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Science Joke: 16
| A Call for More Scientific Truth in Product Warning Labels
by Susan Hewitt and Edward Subitzky
from the Journal of Irreproducible Results, Vol 36, No. 1
As scientists and concerned citizens, we applaud the recent trend towards
legislation that requires the prominent placing of warnings on products that
present hazards to the general public. Yet we must also offer the cautionary
thought that such warnings, however well-intentioned, merely scratch the
surface of what is really necessary in this important area. This is especially
true in light of the findings of 20th century physics.
We are therefore proposing that, as responsible scientists, we join together in
an intensive push for new laws that will mandate the conspicuous placement
of suitably informative warnings on the packaging of every product offered
for sale in the United States of America. Our Suggested list of required
warnings appears below.
Warning: This Product Warps Space and Time in Its Vicinity.
Warning: This Product Attracts Every Other Piece of Matter in the Universe,
Including the Products of Other Manufacturers, with a Force Proportional to
the Product of the Masses and Inversely Proportional to the Distance
Between Them.
Caution: The Mass of This Product Contains the Energy Equivalent of 85
Million Tons of TNT per Net Ounce of Weight.
Handle with Extreme Care: This Product Contains Minute Electrically
Charged Particles Moving at Velocities in Excess of Five Hundred Million
Miles per Hour.
Consumer Notice: Because of the 'Uncertainty Principle,' It Is Impossible
for the Consumer to Find Out at the Same Time Both Precisely Where This
Product Is and How Fast It Is Moving.
Advisory: There is an Extremely Small but Nonzero Chance That, Through a
Process Known as 'Tunneling,' This Product May Spontaneously Disappear
from Its Present Location and Reappear at Any Random Place in the
Universe, Including Your NeighborUs Domicile. The Manufacturer Will Not
Be Responsible for Any Damages or Inconvenience That May Result.
Read This Before Opening Package: According to Certain Suggested
Versions of a Grand Unified Theory, the Primary Particles Constituting This
Product May Decay to Nothingness Within the Next Four Hundred Million
Years.
This is a 100% Matter product: In the Unlikely Event That This Merchandise
Should Contact Antimatter in Any Form, a Catastrophic Explosion Will
Result.
Public Notice as Required by Law: Any Use of This Product, in Any Manner
Whatsoever, Will Increase the Amount of Disorder in the Universe.
Although No Liability Is Implied Herein, the Consumer Is Warned That This
Process Will Ultimately Lead to the Heat Death of the Universe.
Note: The Most Fundamental Particles in This Product Are Held Together
by a 'Gluing' Force About Which Little Is Currently Known and Whose
Adhesive Power Can Therefore Not Be Permanently Guaranteed.
Attention: Despite Any Other Listing of Product Contents Found Hereon,
the Consumer Is Advised That, in Actuality, This Product Consists Of
99.9999999999% Empty Space.
New Grand Unified Theory Disclaimer: The Manufacturer May Technically
Be Entitled to Claim That This Product Is Ten-Dimensional. However, the
Consumer Is Reminded That This Confers No Legal Rights Above and
Beyond Those Applicable to Three-Dimensional Objects, Since the Seven
New Dimensions Are 'Rolled Up' into Such a Small 'Area' That They
Cannot Be Detected.
Please Note: Some Quantum Physics Theories Suggest That When the
Consumer Is Not Directly Observing This Product, It May Cease to Exist or
Will Exist Only in a Vague and Undetermined State.
Component equivalency notice: The Subatomic Particles (Electrons,
Protons, etc.) Comprising This Product Are Exactly the Same in Every
Measurable Respect as Those Used in the Products of Other Manufacturers,
and No Claim to the Contrary May Legitimately Be Expressed or Implied.
Health Warning: Care Should Be Taken When Lifting This Product, Since
Its Mass, and Thus Its Weight, Is Dependent on Its Velocity Relative to the
User.
Important Notice to Purchasers: The Entire Physical Universe, Including
This Product, May One Day Collapse Back into an Infinitesimally Small
Space. Should Another Universe Subsequently Re-emerge, the Existence of
This Product in That Universe Cannot be Guaranteed.
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Science Joke: 17
Save the Yeasts
EVERY TIME A LOAF OF BREAD
IS BAKED,
APPROXIMATELY
150,000,000 YEASTS ARE
KILLED.
Come to the award-winning 1987 film,
"The Very Small and Quiet Screams"
-- a cinematic electromicrograph of yeasts being baked.
"A must for those who care about yeast, and especially for those who don't."
| Evening showing in Johnson & Wales |
| Pirsig Auditorium: 7PM, 4/19 |
============================================================================
SPONSORED BY
Brown Anaerobe Rights Coalition (BARC)
Student Bakers for Social Responsibility
Coalition for the ELevation of Life (CELL)
Campus Crusade for Fetal Matters
============================================================================
Defend all life: 'from greatest to least, from human to yeast!"
This poster printed on 100% yeast-free paper.
Science Joke: 18
Why you should learn to use algebra . . .
After applying some simple algebra to some trite phrases and cliches a new understanding can be
reached of the secret to wealth and success.
Here it goes.
Knowledge is Power
Time is Money and as every engineer knows,
Power is Work over Time.
So, substituting algebraic equations for these time worn bits of wisdom, we get:
K = P (1)
T = M (2)
P = W/T (3)
Now, do a few simple substitutions:
Put W/T in for P in equation (1), which yields:
K = W/T (4)
Put M in for T into equation (4), which yields:
K = W/M (5).
Now we've got something. Expanding back into English, we get:
Knowledge equals Work over Money.
What this MEANS is that:
1. The More You Know, the More Work You Do, and
2. The More You Know, the Less Money You Make.
Solving for Money, we get:
M = W/K (6)
Money equals Work Over Knowledge.
From equation (6) we see that Money approaches infinity as Knowledge approaches 0, regardless
of the Work done.
What THIS MEANS is:
The More you Make, the Less you Know.
Solving for Work, we get
W = M K (7)
Work equals Money times Knowledge
From equation (7) we see that Work approaches 0 as Knowledge approaches 0.
What THIS MEANS is:
The stupid rich do little or no work.
Working out the socioeconomic implications of this breakthrough is left as an exercise for the
reader.
Science Joke: 19
A case for the Third Universal Cardinal Rule of Thumb: Never
be absolute, unless absolutely necessary:
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. "In
English," he said, "A double negative forms a positive. In some
languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a
negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can
form a negative."
A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."
Science Joke: 20
Technical Night Before Christmas
'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual
Yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence, kinetic
activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential,
including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus.
Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the wood
burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure
regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist
among
whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St. Nicholas.
The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective
accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconcious visual
hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically
through their cerebrums.
My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal had coverings,
were
about to take slumberous advantage of the hibernal darkness when upon
the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds there ascended such a
cacophony of dissonance that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity
from my place of repose for the purpose of ascertaining the precise
source thereof.
Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing
this
fenestration, nothing thereupon that the lunar brilliance without,
reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline
precipitation, might be said rival that of the solar meridian itself -
thus permitting my incredulous optical sensory organs to behold a
miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight diminutive
specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a miniscule, aged
chauffeur
so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly
apparent to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller.
With his ungulate motive power travelling at what may possibly have
been
more vertignious velocity than patriotic alar predators, he
vociferated
loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted labia, and
addressed each of the octet by his or her respective cognomen - "Now
Dasher, now Dancer..." et al. - guiding them to the uppermost level of
our abode, through which structure I could readily distinguish the
concatenations of each of the 32 cloven pedal
extremities.
As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was
performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved -
with utmost celerity and via a downward leap - entry by wary of the
smoke passage.
He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebony residue from
oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on the walls
thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed largely to
the
plethora of assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in a commodius
cloth receptacle.
His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his
submaxillary dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging
amiability. The capillaries of his malar regions and nasal
appurtenance
were engorged with blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the
former approximating the coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the
latter that of the Prunus avium, or sweet cherry.
His amusing sub and supralabials resembled nothing so much as a common
loop knot, and their ambient hirsute facial adornment appeared like
small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water. Clenched firmly
between his incisors was a smoking piece whose grey fumes forming a
tenuous elllipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a decorative
seasonal circlet of holly.
His visage was wider than it was high, and when he waxed audibly
mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region undulated in the manner of
impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical container. He was, in
short, neither more nor less than an obese, jocund, multigenarian
gnome,
the optical perception of whom rendered me visibly frolicsome despite
every effort to refrain from so being.
By rapidly lowering and than elevating one eyelid and rotating his
head
slightly to one side, he indicated that trepidation on my part was
groundless.
Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the
aforementioned appended hosiery with various of the aforementioned
articles of merchandise extracted from the aforementioned previously
dorsally transported cloth receptacle.
Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt aboutface,
placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory
organ, inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and
forthwith effected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke
passage.
He then propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance,
directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral
sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar
aloft in a movement hitherto observable chiefly among the seed-bearing
portions of a common weed.
But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible immediately prior to
his vehiculation beyond the limits of visibility: "Ecstatic Yuletide
to
the planetary constituency, and to that self same assemblage, my
sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly
pleasurable period between sunset and dawn.
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