which was the first cat to fall of the roof?
the first one to say mu

A year later, the same instructor (Hi, Dr. T!) was tormented by a member of our class who would make snarky comments from the back of the room, just loud enough for the students, but not the instructor, to hear. His (the tormentor’s) masterpiece came in the middle of T’s excited attempt to interest us in the four-vector formulation of Maxwell’s Equations. Quoth the tormentor, in his best Alec Guinness voice: “Use the Four-Vector, Luke!”

http://www.historychannel.com/global/listings/upcomingepisodes.jsp?ACatId=12040449&CaseId=12040447&EGrpId=10963893

A bunch of physicists appeared:

- Lawrence Krause “Physics of Star Trek”
- FermiLab physicist
- MIT aeronautics prof

They talked about anti-matter, some physics history (showed some B&W pics of famous physicists & their discoveries). They mentioned Segre. I thought it was informative, & I learned some physics history.

The “bad joke” is about how Media has to disguise Science as part of Sensational Topics (”Pop Culture”)..in this case UFOs.

Appearance VS Substance, Form VS Function, Perception Vs Reality

I can’t believe scientists (Substance/Function/Reality) were “packaged” as part of a pseudo-science UFO program (Appearance/Form/Perception). It’s pandering to the ignorance of the public. It’s similar to how women-scientists are “perceived” by their Form/Appearance (”looks”), rather than their Substance/Function (”work”).

Classic case of Perception confusing Reality (Form confusing Function, Appearance confusing Substance):

“Most planetary-scientists consider the Face On Mars debacle a ludicrous joke”
– Sky&Telescope

People see “Jesus in tree-bark”, “elephants in clouds”, “face on Mars”..all visual-patterns that get “twisted” by the subjective minds-eye, & jump to wacky conclusions.

“Science is based on HARD EVIDENCE. Yeah, that’s pretty much a rock”
– Dr Ed Krupp, Griffitch Observatory

[ after high-res photos were turned on "Face-on-Mars" region, specifically to debunk the conspiracy theorists. The original low-res photos of "Face on Mars" were caused by the small-aperture camera: the (mathematical) convolution of the incoming light-wave with the PSF (point-spread function)..a blurring/softening effect! A rocky-area all of a sudden "looks" like a "face". You try to explain this basic physics of aperture-limited resolution, & the public won't understand it. "Oh, it's a NASA/govt coverup" ]

“I was actually accused of MALFEASANCE!?”
– JPL imaging leader, “Face on Mars” image

Summary:
Bad Physics Joke
(”Why People Believe Strange Things”, Michael Shermer/Skeptics Society)

Elliot

————————————————————————————–

I, Lenny the Lepton, am serving a 99 nanosecond term in San Quantum prison. I was arrested and convicted of having a strong interaction with a K-meson before the age of consent. But my story is not what I am writing about now. What is more important is the story of my former cellmate Eddie the Electron I am writing in the hopes that his story may give you beings of the large world a little insight into our little world, and that you may realize that we, although many orders of magnitude smaller have emotions and feelings just as real as you. And so I present to you…

THE ILL-FATED LOVE STORY OF EDDIE THE ELECTRON

One day as Eddie was doing his usual job patrolling as a 2-p electron, a photon struck his atom. This was not an unusual occurrence, but it was Eddie’s turn to be promoted, so he jumped up to a d-orbital. As he was orbiting, he saw something that made his heart leap. There in a nearby anti-atom was the most beautiful positron he had ever seen. The next orbit around he waved to her and she waved back. Oh this was too much for him! The photon was soon emitted and he dropped back to his usual spot in the p-orbital. But he was a different particle. In those few fleeting picoseconds that he saw her, he felt something strange and wonderful. Eddie was in love.

From that day on he could nothing right. He just dreamed of the day that he would have the bond energy to break away and be with his beloved positron. He applied for valence liberty but got turned down. His behavior was so erratic that he was summoned to appear before the bored of electrons to be reproached for his behavior.

“Eddie” said the head electron. “You’ve always been a good stable particle, but lately we have reports that you’ve been acting rather irregular. Do you have any explanation for your actions?”

“Well sir the job is just so Bohring.” He hesitated for an nanosecond and then said. “If you must know the truth, I am in love with Patsy the positron from that anti-lithium atom. I know this is a serious violation and you can do anything to me. Annihilate me, make me an s-electron, even cut off my Schroedinger. I don’t care. I’ll still love her.”

“But she’s from the wrong side of the particle tracks.”

“I don’t care. There is some strange attraction between us.”

“O. K. we will consider your case now. We will call you when we reach a verdict.”

Eddie felt dejected. He became very depressed and began writing poetry.

6800 A. is red
4000 A. is blue
The strongest force there is
Exists from me to you

The more Eddie wrote the more depressed he got. He started drinking. Then one day, down at the local h-bar, an Omega minus made a crack about him being so stupid as to fall in love with a particle that would annihilate him if they came in contact. Eddie got riled and made a very foolish mistake. He said “I am going to hit you right in the head with a momentum of 1.8024739493113 gram-meters/second. If he hadn’t been so exact, he would have avoided a lot of trouble. By doing so he specified his position and momentum more accurately than is allowed by law.

Eddie was arrested for violating the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle — a serious offense. As he was brought into court the crowds were screaming “Make him walk the Planck.” He was sentenced to 20 nanoseconds in San Quantum, where I met him. It was in the prison library that he read about a new theory — that by concentration, electrons can develop enough energy to break the bonds that hold them to the nucleus. He suddenly tried to get himself excited enough to escape. When he was ready to go there was a tear in my eye as I heard his last words…

“Remember Lenny, love is as fundamental as a quark”. Then he disappeared.

That concludes the story of Eddie and his love affair. He did find his beloved Patsy and they came together and annihilated each other in a blazing white photon. And if you ever see a certain gleam in your special someone’s eye, chances are it is the photon that Eddie and Patsy created in their final act of love.

The classic maths joke is of course the hilarious
“Let epsilon be a large negative number”.

Hopefully with all this venting of maths/physics jokes they are less likely to be heard in the pub, Cosmic Variance again doing the world a service.

P.S. Have been reading about Fuzzy Funnels recently, but I think thats just too easy

… but they are removable!

What is the integral around western Europe?

Zero, because all the Poles are in the east.

Har har….