"Speed of Light"

Heh; pretty good jokes. Although, the last is used often as a dig against mathematicians.

Thx!

TomB

Actually I liked the last one the most as it gave the mathematician the most accurate statement.

Here are a couple along the same lines:

A neutron walks into a bar and asks, "How much for a drink?" The bartender replies, "For you, no charge."


An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician all spend the night in a hotel, and each wakes up in the middle of the night with a fire in their trashcan (maybe they're still smokers?).
The engineer gets up, fills the ice bucket with water, and puts out the fire.
The physicist gets up, estimates that the bucket is large enough to put out the fire, fills it with water, and puts out the fire.
The mathematician gets up, writes a proof that it's possible to put out the fire, and goes back to sleep.

Ba-dum-bum.

Scott DeWar said:

Actually I liked the last one the most as it gave the mathematician the most accurate statement.

Click to expand...

Well, perhaps this one will illustrate why:

Three men are in a hot-air balloon. Soon, they find themselves lost in a canyon somewhere. One of the three men says, "I've got an idea. We can call for help in this canyon and the echo will carry our voices far."
So he leans over the basket and yells out, "Helllloooooo! Where are we?" (They hear the echo several times).
15 minutes later, they hear this echoing voice: "Helllloooooo! You're lost!!"
One of the men says, "That must have been a mathematician."
Puzzled, one of the other men asks, "Why do you say that?"
The first says, "For three reasons. (1) he took a long time to answer, (2) he was absolutely correct, and (3) his answer was absolutely useless."

We can widen the scope a little, though...

A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on a photo-safari in Africa. They drive out on the savannah in their jeep, stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars.
The biologist: "Look! There's a herd of zebras! And there, in the middle: A white zebra! It's fantastic! There are white zebras! We'll be famous!"
The statistician: "It's not significant. We only know there's one white zebra."
The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is white on one side."
The computer scientist: "Oh, no! A special case!"

Four engineers get into a new car, A Computer Engineer, a Electrical Engineer, A Mechanical Engineer, and a Chemical Engineer.

While they are on their way to Las Vegas for a symposium the car dies. The start discussing what is wrong, but egos get in the way and it breaks down to bickering and arguing.

Electrical Engineer blames the electrical wireing and charging system and says the problem is there.
Mechanical Engineer blames the engine and drive trane and insists that is where they need to look.
Chemical Engineer blames the fuels and lubricants and proclaims that is where they need to investigate.
Computer Engineer cries out and "SILENCE!" The others look at him with his smug look. "Try this: every one close their windows.
When they had all done that he said, "Now, re-open windows . . . "

How was that joke?

back on subject . . . . .

I thought the idea of ftl was not possible?

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/smoking-gun-reveals-how-inflationary-big-bang-happened-n54686

How do you tell an extroverted engineer from an introverted engineer?
A: The extroverted engineer talks to your shoes.

Or perhaps:

A mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, and a civil engineer are sitting in a pub. Says the mechanical engineer: "I think God must be a mechanical engineer. Just look at all those bones, muscles, tendons, joints and how it all interacts so nicely."
"Well, but nothing would be moving if it weren't for the brain and the nerves," throws in the electrical engineer. "No, I think God is an electrical engineer."
The civil engineer takes a sip from his pint and then says: "You're both wrong. God is without any doubt a civil engineer."
"Why's that then?"
"Only a civil engineer would run a wastepipe straight through a recreational area."

Olgar Shiverstone said:

"Only a civil engineer would run a wastepipe straight through a recreational area."

Click to expand...

heard this before, but wasn't sure how to keep it civil.

Scott DeWar said:

I thought the idea of ftl was not possible?

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/smoking-gun-reveals-how-inflationary-big-bang-happened-n54686

Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean here with regards to FTL?

Scott DeWar said:

I thought the idea of ftl was not possible?

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/smoking-gun-reveals-how-inflationary-big-bang-happened-n54686

Click to expand...

FTL motion is not possible in our best understanding of physics, and it would take a truly revolutionary and unexpected discovery to change that.

The phrase "a burst of inflation that was seemingly faster than the speed of light" is possibly one of the most misleading and damaging that people can use when talking about the expansion of the universe. If a scientist said it, they either didn't know the subject, were being incredibly lazy in talking to the press, or weren't thinking. And, in this case, the "FTL mistake" doesn't even require inflation. Here's my explanation:

The expansion of the universe does not entail the motion of objects. If I have two far-enough-apart galaxies, they stay in the same places and space appears between them. This does create the Doppler effect on light from one galaxy going to the other. If you didn't know better, you'd think they were moving apart, but of course we at EN World know better now. So saying that the expansion of the universe involves FTL motion involves the mistake of thinking things are moving. It involves a simpler mistake, too: even if you think the galaxies are actually moving apart, you only see "FTL" motion if you use the simplified formula for the Doppler effect which only works for speeds much smaller than the speed of light! Using the correct relativistic formula never gives FTL speeds.

And there's one other problem with that phrase in this context: if you make both mistakes and think there is FTL motion due to the expansion of the universe, you don't have to go all the way back to cosmic inflation to do that. Some of the farther away galaxies we see would appear to be moving FTL. No matter how fast the universe is expanding, you can always see "FTL motion" if you just look far enough away. That's a feature of the expansion of space itself. You don't need inflation.

BTW, there's another thread on this subject.