Smart People

When Smart People Make Jokes Will We Understand Them?

The answer is NO! Here are some examples:

• • From Mathforum.org:

    • Thomas Carlisle (or was it Milton, or...; like many good stories, it attaches itself to different people) was also a late talker, and was 4 (or 5, or 6, ...) before he said anything. He was out in the park with his nanny when he fell and grazed his knee, and she comforted him with some baby talk -- "Duddums Tommy, blow it better ..." kind of stuff -- at which Thomas drew himself up and spoke his first words: "Madame, your sympathy is now entirely supererogatory. The agony has abated." David Fowler

Same "joke" continued, but as any mathetician worth his salt would do, he makes a correction:

• • Ah, now this anecdote can be traced to its source, which is the opening chapters of the Life and Letters of Macaulay by his nephew G. O. Trevelyan. [Worth reading.] Comparing the original version (I mean the first *public* version, since naturally it was cherished within Macaulay's family while he was alive) with the version above shows how these anecdotes can lose their original point, as well as getting embellished in other ways. Trevelyan doesn't say that Macaulay was a late talker, but uses the story to illustrate how the boy picked up incongruous vocabulary from the big books he was reading already at the age of four. It was a kettle of hot water spilt on him, not a grazed knee, and what M. is reported to have said was simply "Thank you, madam, the agony is abated." [Or maybe "has abated"--I haven't the book in front of me to check.] Leaving historicity aside, and judging it just as a story, I'd say that the version making this into first words over-eggs the custard. ~ Alexander Jones ~ Department of Classics ~ University of Toronto

Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Huh?

• • From Bucknell University's Physics Department - On a Web Page Titled, "Wacky Physics Jokes" (No lie!)

    • Old physicists don't die; their wavefunctions go to zero as time goes to infinity. (You'll understand this joke next semester after taking PH212.)

    • Rene Descartes is sitting in a bar, doing what he does best--philosophising. He's had a few pints of ale over the course of the evening, and it's now last call. The bartender asks him if he wants another drink. Descartes says, "I think not," and promptly vanishes.

    • A bar walks into a man, oops, wrong frame of reference.

    • Q: What do you get when you cross a chicken and a turkey?

    • A: (Chicken)(turkey) sine theta!

    • Q: What do you get when you cross a chicken and a rock climber? A: You silly! A rock climber is a scalar!!

    • 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 trys. 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."

    • 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."

I guess you had to be there? Where?

• • Lest you think only Physics professors are "wacky", the Engineers get in on the act:

    • From the Higher Education Academy - Engineering Section: Engineers vs. Executives - Theorem: Engineers and scientists will never make as much money as business executives.

    • Proof Postulate 1: Knowledge is Power.

    • Postulate 2: Time is Money. As every engineer knows, Power = Work/Time.

    • Since Knowledge = Power, and Time = Money, we get; Knowledge = Work/Money. Solving for money, we find Money = Work/Knowledge. The greater your knowledge, the more work you have to do for your money. Thus, as Knowledge approaches zero, Money approaches infinity regardless of the Work done. Conclusion: The Less you Know, the More you Make.*

* Thanks to various contributors for correcting dodgy algebra that had ensured the humour of this gag tended toward zero.

Hint: When you make a joke add some strange explanation of your calculations right after the punchline - that is sure to keep them laughing.

• • Not to be Control-ALT-Deleted by anyone, the computer programmers posted these gems:

    • • APL is a write-only language.

      • In C we had to code our own bugs. In C++ we can inherit them.

      • C gives you enough rope to hang yourself. C++ also gives you the tree object to tie it to.

      • With C you can shoot yourself in the leg. With C++ you can reuse the bullet.

      • A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard.

• • • PL/I is for programmers who can't decide whether to write in COBOL or Fortran.

Somebody, please minimize this screen while I laugh my hard drive off! ~GJH~ (January 27, 2005)

Disclaimer: This page is not to be misconstrued as poking fun at any person's chosen profession except: mathemeticians, physicists, engineers, and computer programmers.