SCIENCE JOKES, QUOTES, AND ANECDOTES by Betsy Devine and Joel E. Cohen [f] A FIRESIDE BOOK Published by Simon & Schuster New York London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore F:,,(SIDE Simon & Schuster Building Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10020 TABLE OF CONTENTS Copyright © 1992 by Betsy Devine and Joel E. Cohen Illustrations Copyright © 1992 by David Goodnight Acknowledgments 6 All rights reserved Preface by Joel E. Cohen 7 including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any fonn. Introductory Joke 9 FIRESIDE and colophon are registered trademarks Academia 10 of Simon & Schuster Inc. The Scientific Personality 13 Designed by Quinn Hall Manufactured in the United States of America Scientific Specializations 22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 Interdisciplinary Studies 47 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Love, Sex, Marriage, and Scientists 56 Devine, Betsv Absolut~ zero gravity / by Joel Cohen and Betsy Devine. Tales of the Great Scientists 64 p. cm. "A Fireside book." Teaching Science 86 L Science--Humor. L Cohen, Joel E. II. Title. Q167.C65 1992 Scientific Reputations 99 502'.07--dc20 92-21962 elP Scientific Writing on the Walls 108 ISBN,0-671-7406O-1 Medical Science 110 The authors would like to make grateful acknowledgment for the use of the following Publish or Perish 120 published material: Light Bulb Jokes (throughout) excerpted from the Canonical Collection of Light Bulb Scientific Product Warning Labels 123 jokes, copyright © 19B8 Kurt Guntheroth. Used with permission of Kurt Guntheroth. Lee DuBridge and Lord Kelvin quotes (p. 99), Sam Goldwyn quote (p. 144)· From A Experimental Apparatus 125 Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown, Robert A. Baker (editor), Anchor Books, Doubleday and Co., 1963. Reprinted by permission of the publisher: Prentice-Hall/A The International Scientific Community 130 Division of Simon & Schuster, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Darnin quotes (pp. 32, 67, 134). From Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle, Women in Science 134 Charles Robert Darnin, edited and with an introduction by Nora Barlow, Philosophical Library, 1946. Food for Thought 137 T. H. Huxley anecdotes (pp. 74, 75, 100). From T. H. Huxley: Scientist, Humanist, & Educat,or, by Cyril Bibby, C. W. Watts & Co., Ltd. 1959· Popular Science 141 Linnaeus anecdotes (pp. 77-8). From The Compleat Naturalist: A Life of Linnaeus, Wilfred Blunt (with the assistance of William T. Stearn), Viking Press, 1971- Scientists in Heaven and Hell 145 Mathematical greeting cards, bumper stickers, tombstones, light bulb joke table (pp. 37-8, 40, 42). Reprinted with permission from SIAM News: Volume 18, Number 5; Scientific Aphorisms 149 Volume 19, Number 1; Volume 21, Number 6; Volume 22, Number 5; Volume 24, Number 3. "The Fifth Quadrant" competitions are edited by Richard Bronson and Gilbert Logical Conclusions 151 Steiner. permissions continued at back of book. Afterglow 155 Acknowledgments \b",y th2.nks to: Bob Langlands Michael Larsen f rcd .-\lmgren Leon Lederman Phil Anderson Joe Lehner William Anderson David Leston Cathy Andrulis Gerri Lindner PREFACE Peter Astor Robert 1. Lipshutz Krishna S. Athreya Saunders MacLane John Biggs Gwendolyn Markus Enrico Bombieri Lawrence Markus When I was a freshman in college, I showed my calculus teacher a Gaby Borel George Masnick formula beloved by every high school scientist: Richard Bronson Frank McCullough Ray Brown Sharon Johanson McCullough R. Eugene Burke E. J. McShane JeX = f(u"). Hal Caswell Louise II.-1orse Dev Chen Dan Mostow David J. Cohen Chiara Nappi (In case you can't read, this says: sex = fun. It's a freshman's idea of Sidney Coleman Paul Nyiri titillation.) He frowned. Then he said: "Doesn't the left side need a Paul Cranefield Ingram Olkin dx?" As I picked up my equation and left, I thought: "What a jerk! David Damrosch Abraham Pais Bob Dempsey Robert Parks He thinks it's mathematics!" Thirty years later, I wondered whether I Murray Devine Jonathan Pila had been had. Maybe my section man saw that the equation said Kevin Devine Robert Pollak sex = fun. Maybe he was pretending to take it seriously. If so, I James Ebert Peter Ross Paul Feit Mary Beth Ruskai swallowed his act. Benji Fisher Amy Schoener Scientists are funny people. Not just the great ones who think Shelley GJashow Daniel Seiver they've discovered the secret of life or of the brain or of the common Paul Goldberg Al Shapere Murph Goldberger Ruby Sherr cold. Even ordinary day-to-day scientists are funny, because they all William T. Golden Gus Simmons think that the world makes sense! Most people know better. Herman Goldstine Montgomery Slatkin In pursuit of their delusion, scientists have developed some pretty Anne Gonnella Gilbert Steiner strange habits of thought and behavior. They constantly act as if YIadelyn T. Gould Edward Subitsky Claire Thomson Graaf Earl Taft things have explanations. This article of faith is very weakly supported Raymond Greenwell Alvin Thaler by day-to-day experience. To justify this credo, scientists ignore all Vi~tor Gribov Joan Treiman the things that don't have explanations (take your choice). They ex­ Kurt Guntheroth Sam Treiman Israel Halperin Marvin Tretkoff pend no end of the taxpayer's money to isolate, build walls around, Susan Hewitt Albert W. Tucker and study intensely the few crumbs of life that do have explanations. Charles Issawi Paul Vojta Scientists also insist that other people have to be able to under­ Nina Issawi David Vondersmith John Van Iwaarden Edward Walters stand their explanations. Scientists are forever explaining things to Jay Jorgenson Andre Wei! each other. They publish thousands of scientific journals with hun­ Steve Just David Wendroff dreds of thousands of articles, each read by two of the authors' friends Mark Kac Edward White Nick Khuri Ludmila Wightman and three of their enemies and an occasional, mad graduate student. Liz Khuri Mira Wilczek They swarm, like bees in search of a nesting site, from one scientific Larry Knop Amity Wilczek meeting to another, shifting restlessly from one lecture to another, Joe Kohn Frank Wilczek Manny Krasner Dick Wood from a transparency with numbers too small to read to equations with Peter Kronheimer C. N. Yang notation too complex to comprehend-explaining and trying to grasp Sevda Kursunoglu Peter Yo(h:is explanations. Scientists are just as good at explaining things convinc­ T. Kuster Aki Yukie ingly as the director of the CIA, the chairman of the KGB, the pres- PREFACE. ...••........• 8 ident of any tobacco company ~ certain religious leaders, and other revered figures of public and private life. The reason that scientific explanations sound so strange is that they are. Let me explain. Daily life is a jumble. (You noticed that, too?) Therefore the parts of experience that make sense and have INTRODUCTORY JOKE explanations don't have a lot to do with daily life. So scientists invent new language-new words, new conventions about words, plus new symbols and conventions about symbols-to describe the rare parts of life that make sense. (To be a properly formed mathematical expres­ sion, JeX needs a <ix, my calculus teacher told me, as if! didn't know.) When it comes to explaining these esoteric descriptions, strange con­ cepts are invented, exploited, enshrined, and discarded. Most of these concepts would never be entertained seriously by any practical person with her or his feet on the ground. (Phlogiston, the ether, and phrenology are merely the whipping boys of retrospective wisdom. It's a safe bet that 80 percent of today's explanatory concepts-mind you, A young scientist whose boyfriend was an aspiring comedian went not the ones I've proposed, but maybe some of yours, and certainly with him to the jokewriters' annual convention, expecting to hear most of his-will seem absurd in fifty years, if anyone then can even some fantastic stories. Instead, the featured comic began to rattle off remember them.) Like firework rockets launched at night, scientific a series of numbers. concepts streak out of nowhere, glitter, and are gone. They are useful "Ninety-three!" said the speaker, and the audience chuckled ap­ for all that, because they lift scientists' attention skyward and feed preciatively. "'Two hundred twelve~" They laughed again. "One thou­ their hopes. sand thirty-seven!" More laughter. Because this is a book of humor and anecdotes about science and The scientist couldn't stand it any longer. She nudged her friend scientists (in addition to a considerable number of jokes we just and whispered, "What's going on?" happened to like), there are lots of stories about the work of making "Simple," he said. "You see, every joke in the world has been sense of the world, about explanations and the people who give them catalogued and given a number. When one of us says 'Ninety-three,' (sometimes known as teachers), and about the wild language and that means joke number ninety-three. So we laugh. Get it?" weird concepts of scientific explanations. "You mean," asked the scientist dubiously, "you're going to crack But one thing we do not dare to tell jokes about: science is serious. up if I say to you, 'Twenty-six'?" No joke. If my colleagues ever see this book, do you know what they'll "No, no," said the boyfriend, "your delivery is wrong. Listen to say? "It's his greatest contribution to science," and the career of one this guy. He's good and you might learn something." working scientist goes in the trash. (It's okay for Betsy to write a So the scientist tried to appreciate the comedian's technique on scientific joke book; after all, she's a writer and a historian.) No, sir! forty-six, nine hundred eighty-nine, and two thousand five hundred You cannot take time out from making measurements and calculations thirty-six.