'An electron and a positron walked into a bar…' Scientists tell us their favourite jokes

[mr blur]

Heisenberg and Schrödinger are out for a drive when they get stopped by the police. The policeman asks Heisenberg "Sir, do you know how fast you were going?" and Heisenberg says "No, but I know where I am!". Confused, the officer says "Sir, you were doing 80 mph", and Heisenberg throws his hands in the air and huffs "Great, now I don't know where I am anymore!".
The policeman thinks something is going on, and orders the pair out of the car so that he can search it for contraband. He looks under the seats, in the glove compartment, in the back, and then walks around the car and opens the boot. He stares into it for a moment, turns to Schrödinger and says "Sir, did you know there's a dead cat in here?!", so Schrödinger rolls his eyes and snorts "Yeah, we do now!".

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/29/scientists-favourite-jokes

[Pholus]

1. Newton, Einstein and Pascal decide to play hide and go seek...

Einstein loses the coin toss and has to be it.

The moment Einstein starts counting, Pascal runs and hides but Newton merely takes out a stick and traces a box about a meter by a meter in the dirt around him.

Einstein opens his eyes and says: "Ha, Newton I caught you!"

Newton says: "You didn't catch me, you caught Pascal!"

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

Yes, dimensional analysis humor.

[William Seger]

2. Ug, I prefer games where there's no pressure (n/t)

[TxDemChem]

3. Lol I snorted laughing at that!

Everybody has to love a little uncertainty and a possibly dead/living cat.

Considering how far out their minds tik them, I would throw a search for angel dust into the mix.

[LeftishBrit]

4. A graduate student from Trinity

Computed the cube of infinity;
But it gave him the fidgets
To write down all those digits,
So he dropped maths and took up divinity.


A conjecture both deep and profound
Is whether the circle is round;
In a paper by Erdos,
written in Kurdish,
A counterexample is found.


There once was a fencer called Fisk,
Whose action was terribly brisk.
So swift was his action
That the Lorentz contraction
Reduced his rapier to a disc.


Three jolly sailors from Blaydon-on-Tyne
Once went to sea in a bottle by Klein.
Since the sea was entirely inside the hull
The scenery seen was exceedingly dull.



(Most of these, I think, are by unknown authors; but if I have failed to attribute any of them to a known author, please let me know!)

[struggle4progress]

5. The "three jolly sailors" rhyme traces back to

The Space Child's Mother Goose
By Frederick Windsor
Illustrated by Marion Parry
Simon and Shuster, 1958

[LeftishBrit]

6. Thanks! Sounds like a book I should try and get hold of!

I remember hearing the rhyme from my dad as a child/teenager, without really understanding it. We didn't have the book in the house, but he might have read it.

[struggle4progress]

7. I found the book in a public library when I was kid

but IIRC the "three jolly sailors" is the only one that impressed me enough to be worth committing to memory

http://longstreet.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83542d51e69e2014e8c306fc7970d-500wi

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

8. My favorite mathematical joke

What's purple and commutes?

An Abelian grape.

[Dr. Strange]

9. What's yellow and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice?

Zorn's Lemon.