h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is one of the best and most entertaining articles that I have ever seen!

It is really interesting and quite funny!

nobody Particular

Yes indeed. Marvellous!

I think that this article should be a compulsory part of all undergradute Physics degree courses. I know it would have helped in mine.

Has anyone ever made a survey of the number of sandal-wearers in any one Physics department? And then there are the fairisle pullovers...

that I didn't write this.

Brilliant!

And only because of the infinite improbability drive did I stumble upon it! Is that a coincidence or is it not?


Enlightening and entertaining!
Tjing
Milla

I really enyoyed it. And when I start my studies I will definitely count the number of sandal wearers around(yes yes, I am going to study fysics)

Rod

Given that scientific knowledge progresses by proving things to be wrong, it follows that it can be measured only by the number of things we know to be false. Therefore once we know that everything is false we will know everything there is to be known.

Sage

P.S. Do bedroom slippers count?

Sounds much like Thomas A. Edison, 'when 1500 experiments have turned out to be failures then at least I know 1500 ways of *not* achieving the goal' (or something like that)

yes, I'd say those slippers count as well

That just sounds like a good way of jusitfying public money being spent on experiments that don't work! Not that I disagree with funding. Oh no. But I still like that quote. It says an awful lot about physics and reminds me why I gave up on my idea of doing particle physics! Music is the way forward! (well, for me, anyway...)

Mm, now for one-up-man-ship... can someone top this article with a treatise on another science's 20th-century progress?

Granted, physics is always the most interesting these days, so there's quite a handicap for competitors. But by January, I'll post an article on... hmm... political science and the power of the powerless.

And an anti-article to balance it out.

People who like this entry will love this old physical poem:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/n/e/neg111/gut.html
(Hope the link survives.)

Yes, nice

It's really great... Marvellous.

The sad thing about this poem is that is was written in 1975 and described the pathetic situation of theoretical physics at that time. And -- no significant discoveries since then. The poem is totally up to date. (Theoretician have successfully hidden this fract from public in order to get further money.)

Now you know why I became an *experimental* physicist.

I've abandoned physics for music. A sensible thing to do, in my opinion. I was going to do particle physics, but I came to my senses.

Thereby swapping one set of harmonics for another

Hehe... very good. But these ones are far more pleasurable... (until you go really high...)

Go on, see if you can break this...

*starts in her middle register, and works her way up, slowly, trying to find the right harmonic... ah, there it was, down a bit, up a bit*

*SMASH*

There is was!



Too easy...