ideas about science
The beguiling ideas about science quoted here were gleaned from essays, exams, and classroom 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.
Q: What is one horsepower?
A: One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.
You can listen to thunder after lightning 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. [this guy is going to do well in college! *haha* ...Lj]
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.
Q: What is one horsepower?
A: One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.
You can listen to thunder after lightning 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. [this guy is going to do well in college! *haha* ...Lj]
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.
jokes of science 01
At the physics exam: 'Describe the universe in 200 words and give three examples.'
Q: What do physicists enjoy doing the most at baseball games?
A: The 'wave'.
The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center was known as SLAC, until the big earthquake, when it became known as SPLAC. SPLAC? Stanford Piecewise Linear Accelerator.
A student recognizes Einstein in a train and asks: Excuse me, professor, but does New York stop by this train?
Researchers in Fairbanks Alaska announced last week that they have discovered a superconductor which will operate at room temperature.
The answer to the problem was "log(1+x)". A student copied the answer from the good student next to him, but didn't want to make it obvious that he was cheating, so he changed the answer slightly, to "timber(1+x)"
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.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends on your frame of reference.
Q: What do physicists enjoy doing the most at baseball games?
A: The 'wave'.
The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center was known as SLAC, until the big earthquake, when it became known as SPLAC. SPLAC? Stanford Piecewise Linear Accelerator.
A student recognizes Einstein in a train and asks: Excuse me, professor, but does New York stop by this train?
Researchers in Fairbanks Alaska announced last week that they have discovered a superconductor which will operate at room temperature.
The answer to the problem was "log(1+x)". A student copied the answer from the good student next to him, but didn't want to make it obvious that he was cheating, so he changed the answer slightly, to "timber(1+x)"
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.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends on your frame of reference.
jokes of science 02
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...".
A Princeton plasma physicist is at the beach when he discovers an ancient looking oil lantern sticking out of the sand. He rubs the sand off with a towel and a genie pops out. The genie offers to grant him one wish. The physicist retrieves a map of the world from his car an circles the Middle East and tells the genie, "I wish you to bring peace in this region".
After 10 long minutes of deliberation, the genie replies, "Gee, there are lots of problems there with Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, and all those other places. This is awfully embarrassing. I've never had to do this before, but I'm just going to have to ask you for another wish. This one is just too much for me".
Taken aback, the physicist thinks a bit and asks, "I wish that the Princeton tokamak would achieve scientific fusion energy break-even."
After another deliberation the genie asks, "Could I see that map again?"
What is the difference between a physicist, an engineer, and a mathematician?
If an engineer walks into a room and sees a fire in the middle and a bucket of water in the corner, he takes the bucket of water and pours it on the fire and puts it out.
If a physicist walks into a room and sees a fire in the middle and a bucket of water in the corner, he takes the bucket of water and pours it eloquently around the fire and lets the fire put itself out.
If a mathematician walks into a room and sees a fire in the middle and a bucket of water in the corner, he convinces himself there is a solution and leaves.
An experimental physicist performs an experiment involving two cats, and an inclined tin roof. The two cats are very nearly identical; same sex, age, weight, breed, eye and hair color. The physicist places both cats on the roof at the same height and lets them both go at the same time. One of the cats fall off the roof first so obviously there is some difference between the two cats.
What is the difference? One cat has a greater mew.
French physicist Ampere (1775-1836) had two cats, one big and a one small, and he loved them very much. But when the door was closed cats couldn't enter or exit the room. So Ampere ordered two holes to be made in his door: one big for the big cat, and one small for the small cat.
A psychologist makes an experiment with a mathematician and a physicist. He puts a good-looking, naked woman in a bed in one corner of the room and the mathematician on a chair in another one, and tells him: "IŽll half the distance between you and the woman every five minutes, and youŽre not allowed to stand up." the mathematician runs away, yelling: "in that case, IŽll never get to this woman!". After that, the psychologist takes the physicist and tells him the plan. The physicist starts grinning. the psychologist asks him: "but youŽll never get to this woman?", the physicists tells him: "sure, but for all practical things this is a good approximation."
There is this farmer who is having problems with his chickens. All of the sudden, they are all getting very sick and he doesn't know what is wrong with them. After trying all conventional means, he calls a biologist, a chemist, and a physicist to see if they can figure out what is wrong. So the biologist looks at the chickens, examines them a bit, and says he has no clue what could be wrong with them. Then the chemist takes some tests and makes some measurements, but he can't come to any conclusions either. So the physicist tries. He stands there and looks at the chickens for a long time without touching them or anything. Then all of the sudden he starts scribbling away in a notebook. Finally, after several gruesome calculations, he exclaims, "I've got it! But it only works for spherical chickens in a vacuum."
A Princeton plasma physicist is at the beach when he discovers an ancient looking oil lantern sticking out of the sand. He rubs the sand off with a towel and a genie pops out. The genie offers to grant him one wish. The physicist retrieves a map of the world from his car an circles the Middle East and tells the genie, "I wish you to bring peace in this region".
After 10 long minutes of deliberation, the genie replies, "Gee, there are lots of problems there with Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, and all those other places. This is awfully embarrassing. I've never had to do this before, but I'm just going to have to ask you for another wish. This one is just too much for me".
Taken aback, the physicist thinks a bit and asks, "I wish that the Princeton tokamak would achieve scientific fusion energy break-even."
After another deliberation the genie asks, "Could I see that map again?"
What is the difference between a physicist, an engineer, and a mathematician?
If an engineer walks into a room and sees a fire in the middle and a bucket of water in the corner, he takes the bucket of water and pours it on the fire and puts it out.
If a physicist walks into a room and sees a fire in the middle and a bucket of water in the corner, he takes the bucket of water and pours it eloquently around the fire and lets the fire put itself out.
If a mathematician walks into a room and sees a fire in the middle and a bucket of water in the corner, he convinces himself there is a solution and leaves.
An experimental physicist performs an experiment involving two cats, and an inclined tin roof. The two cats are very nearly identical; same sex, age, weight, breed, eye and hair color. The physicist places both cats on the roof at the same height and lets them both go at the same time. One of the cats fall off the roof first so obviously there is some difference between the two cats.
What is the difference? One cat has a greater mew.
French physicist Ampere (1775-1836) had two cats, one big and a one small, and he loved them very much. But when the door was closed cats couldn't enter or exit the room. So Ampere ordered two holes to be made in his door: one big for the big cat, and one small for the small cat.
A psychologist makes an experiment with a mathematician and a physicist. He puts a good-looking, naked woman in a bed in one corner of the room and the mathematician on a chair in another one, and tells him: "IŽll half the distance between you and the woman every five minutes, and youŽre not allowed to stand up." the mathematician runs away, yelling: "in that case, IŽll never get to this woman!". After that, the psychologist takes the physicist and tells him the plan. The physicist starts grinning. the psychologist asks him: "but youŽll never get to this woman?", the physicists tells him: "sure, but for all practical things this is a good approximation."
There is this farmer who is having problems with his chickens. All of the sudden, they are all getting very sick and he doesn't know what is wrong with them. After trying all conventional means, he calls a biologist, a chemist, and a physicist to see if they can figure out what is wrong. So the biologist looks at the chickens, examines them a bit, and says he has no clue what could be wrong with them. Then the chemist takes some tests and makes some measurements, but he can't come to any conclusions either. So the physicist tries. He stands there and looks at the chickens for a long time without touching them or anything. Then all of the sudden he starts scribbling away in a notebook. Finally, after several gruesome calculations, he exclaims, "I've got it! But it only works for spherical chickens in a vacuum."
jokes of science 03
Why did the chicken cross the Mobius strip? To get to the same side.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Issac Newton: Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest, chickens in motion tend to cross roads.
A neutron walks into a bar; he asks the bartender, "How much for a beer?" The bartender looks at him, and says "For you, no charge."
Two fermions walk into a bar. One orders a drink. The other says "I'll have what he's having."
Two atoms bump into each other. One says "I think I lost an electron!" The other asks, "Are you sure?", to which the first replies, "I'm positive."
Renee Descartes walks into a bar, the bartender says "sir can I get you a martini "Descartes says "I don't think..." and he disappears
Where does bad light end up? Answer: In a prism!
Heisenberg is out for a drive when he's stopped by a traffic cop. The cop says "Do you know how fast you were going?" Heisenberg says "No, but I know where I am."
Why did the chicken cross the road? Issac Newton: Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest, chickens in motion tend to cross roads.
A neutron walks into a bar; he asks the bartender, "How much for a beer?" The bartender looks at him, and says "For you, no charge."
Two fermions walk into a bar. One orders a drink. The other says "I'll have what he's having."
Two atoms bump into each other. One says "I think I lost an electron!" The other asks, "Are you sure?", to which the first replies, "I'm positive."
Renee Descartes walks into a bar, the bartender says "sir can I get you a martini "Descartes says "I don't think..." and he disappears
Where does bad light end up? Answer: In a prism!
Heisenberg is out for a drive when he's stopped by a traffic cop. The cop says "Do you know how fast you were going?" Heisenberg says "No, but I know where I am."
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