XTREME QUIPS

A physicist, an engineer and a programmer were in a car driving over a steep alpine pass when the brakes failed. The car was getting faster and faster, they were struggling to get round the corners and once or twice only the feeble crash barrier saved them from crashing down the side of the mountain. They were sure they were all going to die, when suddenly they spotted an escape lane. They pulled into the escape lane, and came safely to a halt.

The physicist said “We need to model the friction in the brake pads and the resultant temperature rise, see if we can work out why they failed”.

The engineer said “I think I’ve got a few spanners in the back. I’ll take a look and see if I can work out what’s wrong”.

The programmer said “Why don’t we get going again and see if it’s reproducible?”

• the water in your kettle is boiling at 373 Kelvin.
• you know that the speed of light is 299,792.5 km/sec.
• you know the direction the water swirls when you flush.
• you’ve already calculated how much you earn per second.
• you are sure that differential equations are a very useful tool.
• you are at an air show and know how fast the skydivers are falling.
• you know the size of the elctron, but don’t know your own shirt size.
• when you break a vase you blame the second law of thermodynamics.
• you try to explain entropy to strangers at your table during casual dinner conversation.
• you avoid stirring your coffee because you don’t want to increase the entropy of the universe.
• your three year old son asks why the sky is blue and you try to explain atmospheric absorption theory.
• you’re at a wine tasting event and find yourself paying more attention to the cork screws than the Chardonnay.
• you carry on a one-hour debate over the expected results of an experiment that actually takes five minutes to run.