1. Q: What do you get if you cross a pig with a rat?
    A: Pig rat sine theta.
  2. At the physics exam: 'Describe the universe in 200 words and give three examples.
  3. A student recognizes Einstein in a train and asks: Excuse me, professor, but does New York stop by this train?
  4. Researchers in Fairbanks Alaska announced last week that they have discovered a superconductor which will operate at room temperature.
  5. 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.
  6. 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...'
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.'
  10. 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.'
  11. You enter the laboratory and see an experiment. How will you know which class is it?
    If it's green and wiggles, it's biology.
    If it stinks, it's chemistry.
    If it doesn't work, it's physics.
  12. Seen on the door to a light-wave lab:
    "CAUTION! Do not look into laser with remaining good eye!"
  13. The renowned cosmogonist Professor Bignumska, lecturing on the future of the universe, had just stated that in about a billion years, according to her calculations, the earth would fall into the sun in a fiery death. In the back of the auditorium a tremulous voice piped up: "Excuse me, Professor, but h-h-how long did you say it would be?"
    Professor Bignumska calmly replied, "About a billion years."
    A sigh of relief was heard. "Whew! for a minute there, I thought you'd said million years."
  14. A physics student was hit by a brick falling from a house. He fainted, but came to after a while and started smiling. The onlookers were worried, so they asked him why the smile. "I just realized how lucky I am because the kinetic energy is only half m v squared."
  15. Physics professor has been doing an experiment, and has worked out an emphirical equation that seems to explain his data. He asks the math professor to look at it. A week later, the math professor says the equation is invalid. By then, the physics professor has used his equation to predict the results of further experiments, and he is getting excellent results, so he asks the math professor to look again. Another week goes by, and they meet once more. The math professor tells the physics professor the equation does work, "But only in the trivial case where the numbers are real and positive."
  16. A seminar on Time Travel will be held two weeks ago.
  17. A mathematician and a physicist agree to a psychological experiment. The mathematician is put in a chair in a large empty room and a beautiful naked woman is placed on a bed at the other end of the room. The psychologist explains, "You are to remain on your chair. Every five minutes, I will move your chair to a position halfway between its current location and the woman on the bed." The mathematician looks at the psychologist in disgust. "What? I'm not going to go through this. You know I'll never reach the bed!" And he gets up and storms out. The psychologist makes a note on his clipboard and ushers the physicist in. He explains the situation, and the physicist's eyes light up and he starts drooling. The psychologist is a bit confused. "Don't you realize that you'll never reach her?" The physicist smiles and replies, "Of course! But I'll get close enough for all practical purposes!"
  18. Two physics students bump into each other walking across campus. One of them is toting his shiny new bicycle along with him. His friend says, "Wow! I really like your new bike!" "Thanks. It was the strangest thing! I was walking across campus the other day and a beautiful young girl rode her bike up to me, got off, ripped off all her clothes, threw herself on the ground, and said 'Take whatever you want!'" "Smart move," he replied. "There's no way her clothes would have fit you."
  19. An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician are sleeping in a hotel, which is unfortunetaly burning every night. In the first night the engineer wakes up and notices the fire. He takes the fire extinguisher and stops the fire. In the second night it starts to burn again. The physicist wakes up after a while (no one there to wake him up) and sees the fire. He is enthusiastic about the phenomen and dies in the fire while looking for a thermometer. In the third night the mathematician wakes up because of the fire. He looks at the fire and sees the fire extinguisher. He states that the problem has a solution and fells asleep again.
  20. A young physicist, upon learning that he was denied tenure after six productive years at a University in San Francisco, requested a meeting with the Provost for an explanation, and a possible appeal. At the meeting, the Provost told the young physicist, "I'm sorry to tell you that the needs of the University have shifted somewhat, during the past six-years leading up to your tenure decision. In point of fact, what we now require is a female, condensed-matter experimentalist. Unfortunately, you are a male, high-energy theorist!" Dejected but not defeated, the young physicist thought for a moment about the implications of the Provost's words. "Sir," he said, "I would be willing to convert in two of the three categories you mention, but ... I'll never agree to become an experimentalist!"
  21. Gravitation can not be held resposible for people falling in love. - Albert Einstein

Eight ways to use a barometer to find the height of a building:

  1. Measure the height of the barometer. Scale the side of the building, measuring its height in barometer-units.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Tie a long cable to the barometer and lower it from the top of the building to the ground, and then measure the length of the cable.
  5. Take the barometer outside on a sunny day, measure its shadow and the buildings shadow.
  6. Drop the barometer from the top of the building. Measure how far was it shifted by Corriolis force. The rest is trivial.
  7. Sell the barometer. Purchase a tape measure long enough to measure the height of the building.
  8. Find someone who knows how tall the building is, and trade him the barometer for the information.

Physics Revisited

  1. Gravity was discovered by Sir Isaac Newton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.
  2. 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.
  3. When people run around and around in circles, we say they are crazy. When planets do it, we say they are orbitting.
  4. The tides are a fight between the Earth and moon. All water tends towards the moon, because there is no water in the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum.
  5. The moon is more useful than the sun, because the moon shines at night when you want the light, whereas the sun shines during the day when you don't need it.
  6. To remove air from a flask, fill it with water, tip the water out, and put the cork in quick before the air can get back in.
  7. Isn't it meaningless to speak of a 45 degrees angle unless you specify Fahrenheit or Celcius?
  8. An object at rest will always be in the wrong place.
  9. An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction.
  10. For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
  11. Doppler effect is the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when you come at them rapidly.
  12. Lenz's Law: Everything you start works against you.

You Might Be a Physicist if...

  1. the water in your kettle is boiling at 373.15 Kelvin.
  2. you know that the speed of light is 299 792 458 m/sec.
  3. you know the direction the water swirls when you flush.
  4. you've already calculated how much you earn per second.
  5. you are sure that differential equations are a very useful tool.
  6. you are at an air show and know how fast the skydivers are falling.
  7. you know the second law of thermodynamics, but not your own shirt size.
  8. you avoid stirring your coffee because you don't want to increase the entropy of the universe.
  9. you try to explain entropy to strangers at your table during casual dinner conversation.
  10. your three year old son asks why the sky is blue and you try to explain atmospheric absorption theory.
  11. you're at a wine tasting event and find yourself paying more attention to the cork screws than the Chardonnay.
  12. you carry on a one-hour debate over the expected results of an experiment that actually takes five minutes to run.