Solutions for boredom, for maths and physics people

Obviously a complete wast of time this, since given the world of fascination opened up to those doing these two wonderful subjects, no on could ever be bored. But just in case, here are some suggestions...

1. Extend a metaphor and then calculate it's Young's Modulus.
2. Calculate the effect of the French (non-uniform) Resistance, R(x,y,z,t) on World War II.
3. Given the time independent Schrödinger equation, calculate the Mexican wave-function of Wembley Stadium.
4. Formulate further vector operations to be used in Vector Calculus exams and problems, namely:
   • the dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dot, dot product, for when in dire need of help
   • the very cross product when furious at the question setter
5. Prove various statements using the following proofs:
   • contrapositive
   • contradiction
   • contraception
   • electromagnetic induction
   • self induction
   • intimidation
6. When someone says they are stressed ask how much, demand a quantitative answer
7. Turn the tables, charge a bull... turning it into a capacitor, calculate it's capctitance
8. Try to lead an orchestra with a piece of gold... good conductor you see... try comparing results to that of silicon, germanium etc.
9. Calculate the indefinte integral of 1/cabin wrt cabin [log cabin + C = house boat]
10. Determine field strength, arm-wrestle one.
11. If Planck's constant is the Eris Sykes short film actually physically possible, discuss.
12. Show, using the triangle inequality the social differences the pyamids caused between the slaves and masters in ancient Egypt
13. Re-write physics equations to spell out words, alternately form matrices whose inverses/determinants spell out words
14. Simplify you phone book by re-writing everyone's phone number by the position it occupies in pi and it's length. Thus all you need to remember is a 9 or 10 digit number... alternately get everyone to change their phone numbers to constants you know, e.g. 9111031 would be electron mass (9.11x10^-31), 2998108 c, 6631034 h etc... then you just associate people with physical constants... easy
15. Keep account numbers or PIN's secret by performing permutation operations on them, cyclic decomposition, etc.
16. Try to explain to a Star Trek fan (non-scientist) that a phasor bears absolutely no relation to weapons and is merely a mathematical description of rotating vectors...
17. When exagerating, always take things to the limit (as x-> infinity)
18. When given a 'calculate a resistance' question, no matter how simple or complicated, simply write 'resistance is futile'
19. This one is obvious but, whenever someone mentions transformers, sing the Transformers™ theme
20. Prove the most ludicrous things :

    Theorem
    The post-office does not deliver letters...

    Proof
    ladder [not equal] lradder
    (l+e)r [not equal] lr+er

    hence letters are not distributive, not distributable, so not deliverable

21. When discussing something go off at a tangent... literally - disappear off in to a dimension at a tangent to your previous position.
22. Discover whether a commuter really does commute
23. Make bad Maths/Physics jokes, try the following...

    A farmer wanted to keep his three flocks of sheep safe so employed an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician to design and build a fence for each of them.
    The engineer looked at the problem, made various measurements, consulted with the faremer over the requirements and built to specification a fence. The farmer was happy and paid up.
    The physicist looked at the problem, constructed an infinite fence and then shrunk it to the required size. The farmer was pleased but slightly confused, yet paid him
    The mathematician rapidly built a fence around himself and defined that he was outside it, hence the sheep were contained within it. The farmer, needless to say, didn't pay him.

    A mathematician is walking down a road when he sees a house on fire, he rushes in to the garden and sees a garden hose spraying water about, he picks it up and puts the fire out. The next day, he walks down the same street and sees, at the same house, the same hose has been left on, he pauses for a moment, thinking, then walks to the house, removes a match and sets the building ablaze.
    Thus reducing it to a previously solved problem

    A biologist, physicist and a mathematician are sitting in a cafe, outside the see two people walk in a building, a short time later three walk out.
    The biologist thinks for a moment and says, 'they've reproduced.'
    The physicist, who had also been thinking, says 'the initial observation was wrong.'
    The mathematician having now realised the situation in it's entirity declares, 'if precisely one person enters that building it will be exactly empty.'

    Q: What's yellow and commutes?
    A: An Abelian banana

24. Write sentances based on the greek alphabet and mathematical symbols as well as maths and physics terms, apart from the obvious... there exists, new, sigh, thigh etc... there are also :

    speed of light	see
    square root of -1	I
    gravitational constant / gravity	gee
    Avogardo's constant	NA (i.e. not applicable)
    Universal gas constant	are
    Boltzmann's constant	Kay
    Elementary charge	e
    electron mass	M.E. or me
    proton mass	M.P.
    W	what
    [add a * to a persons name]	indicates a person is excited
    w.r.t	with respect to
    [funky E]	is a member of
    s.t.	such that
    [funky upside-down A]	given any, for all
    [strange rotated L]	not
    [connectives u and n (or whatever)]	or & and
    |	divides
    Re	real part of
    Im	imaginary part of
    I	identity
    Q	rational
    R	real
    C	complex
    etc....

Page last updated on 19th January 2000

Maintained by Julian Fletcher (julian@innocent.com)