Rest for the Weary

Dear Visitor,

The name of this page comes from a chapter title in the doctoral dissertation of an old friend of mine. A little over 30 years ago, my friend was typing (yes, typing! By hand! No secretary and no word processor!) his dissertation in chemistry at MIT. The thing was over 200 pages long filled with tables, equations, figures, and dense text. When it was nearly complete, he discovered to his horror that he had misnumbered the pages. There were three pages too many. Now today this would mean very little. One simply needs to tell the word processor to repaginate before printing the final draft, but at that time and place it meant that the whole thing would have to be redone (by hand!). The MIT graduate school required a letter perfect manuscript.

My imaginative friend solved the problem by inserting a three page chapter named "Rest for the Weary." In his dissertation this chapter contained several short poems and a few rambling thoughts on the world situation. However, here I want this page to contain a collection of humorous stuff dealing with chemistry or science in a broad sense. I encourage readers of this page to send me additional contributions of an appropriate nature.

Here are a few items to start things off:

How to change a light bulb. This issue has plagued humanity since Edison invented the thing. Some scientific solutions are below.

How many high energy physicists does it take to change a light bulb?
It takes 200. Exactly 136 to smash it to subatomic fragments and 64 to analyze them.
How many survivors of nuclear war does it take to change a light bulb?
None. Who needs a light bulb when you already glow in the dark?
How many statisticians does it take to change a light bulb?
One, with 95% confidence---or one on average.
How many consulting scientists does it take to change a light bulb?
One. That will be $500 please.
How many Marxist economists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
None. The bulb contains the seeds of its own revolution.
How many computer programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. That is a hardware problem.
How many astronomers does it take to change a light bulb?
Change a light bulb? What's wrong with the dark?
[This one is for faculty] How many deans does it take to change a light bulb?
Two. One to tell the faculty that everything possible is being done while the other tries to screw the new bulb into the faucet
How many physicians does it take to change a light bulb?
That depends whether the bulb has health insurance or not.
How many biochemists does it take to change a light bulb?
None. Biochemists use enzymes for everything.
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
Only one, but the bulb must want to change.

These were submitted as translations of common statements in scientific papers. You should be able to make use of many of them in lab reports, etc.

"It has long been known..."
I didn't look up the original references

"A definite trend is evident..."
This data is practically meaningless

"Of great theoretical and practical importance..."
Interesting to me

"While it has not been possible to provide definite answers to these questions..."
An unsuccessful experiment, but I still hope to get it published

"Three of the samples were chosen for detailed study..."
The results of the others didn't make any sense

"Typical results are shown..."
The best results are shown

"These results will be shown in a subsequent report..."
I might get around to this if I'm pushed

"The most reliable results are those obtained by Jones..."
He was my graduate assistant

"It is believed that..."
I think

"It is generally believed that..."
A couple of other guys think so, too

"It is clear that much additional work will be required before a complete understanding of the phenomenon occurs..."
I don't understand it

"Correct within an order of magnitude..."
Wrong

"It is hoped that this study will stimulate further investigation in this field...
This is a lousy paper, but so are all the others on this miserable topic

"A careful analysis of obtainable data..."
Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked over my beer

"Reasonable order of magnitude..."
Wild guess

"Non-trivial problem..."
It doesn't work, but if we throw enough money at it, something's bound to happen

"Within the current state of the art..."
Maybe we can do it

"On the leading edge of technology..."
It ought to be possible - send more money!

"Given a reasonable preventive maintenance program..."
Buy our service contract

The following are translations of what your professor really means. (Thanks Juan)

What The Professor Really Means, by J. Timothy Petersik [from the Chronicle of Higher Education]

Statement	Real Meaning
You'll be using one of the leading textbooks in the field.	I used it as a grad student.
If you follow these few simple rules, you'll do fine in the course.	If you don't need any sleep, you'll do fine in the course.
The gist of what the author is saying is what's most important.	I don't understand the details either.
Various authorities agree that…	My hunch is that...
The answer to your question is beyond the scope of this class.	I don't know.
You'll have to see me during my office hours for a thorough answer to your question.	I don't know.
In answer to your question, you must recognize that there are several disparate points of view.	I really don't know.
Today we are going to discuss a most important topic.	Today we are going to discuss my dissertation.
Unfortunately, we haven't the time to consider all of the people who made contributions to this field.	I disagree with what roughly half of the people in this field have said.
We can continue this discussion outside of class.	1. I'm tired of this - let's quit. 2. You're winning the argument - let's quit
Today we'll let a member of the class lead the discussion. It will be a good educational experience.	I stayed out too late last night and didn't have time to prepare a lecture.
Any questions?	I'm ready to let you go.
The implications of this study are clear.	I don't know what it means either, but there'll be a question about it on the test.
The test will be 50-questions multiple choice. Plus three short-answer questions…	The test will be 60-questions, multiple guess (1000 words or more) and no one will score above 55 per cent.
The test scores were generally good.	Some of you managed a C+.
The test scores were a little below my expectations.	Where was the party last night?
Some of you could have done better.	Everyone flunked.
Before we begin the lecture for today, are there any questions about previous material?	Has anyone opened the book yet?
According to my sources...	According to the guy who taught this class last year...
It's been very rewarding to teach this class.	I hope they find someone else to teach it next year.

The following are noteworthy quotes from test papers and essays submitted to science and health teachers by junior high, high school, and college [ASU] students :)

"When you breath, you inspire. When you do not breath, you expire."
"Water is composed of two gins, oxygin and hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water."
"Blood flows down one leg and up the other."
"Respiration is composed of two acts, first inspiration, and then expectoration."
"The moon is a planet just like the earth, only it is even deader."
"The body consists of three parts - the branium, the borax, and the abominable cavity. The branium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abominable cavity contains the bowls, of which there are five - a, e, i, o, and u."
"To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose."
"For a nosebleed: Put the nose much lower then the body until the heart stops."
"For head cold: Use an agonizer to spray the nose until it drops in your throat."
"The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects."
"To keep milk from turning sour: Keep it in the cow."

I just received these two via email (Thanks, Wendi)

Two Helium atoms were walking down the street and went into a bar. They sat down at the bar and one said: "Great! I've just lost an electron!" The second Helium atom replied: "Are you sure?" The first Helium atom answered: "I'm positive!"
A neutron went into a bar and ordered a mixed drink. When it came he asked how much it was, to which the bartender replied, "It'll be no charge to you!"

This came via email on September 28 (Thanks, John)

Twinkie Failure Testing

(reprinted from SPY magazine, July 1989) In an effort to clarify questions about the purported durability and unusual physical characteristics of Twinkies, we subjected the Hostess snack logs to the following experiments:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

(makes me wonder why people still eat these)

EXPOSURE:

A Twinkie was left on a window ledge for four days, during which time an inch and a half of rain fell. Many flies were observed crawling across the Twinkie's surface, but contrary to hypothesis, birds -- even pigeons --avoided this potential source of sustenance. Despite the rain and prolonged exposure to the sun, the Twinkie retained its original color and form. When removed, the Twinkie was found to be substantially dehydrated. Cracked open, it was observed to have taken on the consistency of industrial foam insulation; the filling, however, retained its advertised "creaminess."

RADIATION:

A Twinkie was placed in a conventional microwave oven, which was set for precisely 4 minutes -- the approximate cooking time of bacon. After 20 seconds, the oven began to emit the Twinkie's rich, characteristic aroma of artificial butter. After 1 minute, this aroma began to resemble the acrid smell of burning rubber. The experiment was aborted after 2 minutes, 10 seconds, when thick, foul smoke began billowing from the top of the oven. A second Twinkie was subjected to the same experiment. This Twinkie leaked molten white filling. When cooled, this now epoxylike filling bonded the Twinkie to its plate, defying gravity; it was removed only upon application of a butter knife.

EXTREME FORCE:

A Twinkie was dropped from a ninth-floor window, a fall of approximately 120 feet. It landed right side up, then bounced onto its back. The expected "splatter" effect was not observed. Indeed, the only discernible damage to the Twinkie was a narrow fissure on its underside. Otherwise, the Twinkie remained structurally intact.

EXTREME COLD:

A Twinkie was placed in a conventional freezer for 24 hours. Upon removal, the Twinkie was not found to be frozen solid, but its physical properties had noticeably "slowed": the filling was found to be the approximate consistency of acrylic paint, while exhibiting the mercurylike property of not adhering to practically any surface. It was noticed that the Twinkie had generously absorbed freezer odors.

EXTREME HEAT:

A Twinkie was exposed to a gas flame for 2 minutes. While the Twinkie smoked and blackened and the filling in one of its "cream holes" boiled, the Twinkie did not catch fire. It did, however, produce the same "burning rubber" aroma noticed during the irradiation experiment.

IMMERSION:

A Twinkie was dropped into a large beaker filled with tap water. The Twinkie floated momentarily, began to list anof a 120-foot drop, along with some of the unusual phenomena associated with the "creamy filling" and artificial coloring, should give pause to those observers who would unequivocally categorize the Twinkie as "food." Further clinical inquiry is required before any definite conclusions can be drawn.

This was submitted by Misty via email:

"There are two guys, one with a doberman pinscher and one with a chihuahua. The guy with the doberman says to the guy with the chihuahua, "Let's go over to that restaurant and get something to eat." The guy with the chihuahua says, "We can't go in there. We've got dogs with us." The other guy says, "Just follow my lead."

They walk over to the restuarant and the guy with the doberman puts on a pair of dark sun glasses, and he starts to walk in. A guy at the door says, "Sorry Mac, no pets allowed." The guy with the doberman says, "You don't understand. This is my seeing eye dog." The guy at the door says, "A doberman?" "Oh yes," the other replied, "they're using them now. They are really very good." The guy at the door says, "Come on in."

Now the guy with the chihuahua figures, "What the heck?" so he puts on a pair of dark sun glasses and starts to walk in. The door guy says, "Sorry pal, no pets allowed." The chihuahua guy says, "You don't understand. This is my seeing eye dog." The doorman says, "A chihuahua?" The guy with the dog says, "You mean they gave me a chihuahua?"

I received this via email today (10-2-97…thanks Deborah)

(This is a true story:)

Two guys were taking Chemistry at the University of Alabama. They did pretty well on all of the quizzes and the midterms and labs, such that going into the final they had a solid "A". These two friends were so confident going into the final that the weekend before finals week (even though the Chemistry final was on Monday), they decided to go up to the University of Tennessee and party with some friends. They had a great time. However, with hangovers and everything, they overslept all day Sunday and didn't make it back to Alabama until early Monday morning.

Rather than taking the final then, they found their professor after the final to explain to him why they missed the final. They told him that they went up to the University of Tennessee for the weekend, and had planned to come back in time to study, but that they had a flat tire on the way back, and didn't have a spare, and couldn't get help for a long time, so they were late in getting back to campus.

The professor thought this over and told them they could make up the final on the following day. The two guys were elated and relieved. They studied that night and went in the next day for the final.

The professor placed them in separate rooms, and handed each of them a test booklet and told them to begin. They looked at the first problem, which was worth 5 Points. It was something simple about Molarity & Solutions.

"Cool," they thought. "This is going to be easy." They did that problem and then turned the page.

They were not prepared, however, for what they saw on this page. It said: ( for 95 Points) -- Which tire ??_____________

Via email yesterday. 10-16-97 (Thanks Deborah)

A grad student, a post-doc, and a professor were walking through the city park when they found an antique oil lamp. They rubbed on the lamp until a Genie appeared in a puff of smoke.

The Genie said, "I usually only grant three wishes, so I'll give each of you just one."

"Me first! Me first!" said the grad student. "I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat with a gorgeous dude who sunbathes naked."

Poof! Her wish came true and she ended up in the Bahamas.

"Me next! Me next!" says the post-doc. "I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with a professional hula dancer on one side and a Mai Tai on the other."

Poof! He immediately appeared in Hawaii.

"You're next," the Genie said to the professor.

The professor said, "I want both those students back in the lab after lunch."

Via Email November 2, 1997 (Thanks Weez)

Administratium

The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered.

The element, tentatively named Administratium, has no protons or electrons and thus has an atomic number of 0. However, it does have 1 neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons and 111 assistant vice neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together in the nucleus by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson like particles called morons.

Since it has no electrons, Administratium is inert. However, it can be detected chemically as it impedes every reaction with which it comes in contact. According to the discoverers, a tiny amount of Administratium caused one reaction to take over 4 days to complete when it would normally occur in less than 1 second.

Administratium has a normal half-life of approximately 3 years. At this time it doesn't actually decay but instead undergoes reorganization in which assistant neutrons, vice neutrons, and assistant vice neutrons exchange places. Some studies have shown that the atomic mass actually increased after each reorganization.

Researchers at other laboratories indicated that Administratium occurs naturally in the atmosphere. It tends to concentrate at certain points such as universities, government agencies, large corporations, and schools. The element can be found in the newest, best-appointed and best-maintained buildings.

Scientists point out that Administratium is known to be toxic at any level of concentration and can easily destroy any productive reactions where it is allowed to accumulate. Attempts are being made to determine how Administratium can be controlled to prevent irreversible damage, but results are not promising.

Keep fighting the spread of this deadly element.

Via email 11-18-97 (Thanks Matt)

The graduate with a Chemistry degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want mustard with that?"
Organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds,

biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that wriggle.

Ivan Ivanovich, great russian Scientist does an experiment. He wants to know how fast a thermometer falls down. He takes a thermometer and a light, a candle light. He drops both from the 3rd floor and recognices that they are reaching the ground at the same time. Ivan Ivanovich, great russian scientific writes in his book: A theomometer falls with the speed of light.

A student is sitting his Physics exam, and quite an important one at that---maybe his final degree paper or his Oxford Entrance. Anyway, one of the questions on the paper was to the effect of: ``Q: How could one measure the height of a building using a barometer?'' Being a wit, in the exam this chap puts:

``A: Drop the barometer from the top of the building and time its descent. Using the formula `s = ut + a(t^2)/2' and knowing `a' which is `g' we can calculate the height of the building with reasonable accuracy.'' He then goes on to describe in more detail the method he would use.

The examiners were a little concerned. Here was one of their star students giving an answer they hadn't at all expected. So they decided to call him in and give him an oral test to decide whether or not to allow the answer which they did admit was perfectly valid.

So they called him in and told him he had 15 minutes to make his case.

For ten minutes he said nothing but scribbled away furiously. After these ten minutes the atmosphere was getting a little tense---this was meant to be an oral after all, and his degree (or whatever) depended on it. When they pointed this out to him he said that he was just trying to get his thoughts in order as there were so many possible solutions. Here are some of the ones he came up with:

``1: What you wanted me to do, of course, was measure air pressure at the top and bottom of the building, and from the difference and knowing the pressure exerted by a column of air of unit height I should be able to calculate the height of the building. But I thought that would be terribly inaccurate and the answer I gave in the exam and the following ones are all potentially more accurate.

2: Measure the length of shadow cast by the bulding and by the barometer on a sunny day. Knowing the actual height of the barometer one can compute the height of the building.

3: Tie the barometer to the end of a long bit of string and lower the barometer from the top of the building to the ground. Measure the amount of string payed out and you have the height of the building.''

He then gave several more but ended with:

``The best method by far, though, would be to go to the building's janitor and say `If I give you this shiny new scientific barometer will you tell me how high this building is?' ''

The student passed his exam.

[For another version of this tale, see the entry for March 10, 2000 further down.]

Christmas on the Enterprise D

[Received via email 11-26-97.…Thanks Richard!]

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the ship

Not a circuit was buzzing, not one microchip:

The phasers were hung in the armory securely,

In hope that no alien would get up that early.

The crewmen were nestled all snug in their bunks

(Except for the few who were partying drunks)

And Picard in his nightshirt, and Bev in her lace,

Had just settled down for a neat face to face. . .

When out in the hall there arose such a racket,

That we leapt from our beds, pulling on pant and jacket.

Away to the lifts we all shot like a gun,

Leapt into the turbos and shouted "Deck One!"

The bridge red-alert lights, which flashed through the din,

Gave a lustre of Hades to objects within.

When, what on the viewscreen, our eyes should behold,

But a weird kind of sleigh, and some guy who looked old.

But the glint in his eyes was so strange and askew,

That we knew in a moment it had to be Q.

His sleigh grew much larger as closer he came.

Then he zapped on the bridge and addressed us by name:

"It's Riker, It's Data, It's Worf and Jean-Luc!

It's Geordi, Weasley, the genetic fluke!

To the top of the bridge, to the top of the hull!

Now float away! Float away! Float away all!"

As leaves in the autumn are whisked off the street,

So the floor of the bridge came away from our feet,

And up to the ceiling, our bodies they flew,

As the captain called out, 'what the Hell is this, Q?!"

And, snapping his fingers, he vanished again.

The spell was removed, and we crashed to the ground.

Then Q, dressed in fur from head to toe,

Appeared once again, to continue the show.

"That's enough!" cried the captain, "You'll stop this at once!"

And Riker said, "Worf, take aim at this dunce!"

"I'm deeply offended, Jean-Luc,' replied Q,

"I just wanted to celebrate Christmas with you."

As we scoffed at his words, he produced a large sack.

He dumped out the contents and took a step back.

"I've brought gifts," he said, "just to show I'm sincere.

There's someting delightful for everyone here."

He sat on the floor, and dug into the pile,

And handed out gifts with his most charming smile:

"For Counselor Troi, there's no need to explain,

Here's Tylenol-Beta for all of your pain.

For Worf I've some mints, as his breath's not too great

And for Geordi LaForge, an inflatable date.

For Weasley, some hormones, and Clearasil-plus;

For Data, a joke book, for Riker a truss.

For Beverly Crusher, there's sleek lingerie,

And for Jean-Luc, the thrill of just seeing her that way."

And he sprang to his feet with that grin on his face,

And, clapping his hands, disappeared into space.

But we heard him exclaim as he dwindled from sight.

"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good flight!"

More Christmas Stuff! Received via email December 15, 1997. (Thanks Mandi)

SANTA CLAUS: An Engineer's Perspective

There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.
Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second --- 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them --- Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).
600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air resistance -- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.
Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now. Merry Christmas!

Received via email 2-27-98 (Thanks Misty)

A chemistry professor was very strict about attendance, and despised tardiness. Every student caught arriving to class late (especially those interrupting his lecture) was quickly reprimanded in front of the whole class. Students were quick to comment on the professor's genetics.

One day a student entered through the front doors of the lecture hall, while the prof was writing notes on the chalkboard. The professor caught the student out of the corner of his eye (this acute sense of peripheral vision, further supported the rumours of his evolution), and turned to face the student. He demanded, "What do you think you're doing?"

Being a science student, one naturally thinks quickly, so the student snapped up and replied, "I came down from the back to get a better look at the board." The prof smiled.

Received via email March 11, 1998

>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."

Received via email March 25, 1998

This story is reproduced without any theological intent or bias. It is reproduced as received.

A true story. A thermodynamics professor had written a take home exam for his graduate students. It had one question:

"Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with a proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however wrote the following:

First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for souls entering hell, lets look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to hell. Since, there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant.

So, if hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.

Of course, if hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, than the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.

It was not revealed what grade the student got.

This is a variation on the same tale:

(Thanks, Courtney)

This is a true story. This is reported by a graduate of the Univ. of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, citing one of Dr. Schlambaugh's Final Test questions for his final exam of 1997. Dr. Schlambaugh is known for asking questions like this one on his final exam, "Why do airplanes fly?" In May 1997, the Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II Final exam question was, "Is Hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof". Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Laws or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we postulate that if souls exist, they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls also must have a mass. So at what rate are souls moving into Hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell it does not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering Hell, lets look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of the religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to Hell. With the birth and death rates what they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of the change in the volume in Hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of the souls and volume needs to stay a1) If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and the pressure in hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. Or a2) If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase in souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Theresa Banyan during Freshman year, that "it will be a cold night in Hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still haveNOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then A2 cannot be true . . . . .

Thus Hell is exothermic.

The student got the only A

Received via email April 28, 1998

Dr. Keller,

Here are a couple sets of jokes about chickens crossing the road and sports scholarship (oxymoron). I received these in an e-mail a while ago and thought that you might like them.

Mike [Thanks Mike]

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?

From the Human Resources/Training Perspective:

The chicken had a vision. The chicken was proficient in the core competencies necessary to implement the plan and make the vision reality.

Pat Buchanan:

To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American.

Machiavelli:

The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The ends of crossing the road justify whatever motive there was.

Thomas de Torquemada:

Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.

Timothy Leary:

Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

Carl Jung:

The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and, therefore, synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

John Locke:

Because he was exercising his natural right to liberty.

Albert Camus:

It doesn't matter; the chicken's actions have no meaning except to him.

The Bible:

And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the Chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

Fox Mulder:

It was a government conspiracy.

Freud:

The fact that you thought that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

Darwin:

Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically dispositioned to cross roads.

Darwin #2:

It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.

Richard M. Nixon:

The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did not cross the road.

Oliver Stone:

The question is not "Why did the chicken cross the road?" but is rather "Who was crossing the road at the same time whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?"

Jerry Seinfeld:

Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place anyway?"

The Pope:

That is only for God to know.

Louis Farrakhan:

The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed the "black man" in order to trample him and keep him down.

Martin Luther King, Jr.:

I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

Immanuel Kant:

The chicken, being an autonomous being, chose to cross the road of his own free will.

Grandpa Simpson:

In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken had crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

Dirk Gently (Holistic Detective):

I'm not exactly sure why, but right now I've got a horse in my bathroom.

Bill Gates:

I have just released the new Chicken 2000, which will both cross roads AND balance your checkbook, though when it divides 3 by 2 it gets 1.4999999999.

M.C.Escher:

That depends on which plane of reality the chicken was on at the time.

George Orwell:

Because the government had fooled him into thinking that he was crossing the road of his own free will, when he was really only serving their interests.

Colonel Sanders:

I missed one?

Plato:

For the greater good.

Aristotle:

To actualize its potential.

Karl Marx:

It was a historical inevitability.

Nietzsche:

Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.

B.F. Skinner:

Because the external influences, which had pervaded its sensorium from birth, had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own freewill.

Jean-Paul Sartre:

In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Albert Einstein:

Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends uponp>Dr. Seuss:

Did the chicken cross the road?

Did he cross it with a toad?

Yes the chicken crossed the road,

but why it crossed it, I've not been told!

O.J.:

It didn't. I was playing golf with it at the time.

Subject: FW: WHY SPORTS SCHOLARSHIP IS AN OXYMORON (fwd)

> "You guys pair up in groups of three, then line up in a circle"

> -- Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach

> "That's so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my clothes."

> -- Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker

> "You guys line up alphabetically by height"

> -- Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach

> "I play football. I'm not trying to be a professor. The tests don't seem to make sense to me, measuring your brain on stuff I haven't been through in school."

> -- Clemson recruit Ray Forsythe, who was ineligible as a freshman because of academic requirements

> "I know the Virginia players are smart because you need a 1500 SAT to get in. I have to drop bread crumbs to get our players to and from class."

> -- George Raveling, Washington State basketball coach

> "Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton."

> -- Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson hooking up again with promoter Don King

> "I can't really remember the names of the clubs that we went to."

> -- Shaquille O'Neal on whether he had visited the Parthenon during his visit to Greece

> "The ballparks have gotten too crowded. That's why nobody goes to see the game anymore." --

> --Yogi Berra

> "I'm going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes."

> -- Senior basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh

> "Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."

>-- Football commentator and former player Joe Theismann

Received 8/28/98. First Contribution for Fall 1998 (thanks DLO):

How To Do Homework (The Proper Way). . .

1. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a well-lighted place with plenty of freshly sharpened pencils.

2. Read over the assignment carefully, to make certain you understand it.

3. Walk down to the vending machines and buy some coffee to help you concentrate.

4. Stop off at another floor, on the way back and visit with your friend from class. If your friend hasn't started the paper yet either, you can both walk to McDonalds and buy a hamburger to help you concentrate. If your friend shows you his paper, typed, double-spaced, and bound in one of those irritating see-through plastic folders, drop him.

5. When you get back to your room, sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well-lighted place with plenty of freshly sharpened pencils.

6. Read over the assignment again to make absolutely certain you understand it.

7. You know, you haven't written to that kid you met at camp since fourth grade. . You'd better write that letter now and get it out of the way so you can concentrate.

8. Go look at your teeth in the bathroom mirror.

9. Listen to one side of your favorite tape and that's it-- I mean it! As soon as it's over you are going to start that paper.

10. Listen to the other side.

11. Rearrange all of your CDs into alphabetical order.

12. Phone your friend on the other floor and ask if he's started writing yet. Exchange derogatory remarks about your teacher, the course, the university, and the world at large.

13. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well-lighted place with plenty of freshly sharpened pencils.

14. Read over the assignment again; roll the words across your tongue; savor its special flavor.

15. Check the newspaper listings to make sure you aren't missing something truly worthwhile on TV. NOTE: When you have a paper due in less than 12 hours, anything on TV from Masterpiece Theater to Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, is truly worthwhile, with these exceptions:

a) Pro Bowler's Tour

b) any movie starring Don Ameche.

c) Star Trek

16. Catch the last hour of Soul Brother of Kung Fu on channel 26.

17. Phone your friend on the third floor to see if he was watching. Discuss the finer points of the plot.

18. Go look at your tongue in the bathroom mirror.

19. Look through your roommate's book of pictures from home. Ask who everyone is.

20. Sit down and do some serious thinking about your plans for the future.

21. Open your door and check to see if there are any mysterious, trench-coated strangers lurking in the hall.

22. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well-lighted place with plenty of freshly sharpened pencils.

23. Read over the assignment one more time, just for the heck of it.

24. Scoot your chair across the room to the window and watch the sunrise.

25. Lie face down on the floor and scream at the top of your lungs.

26. Leap up and write the paper.

27. Type the paper.

28. Complain to everyone that you didn't get any sleep because you had to write the paper.

Received Sept.7, 1998 (Thanks Conor!)

How many ASU freshmen does it take to change a light bulb?

None. They don't offer that course until sophomore year!!

Received via email Sept. 14, 1998 (Thanks Jenna)

A freshman at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair, April 26. He was attempting to show how conditioned we have become to alarmists practicing junk science and urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical "dihydrogen monoxide."

And for plenty of good reasons, since:

1. Cause excessive sweating and vomiting.

2. It is a major component in acid rain.

3. It can cause severe burns in its gaseous state.

4. Accidental inhalation can kill you.

5. It contributes to erosion.

6. It decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes.

7. It has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients.

He asked 50 people if they supported a ban of the chemical. Forty-three said yes, six were undecided and only one knew that the chemical was water.

The title of his prize winning project was, "How Gullible Are We?"

He feels the conclusion is obvious.

Editor’s note: We recently came across a web site dedicated to informing the public about the dangers of this insidious and harmful substance. You owe it to yourself to check it out thoroughly and carefully. PCK

Received via Email Oct. 1, 1998 (Thanks Sarah)

Some believe that the world converting to the metric system would greatly simplify our measures. But look what would really happen to our old clichés...

* A miss is as good as 1.6 kilometers.

* Put your best 0.3 of a meter forward.

* Spare the 5.03 meters and spoil the child.

* Twenty-eight grams of prevention is worth 453 grams of cure.

* Give a man 2.5 centimeters and he'll take 1.6 kilometers.

* Peter Piper picked 8.8 liters of pickled peppers.

Received via Email October 5, 1998 (Thanks Sarah)

[Note: Text reproduced without editing. No responsibility is taken by me for the possibly sexist content. PCK]

ELEMENTS

Element Name: WOMAN

Symbol: WO

Atomic Weight: (don't even go there!)

Physical properties: Generally round in form. Boils at nothing and may freeze any time. Melts whenever treated properly. Very bitter if not used well.

Chemical properties: Very active. Highly unstable. Possesses strong affinity to gold, silver, platinum, and precious stones. Violent when left alone. Able to absorb great amounts of exotic food. Turns slightly green when placed next to a better specimen.

Usage: Highly ornamental. An extremely good catalyst for dispersion of wealth. Probably the most powerful income reducing agent known.

Caution: Highly explosive in inexperienced hands.

Element Name: MAN

Symbol: XY

Atomic Weight: (180 +/- 50)

Physical properties: Solid at room temperature, but gets bent out of shape easily. Fairly dense and sometimes flaky. Difficult to find a pure sample. Due to rust, aging samples are unable to conduct electricity as easily as young samples.

Chemical properties: Attempts to bond with WO any chance it can get. Also tends to form strong bonds with itself. Becomes explosive when mixed with Kd (Element: Child) for prolonged period of time. Neutralize by saturating with alcohol.

Usage: None known. Possibly good methane source. Good samples are able to produce large quantities on command.

Caution: In the absence of WO, this element rapidly decomposes and begins to smell.

Received via email October 30, 1998. (Thanks, Dom)

YOU MIGHT BE A PHYSICS MAJOR...

if you have no life - and you can PROVE it mathematically.
if you enjoy pain.
if you know vector calculus but you can't remember how to do long division.
if you chuckle whenever anyone says "centrifugal force."
if you've actually used every single function on your graphing calculator.
if when you look in a mirror, you see a physics major.
if it is sunny and 70 degrees outside, and you are working on a computer.
if you frequently whistle the theme song to "MacGyver."
if you always do homework on Friday nights.
if you know how to integrate a chicken and can take the derivative of water.
if you think in "math."
if you've calculated that the World Series actually diverges.
if you hesitate to look at something because you don't want to break down its wave function.
if you have a pet named after a scientist.
if you laugh at jokes about mathematicians.
if the Humane society has you arrested because you actually performed the Schrodinger's Cat experiment.
if you can translate English into Binary.
if you can't remember what's behind the door in the science building which says "Exit."
if you have to bring a jacket with you, in the middle of summer, because there's a wind-chill factor in the lab.
If you are completely addicted to caffeine.
if you avoid doing anything because you don't want to contribute to the eventual heat-death of the universe.
if you consider ANY non-science course "easy."
if when your professor asks you where your homework is, you claim to have accidentally determined its momentum so precisely, that according to Heisenberg it could be anywhere in the universe.
if the "fun" center of your brain has deteriorated from lack of use.
if you'll assume that a "horse" is a "sphere" in order to make the math easier.
if you understood more than five of these indicators.
if you make a hard copy of this list, and post it on your door.

Received via Email Thursday, November 19, 1998 (Thanks Hugo)

If IBM made toasters...

They would want one big toaster where people bring bread to be submitted for overnight toasting. IBM would claim a worldwide market for five, maybe six toasters.

If Apple made toasters...

It would do everything the Microsoft toasters does, but 5 years earlier.

If Microsoft made toasters...

Every time you bought a loaf of bread, you would have to buy a toaster. You wouldn't have to take the toaster, but you'd still have to pay for it anyway. Toaster'95 would weigh 15000 pounds (hence requiring a reinforced steel countertop), draw enough electricity to power a small city, take up 95% of the space in your kitchen, would claim to be the first toaster that lets you control how light or dark you want the toast to be, and would secretly interrogate your other appliances to found out who made them.

Everyone would hate Microsoft toasters, but nonetheless would buy them since most of the good bread only works with their toasters.

Received via Email Thursday, November 19, 1998 (Thanks Marjorie)

[Dr. Keller means no offense to the UA College of Engineering.]

Comprehending Engineers-Take One

A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" The doctor chimed in, I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!" The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greenskeeper. Let's have a word with him."

"Hi George. Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?" The greenskeeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime."

The group was silent for a moment. The pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight." The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them." The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

********************************

Comprehending Engineers-Take Two

There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multi-million dollar machines. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine fixed, but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past.

The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine and proudly stated, "This is where your problem is".

The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded briefly:

One chalk mark $1

Knowing where to put it $49,999

It was paid in full and the engineer retired again in peace.

**********************************

Comprehending Engineers-Take Three

What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?

Mechanical Engineers build weapons, Civil Engineers build targets.

*********************************

Comprehending Engineers-Take Four

The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"

The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"

The graduate with an Accounting degree Asks, "How much will it cost?"

The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

*********************************

Comprehending Engineers-Take Five

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body. One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints." Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous systems many thousands of electrical connections." The last said, "Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

********************************

Comprehending Engineers-Take Six

An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there. The engineer said, "I like both."

"Both?" Engineer: "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the lab and get some work done."

*********************************

Comprehending Engineers-Take Seven

An engineering student was walking across campus when another engineer rides up on a shiny new motorcycle. "Where did you get such a great bike?" asked the first. The second engineer replied "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said 'Take what you want.' "

The second engineer nodded approvingly "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

*********************************

LEMON SQUEEZER

The local restaurant was so sure that its host was the strongest man around that they offered a standing $1000 bet.

The host would squeeze a lemon until all the juice ran into a glass, and hand the lemon to a patron. Anyone who could squeeze one more drop of juice out would win the money.

Many people had tried over time (weight lifters, longshoremen, etc.), but nobody could do it.

Then one day, this scrawny little man came in, wearing thick glasses and a polyester suit, and said in a tiny, squeaky voice, "I'd like to try the bet."

After the laughter had died down, the host said "OK," grabbed a lemon, and squeezed away. Then he handed the wrinkled remains of the rind to the little man.

But the crowd's laughter turned to total silence as the man clenched his fist around the lemon and six drops fell into the glass.

As the crowd cheered, the host paid the $1000, and asked the little man, "What do you do for a living? Are you a lumberjack, a weightlifter, or what?"

The man replied, "I work for the IRS."

****************************************

This Engineer story is from 94.9 MIXfm Net Jokes:

There were these three engineers…

…in a car; an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer, and a Microsoft engineer. Suddenly the car just stops by the side of the road, and the three engineers look at each other wondering what could be wrong.

The electrical engineer suggests stripping down the electronics and trying to trace where a fault might have occurred. The chemical engineer, not knowing much about cars suggests that maybe the fuel is becoming emulsified and getting blocked somewhere.

Then, the Microsoft engineer, not knowing much about anything, comes up with a suggestion. "Why don't we close all the windows, get out, get back in, open the windows again, and maybe it'll work!?"

Received via Personal Communication November 27, 1998 (Thanks M)

[These questions and their answers originally referred to a post-secondary school located roughly 120 miles north of Tucson. The name of this school has been replaced by XXXX so that the reader may substitute his/her favorite designation.]

How do you get an XXXX graduate off your porch?
Pay him for the pizza.
What do you get when you drive slowly by the XXXX campus?
A degree.
What do you get when you breed a groundhog with an XXXX football player?
Six more weeks of bad football.
How many XXXX freshmen does it take to change a light bulb?
None. It's a second-year course.
What does the average XXXX football player get on his SATs?
Drool.
Do you know why the XXXX football team should change its name to the "Opossums?"
Because they play dead at home and get killed on the road.
The XXXX football team was placed in a remedial English class, "Does anyone know what comes after a sentence?"
All the players raised their hands. "The appeal," they all shouted with pride.
What do you call a person from XXXX in a three-piece suit?
The defendant.
Why is it that the XXXX football team doesn't have a web site?
They can't string three "W's" together.

Received via Email December 1, 1998 (Thanks Da)

The Night Before Finals

Twas the night before finals,
And all through the college,
The students were praying
For last minute knowledge.

Most were quite sleepy,
But none touched their beds,
While visions of essays
danced in their heads.

Out in the taverns,
A few were still drinking,
And hoping that liquor
would loosen up their thinking.

In my own apartment,
I had been pacing,
And dreading exams
I soon would be facing.

My roommate was speechless,
His nose in his books,
And my comments to him
Drew unfriendly looks.

I drained all the coffee,
And brewed a new pot,
No longer caring
That my nerves were shot.

I stared at my notes,
But my thoughts were muddy,
My eyes went ablur,
I just couldn't study.

"Some pizza might help,"
I said with a shiver,
But each place I called
Refused to deliver.

I'd nearly concluded
That life was too cruel,
With futures depending
On grades had in school.

When all of a sudden,
Our door opened wide,
And Patron Saint Put It Off
Ambled inside.

His spirit was careless,
His manner was mellow,
He started to bellow:

"What kind of student
Would make such a fuss,
To toss back at teachers
What they tossed at us?"

"On Cliff Notes! On Crib Notes!
On Last Year's Exams!
On Wingit and Slingit,
And Last Minute Crams!"

His message delivered,
He vanished from sight,
But we hearew a circle, a square, and a triangle. Everyone agreed that was pretty smart.

But, the Accountant said his could do better. He called his dog and said ^"Slide Rule, do your stuff". Slide Rule went out into the kitchen and returned with a dozen cookies. He divided them into 4 equal piles of 3 cookies each. Everyone agreed that was good.

But, the Chemist said his dog could do better. He called his dog and said "Beaker, do your stuff". Beaker got up, walked over to the fridge, took out a quart of milk, got a 10 ounce glass from the cupboard and poured exactly 8 ounces without spilling a drop. Everyone agreed that was good.

Then the three men turned to the Government Worker and said, "What can your dog do?" The Government Worker called to his dog and said, "Coffee Break, do your stuff". Coffee Break jumped to his feet, ate the cookies, drank the milk, dumped on the paper, sexually assaulted the other three dogs, claimed he injured his back while doing so, filed a grievance report for unsafe working conditions, put in for Workers Compensation and went home on sick leave.

This one arrived along with the previous one. It nearly crashed my spell-checker!

Euro-Language Proposal

The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik emthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f" This will make words like ~ 20 persent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful,and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th" by "z" and "w" by "v"

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vii be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vii find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

This arrived by email on Feb. 2, 1999 (Thanks DLO)

Chocolate Chip Cookies:

Ingredients:

1.) 532.35 cm3 gluten

2.) 4.9 cm3 NaHCO3

3.) 4.9 cm3 refined halite

4.) 236.6 cm3 partially hydrogenated tallow triglyceride

5.) 177.45 cm3 crystalline C12H22O11

6.) 177.45 cm3 unrefined C12H22O11

7.) 4.9 cm3 methyl ether of protocatechuic aldehyde

8.) Two calcium carbonate-encapsulated avian albumen-coated protein

9.) 473.2 cm3 theobroma cacao

10.) 236.6 cm3 de-encapsulated legume meats (sieve size #10)

To a 2-L jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat transfer coefficient of about 100 Btu/F-ft2-hr, add ingredients one, two and three with constant agitation. In a second 2-L reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at 100 rpm, add ingredients four, five, six, and seven until the mixture is homogenous.

To reactor #2, add ingredient eight, followed by three equal volumes of the homogenous mixture in reactor #1. Additionally, add ingredient nine and ten slowly, with constant agitation. Care must be taken at this point in the reaction to control any temperature rise that may be the result of an exothermic reaction.

Using a screw extrude attached to a #4 nodulizer, place the mixture piece-meal on a 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm). Heat in a 460K oven for a period of time that is in agreement with Frank & Johnston's first order rate expression (see JACOS, 21, 55), or until golden brown. Once the reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25C heat-transfer table, allowing the product to come to equilibrium.

This came via email on Feb. 18, 1999 (Thanks Stacy!)

HoW To KeEp A hEaLtHy LeVeL Of InSaNiTy AnD dRiVe OtHeR PeOpLe iNsAnE...

***********************************************

Page yourself over the intercom. (Don't disguise your voice)

Find out where your boss shops and buy exactly the same outfits.

Always wear them one day after your boss does. (This is especially effective if your boss is the opposite gender.)

Send e-mail to the rest of the company to tell them what you're doing. For example: 'If anyone needs me, I'll be in the bathroom.'

Put mosquito netting around your cubicle.

Insist that your e-mail address be: xena_goddess_of_fire@companyname.com

Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.

Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair dancing.

Put your garbage can on your desk and label it 'IN'.

Develop an unnatural fear of staplers.

Send e-mail messages that advertise free pizza, doughnuts, etc., in the breakroom. When people complain that there was nothing there, lean back, rub your stomach, and say, "You've got to be faster than that."

Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.

In the memo field of all your checks, write 'for sexual favors'.

Reply to everything someone says with, "That's what you think."

Finish all your sentences with "in accordance with the prophecy."

Adjust the tint on your monitor so that the brightness level lights up the entire working area. Insist to others that you like it that way.

Dont use any punctuation

As often as possible, skip rather than walk.

Ask people what sex they are.

At lunch time, sit in your parked car and point a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.

Specify that your drive-through order is 'to go'.

Sing along at the opera.

Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.

Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.

***AnD tHe FiNaL WaY tO aNnOy PeOple***:

Send this e-mail to everyone in your address book, even if they sent it to you or have asked you not to send them stuff like this.

This one came from jokeaday.com (3-4-99)

A young man, hired by a supermarket, reported for his first day of work. The manager greeted him with a warm handshake and a smile, gave him a broom and said, "Your first job will be to sweep out the store."

"But I'm a college graduate." the young man replied indignantly.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that," said the manager. "Here, give me the broom, I'll show you how."

From Same Source (3-25-99)

A student reports for his final exam. The exam consists of nothing but True / False type answers.

He takes his seat, gets the test, stares at the questions for five minutes, and then in a fit of inspiration takes his wallet out, removes a coin, and starts tossing the coin. For "Heads" he marks "True" and for "Tails" he marks "False".

Within half an hour, the student is all done whereas the rest of the class is sweating it out. During the last few minutes, he is seen desperately throwing the coin, swearing and sweating.

The moderator, a little alarmed, walks over to him and asks him if he's ok.

The student spits out, "Yeah, I'm ok. I finished my exam in half an hour -- but I'm not going to have time to check all of these answers!!!"

This was received via email today (4-19-99, Thanks M.)

Navajo Wisdom

About 1969 or so, a NASA team doing work for the Apollo moon mission took the astronauts near Tuba City where the terrain of the Navajo Reservation looks very much like the Lunar surface.

Along with all the trucks and large vehicles, there were two large figures dressed in full Lunar spacesuits.

Nearby a Navajo sheep herder and his son were watching the strange creatures walk about, occasionally being tended by personnel.

The two Navajo people were noticed and approached by the NASA personnel. Since the man did not know English, his son asked for him what the strange creatures were and the NASA people told them that they are just men that are getting ready to go to the moon. The man became very excited and asked if he could send a message to the moon with the astronauts.

The NASA personnel thought this was a great idea so they rustled up a tape recorder. After the man gave them his message, they asked his son to translate. His son would not.

Later, they tried a few more people on the reservation to translate and every person they asked would chuckle and then refuse to translate.

Finally, with cash in hand, someone translated the message, "Watch out for these guys, they come to take your land."

Received via Email May 3, 1999. (Thanks C)

One Liners…

Make it idiot proof, and someone will make a better idiot.

Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity.

Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.

I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.

It's never as easy as the manual says it is.

I think, therefore I'm overqualified.

A single fact can ruin a good argument.

Psychoceramics: The study of crackpots.

My friend's a workaholic - you mention work, he gets drunk.

The light at the end of the tunnel is often an oncoming train..

Monday's a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life.

MONEY TALKS ... but all mine ever says is GOODBYE.

Some call me a pain in the neck. Others have a lower opinion.

Always remember to pillage BEFORE you burn.

Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.

Never try to out-stubborn a cat.

Sure I'm weird-but I'm saving up for eccentric.

If we all toss in our two cents-can we send out for pizza??

Death is not the worst of things, and life is not the best.

It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

It's interesting that Eve was not surprised to hear a snake speak.

If at first you don't succeed, try second, third or shortstop.

First we give you a fair trial. Then we hang you.

Do radioactive cats have 18 half-lives?

Advertising is the art of making whole lies out of half truths.

Limit Congressmen to 2 terms. ..one in Congress, one in Jail.

Age makes the joints creaky, but OLD is a mind-set...

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

Courage is the fear of being thought a coward.

I was sane once. Didn't particularly care for the experience.

Don't complain about getting older 'til you consider the alternative.

My desk-a wastebasket with drawers.

A seminar on time travel is scheduled for last Thursday at 7:00 pm.

Purranoia-the fear that your cat is up to something.

To fly, one must throw oneself at the ground, and of course, miss.

Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled.

Necessity may be the mother of invention but laziness is the father.

How many roads must a man travel down before he admits he is lost.

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, riddle them with bullets.

"Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes."

I'm as confused as a baby in a topless bar.

Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.

A flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.

I wouldn't be caught dead with a necrophiliac.

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.

Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot.

Where there's a will, I want to be in it.

Few women admit their age. Fewer men act theirs.

I took an IQ test and the results were negative.

Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately it kills all its students!

If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

No one is listening until you make a mistake.

Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.

The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

Received via Email May 5, 1999 (Just in time for finals. Thanks, Mary!)

College finals from Hell

Instructions: Read each question carefully. Answer all questions.

Time Limit: 4 hours.

HISTORY

Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social, political, economic, religious, and philosophical impact on Europe, Asia, America, and Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific.

MEDICINE

You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. You have 15 minutes.

PUBLIC SPEAKING

Twenty-five hundred riot-crazed aborigines are storming the classroom. Calm them. You may use any ancient language except Latin or Greek.

BIOLOGY

Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had developed 500 million years earlier, with special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system. Prove your thesis.

MUSIC

Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate and perform it with flute and drum. You will find a piano under your seat.

PSYCHOLOGY

Based on your degree of knowledge of their works, evaluate the emotional stability, degree of adjustment, and repressed frustrations of each of the following: Alexander of Aphrodisias, Rameses II, Gregory of Nicea, Hammurabi. Support your evaluations with quotations from each man's work, making appropriate references. It is not necessary to translate.

SOCIOLOGY

Estimate the sociological problems which might accompany the end of the world. Construct an experiment to test your theory.

MANAGEMENT SCIENCE

Define management. Define science. How do they relate? Why? Create a generalized algorithm to optimize all managerial decisions. Assuming an 1130 CPU supporting 50 terminals, each terminal to activate your algorithm; design the communications interface and all necessary control programs.

ENGINEERING

The disassembled parts of a high-powered rifle have been placed in a box on your desk. You will also find an instruction manual, printed in Swahili. In ten minutes a hungry Bengal tiger will be admitted to the room. Take whatever action you feel is appropriate. Be prepared to justify your decision.

ECONOMICS

Develop a realistic plan for refinancing the national debt. Trace the possible effects of your plan in the following areas: Cubism, the Donatist controversy, the wave theory of light. Outline a method for preventing these effects. Criticize this method from all possible points of view. Point out the deficiencies in your point of view, as demonstrated in your answer to the last question.

POLITICAL SCIENCE

There is a red telephone on the desk beside you. Start World War III. Report at length on its socio-political effects, if any.

EPISTEMOLOGY

Take a position for or against truth. Prove the validity of your position.

PHYSICS

Explain the nature of matter. Include in your answer an evaluation of the impact of the development of mathematics on science.

PHILOSOPHY

Sketch the development of human thought; estimate its significance. Compare with the development of any other kind of thought.

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Describe in detail. Be objective and specific.

*** EXTRA CREDIT ***

Define the universe; give three examples.

Interesting Anagrams (Thanks Alex)

An anagram is a word or phrase made by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase. Every letter must be used only once and there can be none left over.

`Dormitory:`	`Dirty Room`
`Desperation:`	`A Rope Ends It`
`The Morse Code:`	`Here Come Dots`
`Slot Machines:`	`Cash Lost in 'em`
`Animosity:`	`Is No Amity`
`Mother-in-law:`	`Woman Hitler`
`Snooze Alarms:`	`Alas! No More Z's`
`Alec Guinness:`	`Genuine Class`
`Semolina:`	`Is No Meal`
`The Public Art Galleries:`	`Large Picture Halls, I Bet`
`A Decimal Point:`	`I'm a Dot in Place`
`The Earthquakes:`	`That Queer Shake`
`Eleven plus two:`	`Twelve plus one`
`Contradiction:`	`Accord not in it`

Quotes taken from Actual Federal Employee Performance Evaluations

(Thanks, Donna) 8-18-99

1. "Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig."

2. "I would not allow this employee to breed."

3. "This employee is not really so much of a has-been, but more of a definite won't be."

4. "Works well when under constant supervision and when cornered like a rat in a trap."

5. "When she opens her mouth, it seems that it is only to change feet."

6. "He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle."

7. "This young lady has delusions of adequacy."

8. "He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them."

9. "This employee is depriving a village, somewhere, of an idiot."

10. "This employee should go far, and the sooner he starts, the better."

11. "Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all together."

12. "A gross ignoramus --144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus."

13. "He doesn't have ulcers, but he's a carrier."

14. "I would like to go hunting with him sometime."

15. "He's been working with glue too much."

16. "He would argue with a sign post."

17. "He brings a lot of joy. . . whenever he leaves the room."

18. "When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell."

19. "If you see two people talking and one looks bored, he's the other one."

20. "A photographic memory but with the lens cover glued on."

21. "A prime candidate for natural de-selection"

22. "Donated his brain to science before he was done using it."

23. "Gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't coming."

24. "Has two brains: one is lost and the other is out looking for it."

25. "If he were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week."

26. "If you gave him a penny for his thoughts, you'd get change."

27. "If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean."

28. "It's hard to believe that he beat out 1,000,000 other sperm."

29. "One neuron short of a synapse."

30. "Some drink from the fountain of knowledge; he only gargled."

31. "Takes him 2 hours to watch 60 minutes."

32. "The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead."

Received Sept. 17, 1999.

An Item Dealing with High Tech Toys (Thanks Wendy)

Two friends went out to play golf and were about to tee off, when one fellow noticed that his partner had but one golf ball.

"Don't you have at least one other golf ball?", he asked. The other guy replied that no, he only needed the one.

"Are you sure?", the friend persisted. "What happens if you lose that ball?"

The other guy replied, "This is a very special golf ball. I won't lose it so I don't need another one."

Well," the friend asked, "what happens if you miss your shot and the ball goes in the lake?"

"That's okay," he replied, "this special golf ball floats. I'll be able to retrieve it."

"Well what happens if you hit it into the trees and it gets lost among the bushes and shrubs?"

The other guy replied, "That's okay too. You see, this special golf ball has a homing beacon. I'll be able to get it back -- no problem."

Exasperated, the friend asks, "Okay. Let's say our game goes late, the sun goes down, and you hit your ball into a sand trap. What are you going to do then?"

"No problem," says the other guy, "you see, this ball is florescent. I'll be able to see it in the dark."

Finally satisfied that he needs only the one golf ball, the friend asks, "Hey, where did you get a golf ball like that anyway?"

The other guy replies, "I found it."

The waitress looked startled, then pensive, almost pained. She looked around the room, at her feet , made gurgling noises, (Joe was starting to sweat) and finally said, "Umm, one third x cubed?"

Joe beamed in relief as an astonished Richard paid the check and a clearly irritated waitress muttered under her breath, "... plus a constant."

Received via Email December 10, 1999.

(Thanks Susan)

Computers vs Cars

At a recent expo, Bill gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, GM issued a press release stating. If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would be driving cars with the following characteristics:

For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
Occasionally, your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would accept this, restart, and drive on.
Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart; in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought "Car98" or "CarNT." Then you would have to buy more seats.
Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was more reliable, five times as fast, and was twice as easy to drive, but would run on only five percent of the roads.
The oil, water, temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car fault" warning light.
New seats would force everyone to have the same butt size.
The air bag system would say "Are you sure?" BEFORE GOING OFF.
Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed the radio antenna.
GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more.
Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
You'd press the "START" button to shut off the engine.

Received via Email December 15, 1999. (Thanks Jenny)

How to tell when you've had too much of the 90's

1. You try to enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

4. You e-mail your work colleague at the desk next to you to ask "Wanna go for a drink?" and they reply "Yeah, give me five minutes."

5. You chat several times a day with a stranger from South America, but you haven't spoken to your next door neighbor yet this year.

6. You buy a computer and a week later it is out of date.

7. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they do not have e-mail addresses.

8. You consider US Mail painfully slow and call it "snail mail."

9. Your idea of being organized is multiple colored post-it notes.

10. You hear all good jokes via email instead of in person.

11. When you go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone with your company's name.

12. When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial "9" to get an outside line.

13. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.

14. Your company welcome sign is attached with Velcro.

15. Your resume is on a diskette in your pocket.

16. You really get excited about a 1.7% pay raise.

17. Your biggest loss from a system crash is that you lose all your best jokes.

18. Temps in your department outnumber permanent staff and are more likely to get long-service awards.

19. Board members salaries are higher than all the Third World countries annual budgets combined.

20. It's dark when you drive to and from work.

21. Free food left over from meetings is your staple diet.

22. The intern gets a brand-new state-of-the-art laptop with all the features, while you have time to go for lunch while yours powers up.

23. Being sick is defined as 'you can't walk' or 'you're in the hospital.'

24. You're already late on the assignment you just got.

25. There's no money in the budget for the five permanent staff your department is short, but they can afford four full-time management consultants advising your boss's boss on strategy.

26. Your boss's favorite lines are: When you've got a few minutes... Could you fit this in?... in your spare time...when you're freed up... I know you're busy but...I have an opportunity for you.

27. Every week another brown collection envelope comes around because someone you didn't even know had started is leaving.

28. You wonder who's going to be left to put into your 'leaving' collection.

29. Your relatives and family describe your job as "works with computers."

30. The only reason you recognize your kids is because their pictures are on your desk.

31. You only have makeup for fluorescent lighting.

32. You've run out of family member's birthdays to use for all of the ATM's and banking PINs, email passwords, computer codes, and voicemail IDs you need to remember.

33. You read this entire list, kept nodding and smiling.

34. As you read this list, you thought about forwarding it to your "friends you send jokes to" e-mail group.

35. It crosses your mind that your jokes group may have seen this list already, but you can't be bothered to check so you forward it anyway.

Received via Email December 15, 1999. (Thanks again Jenny)

Talking To God

A man was taking it easy, laying on the grass and looking up at the clouds. He was identifying shapes when he decided to talk to God.

"God," he said, "how long is a million years?"

God answered, "In my frame of reference, it's about a minute."

The man asked, "God, how much is a million dollars?"

God answered, "To me, it's a penny."

The man then asked, "God, can I have a penny?"

God answered, "In a minute.

Received a little before Christmas, 1999 (Thanks Jenny)

The Night After Christmas

'Twas the night after Christmas and all through the kitchen

Little creatures were stirring up potions bewitching.

Salmonellae were working in gravy and soup,

In the hopes they could turn it to poisonous goop!

Clostridia were nestled all snug in the ham,

While Hepatitis A viruses danced in the yam.

Little John with his Gobots and Mary in her cap,

Had just settled down for a long overdue nap.

When down in their guts there arose such a clatter

They sprang from their beds to see what was the matter.

They ran to the bathroom, threw open the door

Too late! Now their mother is cleaning the floor.

Wash your hands before cooking! Put your food away quick!

Or that jolly old food germ we know as Saint Sick

With his eight tiny microbes will ruin the feast

As they make their toxins. He calls out to each beast:

"Now Hepatitis! Now Staph and Perfringens;

We'll punish those humans for holiday binges!

On Botulinum! E. Coli! Shigella!

Go get 'em Amoeba! Work fast, Salmonella!

If those humans can't learn to handle food right,

A Merry Christmas they'll have, then a long, sleepless

night!"

REDNECK MEDICAL TERMS (Thanks Jenny, R.N.!)

Benign..................What you do after you be eight

Artery..................The study of paintings

Bacteria................Back door to cafeteria

Barium..................What doctors do when patients die

Cesarean Section........A neighborhood in Rome

CatScan.................Searching for Kitty

Cauterize...............Made eye contact with her

Colic...................A sheep dog

Coma....................A punctuation mark

D&C.....................Where Washington is

Dilate..................To live long

Enema...................Not a friend

Fester..................Quicker than someone else

Fibula..................A small lie

Genital.................A non-Jewish person

G.I.Series..............World series of military baseball

Hangnail................What you hang your coat on

Impotent................Distinguished, well known

Labor Pain..............Getting hurt at work

Medical Staff...........A doctor's cane

Morbid..................A higher offer than I bid

Nitrates................Cheaper than day rates

Node....................I knew it

Outpatient..............A person who has fainted

Pap Smear...............A fatherhood test

Pelvis..................Second cousin to Elvis

Post Operative..........A letter carrier

Recovery Room...........Place to do upholstery

Secretion...............Hiding something

Seizure.................Roman Emporer

Tablet..................A small table

Some Facts You Probably Didn’t Know (Thanks Jenny!!)

A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

A snail can sleep for three years.

All polar bears are left handed.

American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.

Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

Butterflies taste with their feet.

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, dogs only have about 10.

China has more English speakers than the United States.

Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he doesn't wear any pants.

Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

Humans, Chimpanzees and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.

I am. is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall and have a neck twice the length of a normal human's neck.

If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you will have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

Leonard Da Vinci invented the scissors.

Marilyn Monroe had six toes.

Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.

No word in the English language rhymes with month.

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.

One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the 1930s lobbied against hemp farmers-they saw it as competition.

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

Shakespeare invented the words 'assassination' and 'bump.'

Some lions mate over 50 times a day.

Starfish have no brain.

Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.

The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

The average human eats eight spiders in their lifetime at night.

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.

The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.

The most common name in the world in Mohammed.

The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.

The name Wendy was made up for the book 'Peter Pan.'

The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.

There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

You are more likely to be killed by a Champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.

And Finally: You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.

Here is Another Version of the Problem of How to Determine the Height of a Building using a Barometer. Thanks Dr. P! (March 10, 2000)

Sir Ernest Rutherford, President of the Royal Academy, and recipient of

the Nobel Prize in Physics, related the following story:

Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a

student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student

claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an

impartial arbiter, and I was selected. I read the examination question:

"Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with

the aid of a barometer." The student had answered: "Take the barometer

to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the

street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The

length of the rope is the height of the building." The student really

had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the

question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were

given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and

certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this.

I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six

minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should

show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he hadn't

written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had

many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I

excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on in the

next minute, he dashed off his answer, which read, "Take the barometer to

the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the

barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula

x=0.5*a*t^2, calculate the height of the building." At this point, I

asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student

almost full credit.

While leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said

that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were.

"Well," said the student, "there are many ways of getting the height of

a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take

the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer,

the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building,

and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the

building."

"Fine," I said, "and others?" "Yes," said the student, "there is a very

basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the

barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you

mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the

number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in

barometer units. A very direct method."

"Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the

barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine

the value of g [gravity] at the street level and at the top of the

building. From the difference between the two values of g, the height of

the building, in principle, can be calculated."

"On this same tack, you could take the barometer to the top of the

building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street,

and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of

the building by the period of the precession".

"Finally," he concluded, "there are many other ways of solving the

problem. Probably the best," he said, "is to take the barometer to the

basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent

answers, you speak to him as follows: 'Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine

barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give

you this barometer.'"

At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the

conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said

that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to

teach him how to think.

The Darwin Awards. If you have never heard of the Darwin Awards, prepare to be amused.

The Darwin Awards celebrate Darwin's theory of evolution by commemorating the remains of those who contributed to the improvement of our gene pool by removing themselves from it.

--------------------------

I. Science Classification

1. If it's green or it wiggles, it's part of Biology.

2. If it stinks, it's Chemistry.

3. If it doesn't work, it belongs to Physics.

II. Rules for Laboratory Workers

1. When you don't know what you're doing, do it neatly.

2. First draw your curves, then plot the data.

3. Experience is directly proportional to the equipment

ruined.

4. Experiments must be reproducible. They should all fail

the same way.

5. A record of data is essential. It indicates you have

been working.

6. In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.

7. Do not believe in miracles, rely on them.

8. Teamwork is essential in the lab. It allows you to blame

someone else.

9. Always leave room to add an explanation when it doesn't

work.

III. Finagle's Laws, Creed, and Motto

1. First Law- If anything can go wrong with an experiment,

it will.

2. Second Law- No matter what result is anticipated, there

is always someone willing to fake it.

3. Third Law- No matter what occurs, there is always someone

who believes it happened according to his pet theory.

4. Fourth Law- No matter what the result, there is always

someone eager to misinterpret it.

5. Creed- Science is truth. Don't be misled by facts.

6. Motto- Smile; tomorrow it will be worse

Overcoming Gravity. Received Sept. 25, 2000. Thanks Darin

Scientists (we won't say from which University........ASU), have discovered a new motor

that has potential to overcome the gravitational force of the earth with very little

fuel.

Materials:

1 cat

1 piece of toast heavily buttered on one side

Thanks to the Theory of "Murphy's Law", it is known by a great deal of testing on part of

human society, that cat's always land on their feet and buttered toast always lands

butter side down.

After great work and testing these scientist's succeeded in tying a piece of buttered

toast, butter side up, to the back of a cat. Upon release of this "motor" from atop the

Bank of America building in Mesa it was observed to rotate (almost violently) in midair,

never reaching the ground with the two opposing forces in play.

They are now working on a method to contain the motor, have you ever tried to catch a cat

that had toast strapped to its back and then dropped off a very tall building?

A Geography Quiz. Received November 22, 2000. Thanks Margaret (an ex-teacher now living in Yorkshire, England)

Q> Describe living conditions and farming life in Outer Mongolia

A> The people in Outer Mongolia live a very hard life. They have to get up every morning and go to work.

Q> How does life in China differ from that in Outer Mongolia?

A> The people in China live a very, very hard life too. They have to get up even earlier and go to work.

Quotes from fall 2000 Chem 103A lectures. Received via email December 5, 2000. (Thanks Paul)

"Atoms are, well, atoms are damn small" -On size of Atoms.

"You learn early in elementary school that atoms have a nucleus like it's

so damn obvious, well it's not!" -About atomic structure.

"Lets see, Lead has what..whew, 82 Electrons! No wonder it's so darn heavy!"

-Using lead as an example when teaching electron configuration.

"Winning the Nobel prize twice is kinda pretty good." -On Linus Pauling(sp?)

"Weirdoes, perverts, psychopaths and freaks" -Speaking about members of

the Science Dept. and Science Clubs.

"Can we hide it, and just say 'we didn't see it'? <Laughs from the audience>

NO!" -On what to do with an extra electron pair.

"Why do they call it a constant? Because it's a constant." -Sharing some

in depth knowledge about constants.

"I'm not going to put any of this on the test because I gave you a really

half assed explanation." -On dispersion forces/attractions.

"That was my merit raise last year" -Removing five pennies used to demonstrate

crystal structure from atop the overhead projector.

"If water was like everything else, then ice would sink, and the Titanic

would still be afloat." -On the uniqueness of water.

"After about 12 or 13 percent alcohol, the yeast dies, or gets too stoned

to do anything else." -On why natural fermentation stops when the alcohol

percentage reaches about 12 or 13 percent.

More Quotes from Fall 2000 Lectures! (Thanks Justin). Received via Email December 10, 2000.

(I had some quotes that I wrote down in the class throughout the year that made the entire lecture laugh. Though you might like to have an update and perhaps put them on your website. J.)

1. "That's it folks, it's all downhill from here!" - Balancing equations

2. "I appreciate all your suggestions, but there is NO answer." - Specific heat

3. "If I give you my $20, "temporarily", my net worth is $-20." - classic specific heat problem

4. "You'll have a chance to meet many psychopaths and perverts." - Chemistry major informational meeting

5. "Big fat hairy deal..........we got two numbers." - Electromagnetic Radiation

6. "Where did I get that number you ask? Well, I looked it up in the book!!" - Electron energy states.

7. "All this high-tech equipment takes years of training." - Molecular shapes, using styrofoam spheres

8. "Let me put my lunch money back in my pocket." - Closest packing (using pennies)

9. "So this $300 silver cocktail shaker was marked down to $200, and I continued to pass the store and keep on walking." - Ice expansion (story)

10. "I felt so good about actually applying this stuff to my life." - Ice expansion

11. "I've heard textbooks are still available at the bookstore if you haven't purchased them yet." - Last day of class

12. "This won't take long, I've filled most of it out for you." - Teacher evaluations (very funny)

Subject: Females Rule!!! Received via Email, December 12, 2000. (Thanks Eve)

Go figure!

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year (the only members of the deer family, Cervidae, to have females do so), Male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid December. Female reindeer retain their antlers until after they give birth in the spring. Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolf to Blitzen had to be a girl.

We should've known this since they were able to find their way!!!!

What not to say when in the electric chair. Received via Email, July 12, 2001. (Thanks Eve)

Three students go down to Mexico one night, get arrested, and wake up in

jail only to find out that they are to be executed in the morning, though

none of them can remember what they did the night before.

The first one is strapped in the electric chair and is asked if he has

any last words. He says, "I am from the UA department of religious studies and I

believe in the almighty power of God to intervene on behalf of the

innocent." They throw the switch and nothing happens, so they figure God

must not want this guy to die and they let him go.

The second one is strapped in and gives his last words, "I am from the

UA School of Law and I believe in the power of justice to intervene on the

part of the innocent." They throw the switch and again nothing happens.

They figure that the law is on this guy's side, so they let him go too.

The last one is strapped in and says, "Well, I'm an ASU Electrical

Engineer, and I'll tell you right now you ain't gonna electrocute nobody

if you don't connect them two wires."

Third Grade Scientists Successfully Vaporize Water (Thanks Alex) Received via Email Dec. 1, 2001.

Check out this astounding article.

Re Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Received via Email, May 8, 2002. (Thanks Linh)

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson decided to go camping one day. They set up their tent and decided to go to sleep. In the middle of the night, Sherlock woke Dr. Watson and asked, "What can you deduce about those stars up there?" Dr. Watson answered, "Well, in those many stars, there must be millions of planets and solar systems, there are suns and moons and I can imagine that in some planet there may be life that is equivalent to ours. Why do you ask?"

Sherlock Holmes impatiently answers, "You idiot!! Someone stole our tent!”

Computer Terms for Rural Folk. Received via email Nov. 8, 2002. (Thanks Lucinda)

Re Vet Bills. Received March 5, 2003 (Thanks Pheeb)

A woman brought a very limp parrot into a
veterinary surgery. As she laid her pet on the table,
the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to
the bird's chest. After a moment or two, the vet
shook his head sadly and said, "I'm so sorry, Polly
has passed away".

The distressed owner wailed, 'Are you sure? I mean
you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He
might just be in a coma or something?"

The vet rolled his eyes, shrugged, turned and left
the room returning a few moments later with beautiful
black Labrador. As the bird's owner looked on in
amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his
front paws on the examination table and sniffed the
dead parrot from top to bottom. He then looked at
the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.

The vet patted the dog and took it out but returned a few
moments later with a cat! The cat jumped up and also sniffed delicately at the
ex-bird. The cat sat back, shook its head, meowed and ran out of the room.
The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry;
but like I said, your parrot is most definitely
100% certifiably ...dead."

He then turned to his computer terminal, hit a few
keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the
woman. The parrot's owner, still in shock, took the
bill.

"$150!" she cried. "$150 just to tell me my bird is dead?"

The vet shrugged. "If you'd taken my word for it
the bill would only have been $20, but... what with
the Lab Report and the Cat Scan.............."

News from the Mars Rover (found on internet)

A Song Called Take Your Test by Jason Knight (Thanks Rabia)

(Sung to the tune of "Be Our Guest" from Walt Disney's "Beauty and the Beast")

Abbreviation glossary:

P: Professors

S1, S2, S3: Distinct students

S: Students in unison

TA: Teaching assistant

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ma chere tuition-payers, it is with deepest sadism and greatest power

that we welcome you this morning. And now, we require you to get tense,

let us pull up a chair, as the faculty proudly presents - your final!

Take your test

Are you nervous? Are you stressed?

Summer's just around the corner now

We love this time the best

Physics laws

English lit.

Why, you'll never want to quit

What's the formula for vinyl?

Don't you love to take a final!

Classic film

Modern dance

All the kings and queens of France

You'll be writing with such energy and zest

Go on and take some blue books

You'll at least need two books

Take your test

Fake your test

Take your test

World War I

World War II

You'll be chugging Mountain Dew

As you scram back home to cram

And stay awake the whole night through

If you're here

And you're scared

Then you're prob'ly unprepared

Don't tell me about your party

You should study, Mr. Smarty

Distant stars

Shakespeare's plays

Let us run you through our maze

S1:

Did you ever get the feeling we're oppressed?

Don't question our regime

How could you dare blaspheme?

Now take your test

(You've B.S.ed,

But you'd rather say you've "guessed")

Take your test

Life's all smiles and smirking

For a student who's not working

It's a gas without a class to load him down

Ah, those good old days way back in grade school

Suddenly he wants his cap and gown

While he's been busy learning

Curiosity's been burning

What's it like to have a minute to himself?

He won't know 'til after graduation

They came here so lazy

Now we're driving them all crazy!

S1:

It's a test!

S2:

It's a test

S3:

This can't be! I still need rest!

You want sleep, you little creep?

That's very good. That's quite a jest

Ancient worlds

Complex math

And we won't withhold our wrath

Yes, we'll give you quite a beating

If we catch you while you're cheating

Chinese art

Civil E.

Anesthesiology

That's our test?

That's your test

What a pest!

TA:

Here's a test

There's a test

I'm so very much depressed

Have to grade each one of these in just a day

And I'm hard-pressed!

Biochem

Japanese

Why our "quarters" come in threes

While the deadline still is looming

I'll keep grading

I'll keep fuming

Course by course

One by one

'Til you shout, "This isn't fun!"

Then we'll laugh at every place that you digressed

We've done our best to pester

See you next semester!

Take your test

Now, take your test

A Short Note on How We Read. (Thanks Dave)

Subject: Research at an English University

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer

in what oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is

taht the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl

mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do

not raed ervey lteter.

Mmm........ Interesting, huh!

Received February 16, 2004. (Thanks Pheeb)

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to

generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse,

the best strategy is to dismount."

However, in government, education, and in corporate America, more advanced

strategies are often employed, such as:

1. Buying a stronger whip.

2. Changing riders.

3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.

4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride horses.

5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.

6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.

7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.

8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.

9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse's

performance.

10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the

dead horse's performance.

11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less

costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more

to the bottom line of the economy than do so me other horses.

12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.

And of course

13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

Received May 1, 2004. (Thanks Alex)

Here is a web site containing “chemistry jokes” Enter at your own risk

http://www.jupiterscientific.org/sciinfo/jokes/chemistryjokes.html

Received August 24, 2004. (Thanks Ross)

Hey Dr. Keller,

Here are some great quotes from The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said... a source of endless amusement.

A caption on the front page of Thursday's paper misidentified a room in the Department of Environmental

Conservation laboratory in Juneau. The room in the photograph is the men's bathroom."

- Correction notice in the Trenton Times (N.J.).

"We're obviously going to spend a lot in marketing because we think the product sells itself."

- Microsoft executive Jim Allchin, on the company's plans to order up a billion-dollar campaign to promote Windows

XP.

"If you don't know where you want to go, we'll make sure you get taken."

- Microsoft ad campaign, translated into Japanese.

Customer: "I have a deskjet that I need to have repaired."

Tech Support: "We make several deskjets, ma'am - do you know what model yours is?"

Customer: "It's a Hewlett-Packard!"

Tech Support: "Yes, I know... could you tell me if your deskjet is color or black and white?"

Customer: "Well... it's beige."

- Recorded call to HP tech support.

"Not Dishwasher Safe."

- Printed on the packaging of a TV remote control.

"Minorities, women, and the mentally challenged are strongly encouraged to apply."

- Job announcement issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Biological Survey.

"A study by three physicians showed that perhaps two out of three births in the U.S. result from pregnancies."

- From the Columbus Citizen (OH)

"Bribes and kickbacks to governmental officials are deductible unless the individual has been convicted of making the

bribe, or has entered a plea of not guilty or nolo contendere."

- Item in the IRS official taxpayer's guide.

"The problem in New Mexico is that half the people make less than the median income."

- Manuel Lujan, then congressman from New Mexico and later secretary of the interior.

"I have no scruples. What is good, we take advantage of. What is bad, we hide."

- Brazilian finance minister Rubens Ricupero, unaware that the satellite feed was still running during a break in a

television interview (he resigned two days later).

"We'd like to have Baptist ministers and Catholic priests buying and selling drugs, but the real world doesn't operate

that way."

- John Paschall, Robertson County (TX) district attorney, commenting on drug arrests and defending the credibility

of informer Derrick Megress.

"Too slow. Confusing and irritating. Too long. Issues too clear-cut and old fashioned."

- Publisher's rejection comments to author Frank Herbert, whose Dune went on to sell 15 million copies.

"Aqua Mineral - Improved! - Arsenic Free!"

- Label on Bangladeshi bottled water.

Be Bold with Bananas, by the Australian Banana Growers Council

The Inheritance of Hairy Ear Rims, by Reginald Ruggles and P.N. Badhuri

A Toddler's Guide to the Rubber Industry, by D. Lowe

Constipation and Our Civilization, by James Charles Thomson

- Book titles, as collected by The Bookseller magazine in its annual "Odd Title of the Year" competition.

"A few years ago everybody was saying we must have more leisure, everybody is working too much. Now that

everybody has got so much leisure - it may be involuntary, but they have got it - they are now complaining they are

unemployed. People do not seem to be able to make up their minds, do they?"

- Britain's Prince Philip.

"That's not a lie. It's a terminological inexactitude."

- Alexander Haig, in a television news interview.

"It sounds like this individual was not 100% in recovery."

- Narcotics Anonymous Worldwide spokesman Steven Sigman, commenting on an anti-drug speaker who was

arrested after picking up a shipment of 53 pounds of marijuana... and who was found to have 48 more pounds at his

house.

"Do not mistake bribe taking for corruption."

- Russian interior minister Cladimir Rushaylo, denying the accusation that many Russian officials are corrupt.

"I'm not going to let murder be the gauge [of police effectiveness], since we're not responsible for murder, can't stop the

murders."

- Marion Barry, former mayor of Washington, D.C.

- Sports commentator Tony Crozier.

"Only a few more laps to go and then the action will begin, unless this is the action, which it is."

- Auto racing commentator Murray Walker.

"To stay in, you've got to not get out."

- Sportscaster Geoff Boycott.

"I have a feeling that, if she had been playing against herself, she would have won that point."

- Sportscaster Bob Hewitt, covering a tennis match.

"Next up is the Central African Republic located in central Africa."

- Sports announcer Bob Costas, during the parade of nations in the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney.

"As the ball gets softer, it loses its hardness."

- Sportscaster Geoff Boycott.

"I've had an interest in racing all my life - or longer, really."

- Sportscaster Kevin Keegan.

"Dave Dravecky has now thrown 66 pitches through six innings. It doesn't take a very smart guy to figure out that's 12

an inning."

- Cleveland Indians second baseman Duane Kuiper.

Interviewer: "Why is your team so inconsistent?"

Mookie Blaylock: "If I knew the answer to that, I'd be a rich man."

- Basketball player Mookie Blaylock (in the third year of a four-year, $18 million contract).

Received August 27, 2004 (Thanks Melissa)

I found these on Science Jokes:3. CHEMISTRY and pulled some funny ones out. I don't know if you'll use them, but here they are.

1.This is one for all you feminists out there...(Fe)male...male with iron added, for greater strength, ductility, and magnetisim. A ubiquitous Fe-rich Male compound - FeMale - posesses a considerable number of beneficial properties. Frequently highly decorative in the native form, FeMale is a proven aphrodisiac and a versatile detergent. There are also reasons to believe that FeMale plays a crucial role in human reproduction and child-rearing.

Despite the existence of vast archives of experimental data, the reaction pathways involving FeMale are at best poorly understood.

FeMale is unstable in an oxydizing atmosphere and has been known to spontaneously ignite at room temperature. As a consequence FeMale is rather difficult to work with.

The magnetic behaviour points towards polymorphism. It varies from sample to sample ranging from moderately antiferromagnetic to very strongly ferromagnetic. Curiously, some antiferromagnetic specimens appear to undergo a spin transition when exposed to alcohol-rich atmospheres (the well documented Beer-Goggles effect).

Given the availability of reactive Fe, FeMale forms readily in Male- dominated environments and under favourable circumstances may persist over geological time. FeMale may thus prove to be of considerable importance on a global scale as an Fe- and Male- reservoir.

2. The Chemistry Teacher's Coming to Town

You better not weigh
You better not heat
You better not react
I'm telling you now
The Chemistry Teacher's coming to town.

He's collecting data
He's checking it twice
He's gonna find out
The heat of melting ice
The Chemistry Teacher's coming to town.

He sees you when you're decanting
He knows when you titrate
He knows when you are safe or not
So wear goggles for goodness sake.

Oh, you better not filter
And drink your filtrate
You better not be careless and spill your precipitate.
The Chemistry Teacher's coming to town.

3.There is the joke about the homeopath who forgot to take his medicine and died of an overdose.

4.Chemistry is really funny, there are even people who laugh at N2O.

5.It is disconcerting to reflect on the number of students we have flunked in chemistry for not knowing what we later found to be untrue.

--quoted in Robert L. Weber, Science With a Smile (1992)

6.IT'S OFFICIAL : CHEMISTRY LECTURES ARE A YAWN. (9. Oct 95)

A scientist has come up with proof of something students have known for years -- chemistry lectures are boring. In an article published in the current issue of Chemistry in Britain, a university chemistry lecturer introduced a guest lecturer to a class of 50 doctoral candidates. Then, he and his colleagues studied variations in what he calls the HTFDR --"head-to-floor distance reduction." After about an hour , the average HTFDR dropped from 135cm to 121cm, said the author of the study, who preferred to remain anonymous. The HTFDR immediately bounced back to normal when the speaker uttered the magic words: "And in conclusion............"

7."A super-saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold."

8. For the average college student "Not all chemicals are bad. For instance, without hydrogen and oxygen we cannot make water, an essential ingredient in beer"

9.Our earth is heating up, Solution: Stop breathing. Every human release carbon dioxide by breathing, so, if 5 billon people stop breathing, we may go back to the ice age .

10.Why did the chicken cross the road?

According to Le Chatelier: The chicken crossed the road because there were too many moles of chicken on the reactants side of the road equilibrium.

11. REASONS TO BE A CHEMIST

- All the coffee and pocket protectors you could want!

- Clark Kent style safety glasses.

- Exposure to all kinds of toxic and cencerous substances.

- The "opportunity" to deal with irate clients asking "where are my results?"

- Because it's pHun :)

- Access to 100% pure ethanol

- Knowing how to completely dissolve the bodies of your enemies

- You never have to worry about what you're doing on Friday night

(You're working in the lab)

- Permanent goggle marks cheaper than a tattoo.

- You hope someday to be able to use the word "buckyballs" without bursting into a fit of laughter.

- You wish to be blamed for all faults in the environment.

- ditto for cancer

- You are adept at poverty cooking

- You prefer to get your course credits the hard way

12.YOU MIGHT BE A CHEMIST IF [Editor’s note: See the “You might be a physics major if...” above.]

- You keep a picture of Mme. Curie over your desk -- and it turns you on.

- You named your firstborn after one of the lanthanides, and than felt compelled to have more until you had the whole set.

- When you had an unexpected sixteenth child, you just had to name him actinium, and now you're not sure how to stop.

- You know that Anal. Chem. is not the title of a raunchy video.

- You think that fresh air smells bad.

From: "Rebecca M. Chamberlin" <rmchamberlin#NoSpam.lanl.gov>

You pronounce "unionized" with 4 syllables....

From: Rich Lemert <RLemert#NoSpam.continet.com>

- You're a chemist if you wash your hands BEFORE you use the bathroom.

From: Rob Buckley <R.Buckley#NoSpam.sct.gu.edu.au>

- you played with explosives as a kid - and still have all you're fingers.

- you're favorite activity is testing the water in the fish tank – and you don't even have any fish.. (if you have fish, you are a biochemist).

- you wonder just _what_ the lubricant in that condom is made from...

- you know you are a chemist if you are distilling your own alcohol

- you know you are a chemist if you heard another explosion without it bothering you!

13.The last words of a chemist:

1. And now the tasting test.

2. May that become hot?

3. And now a little bit from this...

4. ... and please keep that test tube alone!

5. And now shake it a bit.

6. Why is there no label on this bottle?

7. In which glass was my mineral water?

8. The bunschen burnes *is* out!

9. Why does that stuff burn with a green flame?!?

10. *H* stands for Nitrogen - and that does *not* burn...

11. Oh, now I have spilt something...

12. First the acid, then the water...

13. And now the detonating gas problem.

14. This is a completely safe experimental setup.

15. Where did I put my gloves?

16. O no, wrong beaker...

17. The fire alarm is just being tested.

18. Now you can take the protection window away...

19. And now keep it constant at 24 degrees celsius, 25... 26... 27...

20. Peter can you please help me. Peter!?! Peeeeeteeeeer?!?!?!?

21. I feel it how long 15 seconds are!

22. Something is wrong here...

23. Where do all those holes in my kettle come from?

24. Trust me - I know what I am doing.

25. And now a cigarette...

Received September 20, 2004. [Thanks Pheeb]

Subject: teachers arrested

At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual
later discovered to be a public school teacher was
arrested trying to board a flight while in possession
of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule,
and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney general
John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member
of the notorious al-gebra movement. He is being
charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math
instruction.

"Al-gebra is a fearsome cult," Ashcroft said. "They
desire average solutions by means and extremes,
and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of
absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x'
and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but
we have determined they belong to a common
denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates
in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles
used to say, 'there are 3 sides to every triangle'."

When asked to comment on the arrest, President
Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better
weapons of math instruction, He would have given
us more fingers and toes."

Received Feb 2, 2007. (Thanks Alicia!)

"The Elements" by Tom Lehrer

Long, long ago in the 1950s, Tom Lehrer was a grad student in the Harvard University Mathematics Department. He became famous when he started composing and playing bizarre songs in his free time between devising proofs of equally bizarre theorems. He is known for such unforgettable hits as Poisoning Pigeons in the Park and the Masochism Tango. However, he is immortal in the chemistry community because he set the names of all the then-known elements to a tune by Gilbert and Sullivan (I am the very model of a modern major general). An updated and animated rendition of this has surfaced on the web at the URL below. Check it out and be sure your speakers are turned on.

http://www.privatehand.com/flash/elements.html

Please Email any additional stuff to Dr. Keller