I don’t know many science jokes, but some of them are ideal for separating the scientists from the ordinary people in a room. Only the scientists will laugh. Take this:
A dietician, a geneticist and a physicist are arguing about how to produce the perfect racehorse.
‘It’s easy,’ says the dietician. ‘Just make sure it eats the right things from birth.’
‘No,’ says the geneticist. ‘You’ve got to breed over a number of generations to get the right traits.’
‘Well,’ says the physicist, ‘let’s assume the racehorse is a sphere…’
The number you dialed is imaginary, please turn your phone by 90 degrees and try again.
Thanks for opening this particular can Brian,
GAMBIT
”What’s a quark?” – The noise made by a well-bred duck.
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I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists somewhere else in the universe is that none of it has bothered to contact us.
I laughed. And I don’t usually laugh at jokes. I must be a scientist. I have a good joke (well, I thought it was funny), the Dublin psychiatrist answer phone message, but it is an audio file which I don’t think I can upload into NN. You’ve probably heard it anyway—scientists were emailing it round to each other last year (I can email to you if you haven’t heard it).
Do you per chance mean this?
It’s not really a joke as such, but there’s a fun analogy between doing a PhD and the Lord of the Rings here.
The LOTR/PhD allegory is wonderful. Tolkien publicly hated allegory, though this doesn’t bear close examination… as he was an academic, I wonder if this was a subconscious motivation?
That aside…
A rabbit is happily grazing one day when it is ambushed by a fox.
“Please don’t eat me Mr Fox,” pleads the rabbit, “I haven’t completed my PhD.”
The fox drops the rabbit in surprise. “Oh come on. A rabbit? Doing a PhD? Pull the other one. What’s the title of this alleged PhD, anyway?”
The rabbit pulls itself up to its full height and in prim lecture mode announces.
“My PhD dissertation is entitled ‘On The Innate Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves’”.
“What tosh,” says the fox. “I’m going to eat you anyway.”
“Wait!” says the rabbit. “I can prove it to you! Come to my hole and I’ll show you my results, and if you still don’t believe me, then you can eat me. Deal?”
“Lunch is as good as in the bag,” says the fox, following the rabbit down the hole.
But only the rabbit comes out.
Several months pass, and our leporine hero (that’s called zoology, for any cell biologists reading. Do try and keep up) is grazing when it is ambushed by a wolf.
“Please don’t eat me Mr Wolf,” pleads the rabbit, “I haven’t completed my PhD.”
The wolf spits put the rabbit and laughs until he almost chokes. “Like – a rabbit? Doing a PhD? What about? Carrots? Lettuces? Duracell batteries? Screwing other rabbits? Go on, spill the beans – I just gotta hear this one!!”
The rabbit clears its throat and intones: ”’On The Innate Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves’”.
”That’s a crock for a start,” scoffs the wolf. “I know what I’m lookin’ at, and what I’m lookin’ at is dinner.”
“But I can prove it” says the rabbit. “Come to my hole and I’ll show you my results, and if you still don’t believe me, then you can eat me. Deal?”
“Sure,” says the wolf. “Can I have fries with that?” says the wolf, following the rabbit down the hole.
But only the rabbit comes out.
More months pass and the rabbit is grazing contentedly when it meets another rabbit. “How’s tricks?” asks the friend.
“Wonderful,” says our hero, “I’ve just submitted my PhD dissertation.
“Congratulations! What’s it called?”
“It’s called ‘On The Innate Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves’”.
“Unbelievable – I mean, literally. Are you sure?”
“Yes, I thought it was crazy at first, I’ll admit. But I’ve tested the model really rigorously and that’s the result I get.”
“Wow…”
“Look, if you still don’t believe me, why not come to my hole and I can show you the results?”
“Of course, I’d love to!”
So the two rabbits scurry down the burrow. In the first chamber is a workstation, covered with and surrounded by piles of books, papers, printouts, half-eaten carrots and rotting lettuce leaves.
In the second chamber are boxes and boxes of wolf and fox bones, all neatly catalogued and annotated.
And in the final chamber, in a rocking chair, is a large and very satisfied-looking bear.
MORAL: Do your PhD on any damn fool subject you like, provided you have a good supervisor.
Very good Henry !!
Thanks you Graham. Not original, sadly (though as with all oral tradition, one can take credit for some of the elaborations …)
A biologist, a physicist and a mathematician are traveling by train through Scotland and are enjoying the upland scenery as it parades past their window, and they see some sheep. All the sheep are white, except one, the obligatory black sheep.
“Goodness!” the biologist exclaims. “There are black sheep in Scotland!”
“Typical woolly-minded biology,” tuts the physicist, the mathematician nodding his disapproval. “There’s a field in Scotland in which at least one of the sheep is black.”
“Such imprecision, still -” sighs the mathematician. The others look at him, incredulously. “How so?” demands the physicist.
“Well,” the mathematician explains, “there exists at least one field in Scotland in which there exist sheep, at least one half of one of which …. is black.”
But let’s move to the science-and-society-humor-theme. Coffee break at an ecumenical conference on advances in reproductive biology. A priest, a minister and a rabbi are at a table.
“Life begins at conception,” declares the priest. “The last speaker was quite adamant on that point …. the scriptural sources demand…”
“But father,” interrupts the ministyer, “with great respect, the last speaker clearly contradicted himself, citing evidence from clear, copper-bottomed, theological sources, that life begins at birth.”
The two begin to argue. Unable to resolve their differences, the priest and the minsiter turn to the rabbi, who has been engaged in a heated debate with himself about whether he should have another biscuit.
“You’re asking me?” he asks.
“Yes, Rabbi Greenberg: when do you think life begins?”
“Well, now that you mention it, Hillel says this, and Shammai says the other, and Akiva says something else, but if it were up to me, noch, I’d say that life begins at around 40, when the kids leave home and the dogs are dead.”
He resolves in favour of a fourth biscuit.
A neutron walks into a bar. “I’d like a beer,” he says. The bartender promptly serves us a beer. “How much will that be? asks the neutron. “For you?” replies the bartender. “No charge.”
—
A seminar in Time Travel will be held two weeks ago.
—
And finally….
A man is playing Trivial Pursuit. He rolls the dice and lands on Science & Nature. The question is, “if you are in a vacuum and someone calls your name, can you hear it?” The man thinks for a moment before asking, “Is the vacuum on or off?”
Some jokes I picked up while I was doing my degree…
What do you do with dead elements? Barium
A man walks into a bar and asks for a pint of Adenosine Tri-phosphate. The bartender says “That’ll be ATP then”
Two atoms are talking and one declares that he’s lost an electron, the other asks, “Are you sure?”, the first atom relies “yes, I’m positive!”
If I were an enzyme I’d be DNA Helicase so I could unzip your genes
A Short History of Medicine
I have an earache:
2000 B.C. -Here, eat this root.
1000 A.D. -That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
1850 A.D. -That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
1940 A.D. -That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
1985 A.D. -That pill is ineffective. Here, take this antibiotic.
2000 A.D. -That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root.
Very cool Hildi =)
Thanks to Mary Mulvihill for reminding me of that classic, beloved of T-shirt makers:
There are 10 kinds of people in this world—those who understand binary numbers, and those who don’t!