc.]. He says it is his approximation, as an Ag. Engineer, of a sphere...

Fire

An engineer, a mathematician, and a physicist are staying in three adjoining cabins at a decrepit old motel. First the engineer's coffee maker catches fire on the bathroom vanity. He smells the smoke, wakes up, unplugs it, throws it out the window, and goes back to sleep.

Later that night the physicist smells smoke too. He wakes up and sees that a cigarette butt has set the trash can on fire. He says to himself, "Hmm. How does one put out a fire? One can reduce the temperature of the fuel below the flash point, isolate the burning material from oxygen, or both. This could be accomplished by applying water." So he picks up the trash can, puts it in the shower stall, turns on the water, and, when the fire is out, goes back to sleep.

The mathematician, of course, has been watching all this out the window. So later, when he finds that his pipe ashes have set the bed sheet on fire, he is not in the least taken aback. He immediately sees that the problem reduces to one that has already been solved and goes back to sleep. Author is Benjamin Murray bmurray@saucer.cc.umr.edu

To fry an egg

An engineer, physicist, and mathematician are all challenged with a problem: to fry an egg when there is a fire in the house.

The engineer just grabs a huge bucket of water, runs over to the fire, and puts it out.

The physicist thinks for a long while, and then measures a precise amount of water into a container. He takes it over to the fire, pours it on, and with the last drop the fire goes out.

The mathematician pores over pencil and paper. After a few minutes he goes "Aha! A solution exists!" and goes back to frying the egg.

Sequel: This time they are asked simply to fry an egg (no fire). The engineer just does it, kludging along; the physicist calculates carefully and produces a carefully cooked egg; and the mathematician lights a fire in the corner, and says "I have reduced it to the previous problem."

Coffee machine: A physicist and a mathematician setting in a faculty lounge. Suddenly, the coffee machine catches on fire. The physicist grabs a bucket and leaps towards the sink, fills the bucket with water and puts out the fire. The second day, the same two sit in the same lounge. Again, the coffee machine catches on fire. This time, the mathematician stands up, gets a bucket, hands the bucket to the physicist, thus reducing the problem to a previously solved one.

How they knew it was a deer:

The engineer was in the woods to hunt deer, therefore 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 a previously solved problem.

Laws

3×10⁸  m/s: it's not just a good idea, it's the law!

Gravity isn't just a good idea, It's the LAW!

Lawyer joke: how can you be so exact?

A humorous fellow, a carpenter, being subpoenaed as a witness on a trial for an assault; one counsel, who was very much given to browbeat the evidence, asked him what distance he was away from the parties when he saw the defendant strike the plaintiff? The carpenter answered, "Just four feet five inches and a half."

"Prithee, fellow," says the counsel, "how is it possible you can be so very exact as to the distance?"

"Why, to tell you the truth," says the carpenter, "I thought perhaps that some fool or other might ask me, so I measured it." (Hutchin's Improved: Being an Almanack for 1776)

Ohm's Law

Years ago, when I lived in Topanga, California (near LA) I had a magnetic sign on my car saying REPEAL OHM'S LAW with my phone number. As a result I received a number of interesting calls. One was from a physics professor at UCLA. He said he was all in favor of repealing Ohm's Law, but requested that I wait until the end of the quarter so he wouldn't have to rewrite his lecture notes. Allen

Allan wrote that he was "on the committee to revoke Ohm's Law". Let me guess: Ohm's Law: is that the one about sitting cross-legged and chanting "Ohm! Ohm! Ohm!" ?

Watt is Ohm's law and who volted it into existence? Has it met with any resistance in its application? Please respond quickly because my hair is on end and my emotional life has become static while awaiting an answer. Gus Seligmann

Ohm's Law was good enough in its time, but that time is past. It is a rankly discriminatory piece of legislation and should be repealed or severely amended. Current should be directly proportional to BOTH voltage and resistance, or inversely proportional to both, or proportional to neither.

Brownian Movement

Bob Terry's sigline urges us to "Join the Brownian Movement!" At the time (in Los Angeles) I had a magnetic sign on my car saying REPEAL OHM'S LAW with my telephone number, I got a call from someone urging me to join the Brownian Movement. When I asked him what folks did in the Brownian Movement, he told me they just got together to mill around. Allan 

Wouldn't folks in the Brownian Movement also smoke a lot or am I experiencing experimental confusion? Perhaps they just exist in a rather foggy condition. Gus

What's worng with this?

Traffic lights

Remember folks. Traffic lights timed for 35 mph are also properly timed for 70 mph.

General

Strange Signs

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

Product warnings

The following are possible product warnings that might be required on a package of 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 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.

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.

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.

Miscellaneous

Physicist's clothes

As noted in the Salt Lake Tribune: An American physicist has won a Nobel for his atom theory. This raises a

question about the role of scientific researchers: If they can find tiny organisms, why can't they pick out clothes that

match?

Thing in the cellar

The girl walked into the dark, dark house through the dark, dark hall and down the dark, dark stairs to the dark, dark

cellar where there was a dark, dark passageway at the end of which was a dark, dark room. Inside was a dark, dark

cupboard and inside that was an electrician mending the fuse!

New Age "thought" summed up

An engineer, a physicist, a mathematician, and a mystic were asked to name the greatest invention of all time. The

engineer chose fire, which gave humanity power over matter. The physicist chose the wheel, which gave humanity

the power 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 in summer."

"Yes -- so what?"

"Think about it." said the mystic reverently. That little bottle -- how does it know?"

Kid's ideas about science

From the Boston Globe a few years back: The beguiling ideas about science quoted here were gleaned from essays,

exams, and class room discussions. Most were from 5th and 6th graders. They illustrate Mark Twain's contention

that the 'most interesting information 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 getting hit. 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. When planets do it we say they are orbiting.

Rainbows are just to look at, not to really understand.

While the earth seems to be knowingly keeping its distance from the sun, it is really only centrificating.

Someday we may discover how to make magnets that can point in any direction.

South America has cold summers and hot winters, but somehow they still manage.

Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change back into a sun 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 and south.

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.

Lime is a green-tasting rock.

Many dead animals in the past changed to fossils while others preferred to be oil.

Genetics explain why you look like your father and if you don't why you should.

Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them know we know they're there.

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 been able to make out the numbers.

We say the cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation. Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things people forget

to put the top on.

To most people solutions mean finding the answers. But to chemists solutions are things that are still all mixed up.

In looking at a drop of water under a microscope, we find there are twice as many H's as O's.

Clouds are high flying fogs.

I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing.

Clouds just keep circling the earth around and around. And around. There is not much else to do.

Water vapor gets together in a cloud. When it is big enough to be called a drop, it does.

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.

Rain is often known as soft water, oppositely known as hail.

Rain is saved up in cloud banks.

In some rocks you can find the fossil footprints of fishes.

Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a dogs tongue will kill the strongest man.

A blizzard is when it snows sideways.

A hurricane is a breeze of a bigly size.

A monsoon is a French gentleman.

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.

The wind is like the air, only pushier.

Child's Garden of Versions

Some oil had leaked onto our driveway, and in the sunshine it acted like a prism, showing many different colors.

When my grandson saw it he came running into the house. "Grandma!" he called. "Come see the dead rainbow in

the driveway!"

While reading to my young son, I noticed that he was getting drowsy. As I started to put the book away he awoke

enough to say, "Don't stop, Daddy. Sometimes my ears stay up later than my eyes."

A ten-year-old boy was telling some of his friends about the high-school football injury his teen-age brother had

sustained. "It was a groan injury - and he groaned a lot."

An elementary-school teacher happened to be left-handed. A pupil commented one day, after watching her write,

"Mrs. B, did you know that your arms are on backward?" - From Readers Digest

A Simpleton's Guide to Science (stolen from UK magazine)

Relativity : Family get-togethers at Christmas

Gravity : Strength of a glass of beer

Time travel : Throwing the alarm clock at the wall

Black holes : What you get in black socks

Critical mass: A gaggle of film reviewers

Hyperspace : Where you park at the superstore

"The Greatest Management Principle in the World"

The things that get rewarded, get done. by Michael LeBoeuf

updated 28 May 95

'The World According to Student Bloopers' by Richard Lederer St. Paul's School (Spring 1987, Verbatim, The Language

Quarterly, Vol. XIII, No. 4) One of the fringe benefits of being an English or History teacher is receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper in an essay. I have pasted together the following "history" of the world from certifiably genuine student bloopers collected by teachers throughout the United States, from eighth grade through college level. Read carefully, and you will learn a lot.

   The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation.  The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pyramids are a range mountains between France and Spain. The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain. once asked, "Am I my brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Isaac, stole his brother's birth mark. Jacob was a patriarch who brought up his twelve sons to be patriarchs. but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites. Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines. Without the Greeks we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns: Corinthian, Doric, and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intollerable. Achilles appears in The Iliad, by Homer. Homer also wrote the Oddity, in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athens was democratic because people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought with the Persians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the Persians had more men. Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlics in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them. Then came the Middle Ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harold mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by Bernard Shaw, and victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense. In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head. The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenburg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello's interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper. The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted, "hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived at Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies, and errors. In one of Shakespear's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. In another, Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill the King by attacking his manhood. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained. During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the Ocean, and this was known as Pilgrims Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by the Indians, who came down the hill rolling their war hoops before them. The Indian squabs carried porpoises on their back. Many of the Indian heroes were killed, along with their cabooses which proved very fatal to them. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this. One of the causes of the Revolutionary Wars was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. During the War, the Red Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks were crowing. Finally, The colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis. Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead. George Washington married Martha Curtis and in due time became the Father of Our Country. Then the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms. Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. When Lincoln was President, he wore only a tall silk hat. He said, "In onion there is strength." Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. He also freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation, and the Fourteenth Amendment gave the ex-Negroes citizenship. But the Clue Clux Clan would torcher and lynch the ex-Negroes and other innocent victims. It claimed it represented law and odor. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career. Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy. Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees. Bach was the most famous composer in the world. and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this. France was in a very serious state. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened. The Marseillaise was the theme song of the French Revolution, and it catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorillas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained. He wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't bear children. The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. Her reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplatory of a great of a great personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign. The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented a code of telepathy. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers. The First World War, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the annals of human history.