PHYSICS HUMOR

To understand any alien culture, it is helpful to be exposed to their humor. On this page I plan to post some of the things that physicists will show other physicists to make them smile. If you come across anything that you think qualifies, let me know and I'll add it here -- provided that I can find at least one physicist who thinks it is funny. To qualify it does NOT have to be funny to the non-physicist.

Foxtrot                    by Bill Amend                   October 6, 2001

 

Want to scare your friends?
Or the public? If you use mysterious terms and sound sincere, physics can be scary. See this link:
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~geoffo/humour/truth/truth.html
Do you know any public figures who use this technique?
(Thanks to Joanie Lam for suggesting this link.)

Proposed units (to replace both the British and the Metric systems)

note: the usual convention is micro = 10-6, Mega = 106, Giga = 109, pico = 10-12, deca = 10, etc.

ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter: eskimo pi
1 millionth of a mouthwash: 1 microscope
10 cards: 1 decacards
1 millionth of a fish: 1 microfiche
1 trillion pins: 1 terrapin
1 million billion picolos: 1 gigolo
10 rations: 1 decoration
100 rations: 1 C-ration
10 millipedes: 1 centipede
3 1/3 tridents: 1 decadent
10 monologs: 5 dialogs
5 dialogs: 1 decalog
2 monograms: 1 diagram
8 nickels: 2 paradigms
2 wharves: 1 paradox
Speed of a tortoise breaking the sound barrier: Mach Turtle
Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour: furlong per knot
365.25 days of drinking low-calorie beer because it's less filling: 1 liteyear
Half of a large intestine: 1 semicolon
1,000,000 aches: 1 megahurtz
Weight an evangelist carries with God: 1 billigram
Basic unit of laryngitis: 1 hoarsepower
Shortest distance between two jokes: A straight line
Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement: 1bananosecond
453.6 graham crackers: 1 pound cake
the first step of a one-mile journey: 1 Milwaukee (explanation: the old Chinese
        saying that "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
1 trillion microphones = 1 megaphone
1 million bicycles: 2 megacycles
365.25 days: 1 unicycle
2200 mockingbirds: two kilomockingbirds
1 kilogram of falling figs: 1 Fig Newton
1000 grams of wet socks: 1 literhosen
2000 pounds of Chinese soup: Won ton