Gee... I must be a total geek. When I read: "There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't." ...all I could think was "I want to put that on a T-shirt!"
One of the world's greatest scientists was also recognised as the original absent-minded professor. One day, on board a train, he was unable to find his ticket. The conductor said, "Take it easy. You'll find it."
When the conductor returned, the professor still couldn't find the ticket. The conductor, recognising the famous scientist, said, "I'm sure you bought a ticket. Forget about it."
"You're very kind," the professor said, "but I must find it, otherwise I won't know where to get off."
NASA decided to send a shuttle into space with two monkeys and an astronaut. They trained them for months. Then when they thought they were ready, they placed all three in the shuttle and got ready to send them up into space.
As the moment came closer NASA's mission control centre announced, "This is mission control to Monkey One. Initiate!"
At that the first monkey started typing like mad and suddenly the shuttle's engines ignited and the shuttle took off.
Two hours later NASA's mission control centre announced, "This is mission control to Monkey Two. Initiate!"
At that the second monkey started typing like mad and suddenly the shuttle separated from the empty fuel tanks.
Another two hours later mission control announced, "This is mission control to the astronaut..."
At this the astronaut responded "I know, I know. Feed the monkeys and don't touch anything."
"Chaos Theory is a new theory invented by scientists panicked by the thought that the public were beginning to understand the old ones."
Just as a surgeon was finishing up an operation the patient wakes up, sits up and demands to know what is going on.
"I'm about to close," the surgeon says.
The patient grabs his hand and says, "Oh, no you're not! I'll close my own incision."
The doctor hands him the needle and says, "Suture self.".
"The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office."
While making rounds, a doctor points out an X-ray to a group of medical students. "As you can see," she says, "the patient limps because his left fibula and tibia are radically arched.
Michael, what would you do in a case like this?"
"Well," ponders the student, "I suppose I'd limp too."
While a friend and I were visiting a college in Oxford, we noticed several students on their hands and knees assessing the courtyard with pencils and clipboards in hand. "What are they doing?" I asked our tour guide.
"Each year," he replied with a grin, "The Principal of the University ask the new students how many bricks it took to finish paving this courtyard."
"So what's the answer?" my friend asked him when we were out of earshot of the hard working students.
The guide replied, "One."
While trying to explain to our six-year-old daughter how much technology had changed, my husband pointed to our brand-new personal computer and told her that when he was in college, a computer with the same amount of power would have been the size of a house.
Wide-eyed, our daughter asked, "How big was the mouse?"
We were listening to a lecture on psychic phenomena in our Comparative Religions course. Our instructor told us about a woman who contacted police working on a missing-persons case. "She gave eerily detailed instructions on where to find the body," the teacher said.
"In fact, the detectives did find the body just as she had described. Now what would you call that kind of person?"
While the rest of us pondered the question, a police officer taking the course raised his hand and replied,
A scientist accidentally drops a piece of buttered toast on the floor and it landed buttered side up. Amazed at this he took it to his team of researchers and asked why, contrary to usual practice, such a thing happened. Two days later they came back “We have concluded that very simply you buttered the wrong side.”
An engineer playing trivial pursuit is asked a science and nature question: “If you are in a vacuum and someone calls your name, can you hear them?” “How can you answer that,” he replied, “is the vacuum on or off?”
Apparently, 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese. And there are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them. It's either my mum or my dad, or my older brother Colin, or my younger brother Ho Chin Chou, but I think it's Colin.
Some science one-liners:
- Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
A quark is the noise made by a well-bred duck
If you melt dry ice, can you swim without getting wet?
If your car was travelling at the speed of light and you turned your lights on, would you see better?
How many balls of string would it take to reach the moon? Just one if it was long enough.
Gravity always gets me down
The hardness of butter is directly proportional to the softness of the bread
- "My doctor tells me I suffer from extreme hypochondria. He prescribed a strong placebo, but I don't think it's working."
- If it wasn’t for electricity we’d all be watching television by candlelight.