ID: 17434
College
A dozen, a gross, and a score
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
Is nine squared and not a bit more.
ID: 15215
College
The following concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the University of Copenhagen.
"Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer."
One student replied:
"You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building."
This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case.
The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer which showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.
For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use.
On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:
"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer.
"Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper.
"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2 pi sqroot (l / g).
"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up.
"If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building.
"But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper.'"
The student was Niels Bohr, the only person from Denmark to win the Nobel prize for Physics.
ID: 17850
College
A rich Texan told the president of the University of Texas, "I want to set you up with a billion-dollar endowment fund, with but one condition."
"What's the condition?" asked the U.T president.
"I want you to give my horse an honorary degree. She's served me faithfully for fifteen years and she deserves a B.T. degree, a Bachelor of Transportation."
The president said, "I've got to consult my trustees. I'll get back to you."
The trustees debated an hour until one senior trustee, who had appeared to be napping during the whole discussion, said softly, "I think we should take his money and give the horse the degree."
Another trustee piped up, "But wouldn't you be embarrassed to give an honorary degree to a horse?"
"Nope," said the old man. "In fact, it would be the first time I can remember that we gave an honorary degree to a whole horse!"
ID: 15589
College
45 Fun Things to Do on a Paper You Don't Care About
1. Type every word in a different font. Alternate really big fonts with really small fonts.
2. Support your thesis with quotes from your VCR manual.
3. Write the entire paper on Post-it notes and turn it in by sticking them all over the professor's door.
4. Switch the names of prominent history figures with the names of your friends, classmates, etc. Claim that your roommate led the Spanish Armada.
5. Write a paper discussing why Michelangelo got to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, but Van Gogh didn't. Discuss whether Van Gogh would have used nunchakus or katanas.
6. Write your paper by cutting out words from magazines and sticking them on the page, ransom-note style.
7. End the paper with "This paper will self-destruct in 10 seconds".
8. Perfume the paper with catnip. Explain that it was to keep your dog from eating it.
9. If assigned a paper in philosophy class, explain that you can't do the paper because you're not sure if the class really exists, or if it and the professor are just illusions created by your subconscious. If you do end up writing the paper, write about whether or not the paper actually exists.
10. If assigned a 2000-word paper, draw two pictures of what the paper was supposed to be about. After all, a picture is worth 1000 words, right?
11. Type gibberish. When you hand it in, claim that your computer crashed while you were printing it, and you couldn't retrieve the original.
12. Cite issues of Spiderman and Batman as resources in your bibliography.
13. Turn the paper in by making paper airplanes out of the pages of the paper and attempting to fly them onto the professor's desk.
14. The night before the paper is due, call the professor and explain that you can't turn your paper in because it contains sensitive military information and is only available on a "need to know" basis. Insist that General Schwarzkopf says you should get an 'A'.
15. Write your history paper on parchment, using a quill. Say that you were trying to get the feel for the period.
16. Turn in a letter you wrote to your cousin. When the teacher confronts you about it, say that you must have gotten the letter and the paper mixed up. Say that you'll turn the paper in as soon as you get it back, but your cousin lives in Siberia, so it might take a while.(This is a nifty way to get an extension.)
17. When writing an especially long paper, put a recipe for chocolate cake in the middle and see if the professor notices.
18. Tell the professor that you need an extension because one of your primary sources is an old wise man in Tibet and he won't see you until the next full moon.
19. Paint a large white stripe down the front of your paper. Say that on the way to class, your dropped it in the street and it got run over by one of those trucks that paint lines on the road.
20. Make a footprint on the back of one of the pages. When questioned by the professor, act like it's nothing unusual. After all, he did tell you to include footnotes.
21. Bring candles and incense to class. Before handing in the paper, perform an elaborate ceremony, entreating the gods to bless the paper and correct all your typos.
22. Make a tape of you singing the contents of your paper, opera-style, and hand that in.
23. Write your psychology paper on possible genetic anomalies that might cause a person to prefer anchovies.
24. Hand your paper in in a sealed envelope with postmarks from several different countries on it. Say that you wanted several different perspectives on your work.
25. TTyyppee eevveerryy lleetttteerr ttwwiiccee..
26. Get a large piece of paper or canvas. Smear paint all over it and hand it in as your paper. Explain that the topic was such an emotional one for you, and that mere words couldn't possibly express what you had to say.
27. Compare and contrast the characters of James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard. Claim that one is actually Hamlet, and the other is King Lear. Say that Worf is Ophelia.
28. Carve your paper on the bathroom wall.
29. Refuse to do the paper on account of the fact that you are a member of Greenpeace and strongly object to the gratuitous slaughter of trees caused by the massive amount of paper used in writing assignments.
30. Put nonsense words down as quotes. Say that you are quoting the words of a well-known Zen master who was speaking in tongues at the time.
31. Use a forklift to bring your paper to class, even if it's only a few pages. Explain that it involved some very heavy reading.
32. Poke several holes in the paper. Say that you were mobbed by crows on the way to class.
33. Print all the pages on one sheet of paper, with the text overlapping. Say that that was all the paper you had.
34. Write about whether Plato would have said that Miller Light is "less filling" or that it "tastes great". Also explain why Aristotle would have taken the opposite view. Try to predict both philosphers' reactions to Spuds McKensie.
35. Draw pictures of your professor in the margins.
36. Make your paper one long, neverending sentence that goes on for pages and pages and pages; use alot of semi-colons, commas, and other interesting, rarely-used punctuation marks [(for example), an interesting one: the colon_] but never ever end the sentence {[_-\|/??!]}.
37. Staple a picture of an academic building to the paper. Cite the picture as a resource.
38. On the day the paper is due, skip into class, waving the paper and screaming, "I have a paper! I have a paper!". Run around the class a few times, then joyfully throw it out the window. Laugh and yell, "There's my paper!", then run outside to get it. Repeat this all through the period, or until the prof throws you out.
39. Come to class leading a horse or camel. When asked to turn in the paper, take it out of one of the saddlebags, then shoot the horse/camel/whatever away. Refuse to discuss it.
40. Draw obscure connections between totally unrelated things. For example, claim that abnormal amounts of neutrino activity in Germany caused Hitler to invade France, or that the Roman empire collapsed because of a shortage of qualified botanists.
41. Refer to all prominant historical figures by nicknames. For example, call George Washington "Georgie". Call Ben Franklin "Sparky".
42. Pwetend you have a speech impediment and awways type w's whenevew you weawwy want to type r's ow l's.
43. Ol, switch alound arr the l's and r's in youl papel, rike Monty Python did in Queen Erizabeth the Thild.
44. When your prof asks for an outline of your paper, draw the outline of the piece of paper you typed it on and hand it in.
45. Spill a martini on your sociology paper. Say that you wrote it in a bar so that you could see "sociology in action"
ID: 7586
College
A kid called up his mom from his college and asked her for some money, because he ran out of it.
Mom said, 'Sure, sweetie. I'll send you some money. You also left your calculus book here when you visited 2 weeks ago. Do you want me to send that up too?'
'Uh, oh yeah, OK,' responded the kid.
So Mom wrapped the book along with the checks up in a package, kissed Dad goodbye, and went to the post office to mail the money and the book.
When she gets back, Dad asked, 'Well how much did you give the boy this time?
Mom said, 'Oh, I wrote 2 checks, one for $20, and the other for $1000'
'That's $1020!!!' yelled Dad, 'Are you crazy???'
'Don't worry hon,' Mom said, as she kissed Dad on the on top of his bald head, 'I taped the $20 check to the cover of his book, but I put the $1000 one somewhere between the pages in Chapter 19!'
ID: 12597
College
The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is even deader.
We believe that the reptiles came from the amphibians by spontaneous generation and study of rocks.
English sparrows and starlings eat the farmers grain and soil his corpse.
By self-pollination, the farmer may get a flock of long-haired sheep.
If conditions are not favorable, bacteria go into a period of adolescence.
Vegetative propagation is the process by which one individual manufactures another individual by accident.
A super-saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold.
A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle.
Blood flows down one leg and up the other.
A person should take a bath once in the summer, and not quite so often in the winter.
The hookworm larvae enters the human body through the soul.
When you haven't got enough iodine in your blood you get a glacier.
It is a well-known fact that a deceased body harms the mind.
Humans are more intelligent than beasts because the human branes have more convulsions.
ID: 12596
College
The theory of evolution was greatly objected to because it made man think.
Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and caterpillers.
The dodo is a bird that is almost decent by now.
To remove air from a flask, fill it with water, tip the water out, and put the cork in quick before the air can get back in.
The process of turning steam back into water again is called conversation.
A magnet is something you find crawling all over a dead cat.
The Earth makes one resolution every 24 hours.
The cuckoo bird does not lay his own eggs.
To collect fumes of sulfur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube.
Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them.
Algebraical symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about.
Geometry teaches us to bisex angles.
A circle is a line which meets its other end without ending.
The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects.
ID: 13228
College
You believe the staff room should be equipped with a Valium salt lick.
You find humor in other people's stupidity.
You want to slap the next person who says "Must be nice to work 8 to 3:20 and have summers free."
You believe chocolate is a food group.
You can tell if it's a full moon without ever looking outside.
You believe "Shallow gene pool" should have its own box in the report card.
You believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if anyone says "Boy, the kids sure are mellow today.
When out in public you feel the urge to snap your fingers at children you do not know and correct their behavior.
You have no life between August to June.
When you mention "Vegetables" you're not talking about a food group.
You think people should be required to get a government permit before being allowed to reproduce.
You wonder how some parents ever manage to reproduce.
You believe in aerial spraying of Prozak.
You believe no one should be permitted to reproduce without having taught in an elementary setting for the last 10 years.
You've ever had your profession slammed by someone who would "Never dream" of doing your job.
You think caffeine should be available in intravenous form.
You know you are in for a major project when a parent says "I have a great idea I'd like to discuss. I think it would be such fun."
You want to choke a person when he or she says "Oh, you must have such fun everyday. This must be like playtime for you."
Meeting a child's parent instantly answers the question "Why is this kid like this?"
ID: 1176
College
It was the first day of college, and time for the usual 'authoritative declaration of the not to be broken rules'. The principal, in typical intimidating fashion, addressed the students:
"The female dormitory will be out-of-bounds for all male students. The male dormitory will be out-of-bounds for all the female students". The principal, sensing he was on a roll, stood tall and powerful as he covered the punishments for breaking the rules. "Be wary, anybody caught breaking this rule will be fined $20. It doesn't stop there though, anybody caught breaking this rule the second time will be fined $60. Being caught a third time will cost you $180. Are there any questions?"
"How much for a season pass?"
+10,000 Jokes