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

Hi Neil,
Finish your chish and fipps because now that your father's wack from the boars you cupid stunts are in for it. What's the difference between a nun and a women getting out of the bath? One's got a soul full of hope and the other's got a ho......, well you know the difference. What's the difference between a circus and a brothel? One's full of cunning stunts and the other is.........HEY, HEY! Settle down their big fella! Hope you get certified as a smartarse, what the hell - I just hope you get certified! I am already certified (not as insane, as a smartarse - smartarse) but have returned to get .......arsier? Anyhooo, I'm thinking of rewriting the Bible to make it more in line with today's society, you know, to get people to read it. Thinking of starting it off "So, anyway, two jews walk into a bar....". How'm I doin' so far?

Hey! Sorry I didn't reply to this sooner, it was a few days ebfore I moved back to uni, you kno how busy things can get!

Well anywho, there was some good spoonerism in there! I love that nun joke! (well, any nun joke will do... Have you heard the one about the nun and the alcoholic?)

The bible: Prey continue! I like the sound of it!

No I don't know the one about the nun and the alcoholic, enlighten me. I do know the one about the drunk lying in the gutter and this rich pompous woman in her fifties looks at him with disdain and says"You're drunk" and the bloke says "You're ugly". She says "You're drunk" and he says "You're ugly". She coninues raising her voice and says "You're drunk!" and the bloke says "But I'll be sober in the morning". Boom boom.

To my knowledge that was Winstoan Churchill and Bessie Braddock, but that's a matter in dispute.

There's also "If you were my husband I'd poison your coffee!" "If you were my wife I'd drink it!"

Anywho: The nun and the alcoholic.

A nun is walking down the road and sees a man drinking outside a pub. She goes up to him and tells him that drinking is a sin, and he should not do it. "How do you know?" he says "Have you tried it?" The nun replies of course she has not. The man says he will not beleive her unless she does try it. "I'll tell you what" he continues "I'll go and get another pint of lager for myself, and I'll get you some vodka" "Alright" replies the nun "but I'm a nun! I can't be seen drinking! can you please order my drink in a teacup?" Sop the man goes up to the barman and says "Can I have a pint of beer, and some vodka in a teacup?" to which the barman replies "It's not that bloody nun again is it?"

I love nun jokes!

The anecdote you refer to is attributed to Australia's longest serving Prime Minister (Sir Robert Gordon) Bob Menzies. Renowned for his rapier like wit and ability to silence hecklers there is an entire book dedicated to his smartarse comments - The Wit of Robert Menzies (which I have and just went to find but of course couldn't). Speaking in a Town Hall a woman kept shouting over the top of him, and eventually said "If you were my husband I'd poison your tea", to which he replied without breaking sentence "Madam if I was your husband I'd drink it". When I find the bloody thing I'll try to remember to lay a couple of his other gems on you. Keep in mind he was a relatively old man in the 1960's and there were limits to what you could say back then. Allow for that and some of it will still give you a chuckle today.

*makes a note*

French bread, French kissing - What's that about?

Multiple searches for that Bob Menzies book, it was originally my fathers - I'm gonna ask him if he stole it back off my bookshelves. Already know the answer, "How can I steal something that is rightfully mine". Alright smartarse, wanna let me know when you take it at least, you know, so I'm not walkin' round with my head up my arse wondering why the **** it's so dark. Thanks. As for the French Kissing, French bread thing - after the war it was the only place you could go where you were guaranteed a big tonguey and a croissant - the legend grew from there.

Good answer - Do you have an explanation for german measles and german sausage?

Once again it stems from wartime. German measles (rubella) can cause birth defects, and after WW1 the germans were so hated that any child born with an abnormality due to this condition was said to have been effected by the "german" measles. German equated to defective or deformed. German sausage was what the troops delivered to the locals on their raids. Not in a welcome kind of way either. You do realise I make this garbage up and there is absolutely no basis for any of it don't you?

Oh, absolutely, that's why I asked for more.

It's a shame revision isn't as refreshing as sleep, as I've not been getting any recently. Or sleep. Plenty of revision though: Ask me anything about electrostatics, go on, I dare ya.

Nuns!

What contributions have these people made to the applications of electrostatics - Robert J. Van de Graf (in 1929), Chester Carlson (in 1940), and E.W. Mueller (in 1956).

Good to see one of us is getting some work done, I'm right in the middle of a slack attack. Go get 'em Neil.

The development of the Van De Graf generator, the photocopier and the field ion microscopes respectively. (God bless google!)

Revision is knackering... Dread to think what actual work is going to be like!

I am very disappointed Neil. If I had thought that I was testing Googles recall ability rather than yours I would have come up with something way more obscure.
Without resorting to Google, give me an overview - off the top of your head - of Coulomb's law. You may resort to a text book for the next part, not a computer - outline the similarities between Coulomb's law of electrostatics and the Biot-Savart law of magnetism.
It will give you a break from straight out revision and should incease your understanding. No Google smartarse!
P.S Still can't find that bloody Bob Menzies book. Another unsolved mystery.

I only needed Google for the second two, I knew the first one.

Coulombs law states the electrostatic force exerted by a charged particle q1 on another charge q2 is equal to their product divided by 4*pi*epsilon0*r*r - where epsilon0 is the permitivity of free space and r is the distance between them. The force is thus proportional to the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Note that if the Note that if both charges are positive or both are negative, this has a positive value, and the charges are repelled, where as if the charges have opposite signs a negative value is obtained, and the force is attractive. The force acts along a straight line between the two charges. When more that one charge is present, the force on q1 due to q2 and q3, say, is equal to the force on q1 due to q2 plus the force on q1 due to q3, byt the principle of superpostition.

Now, with textbook wide open...

Both describe forces that act proportinal to the inverse square of the distance between the objects in question, obey the principle of superposition, erm... how to you mean similarties exactly?

Well, anyway, it was all done without google.

Maybe it's gone to join all your missing socks and biros?

Good enough Neil, well done.
What I was fishing for was the current element I ds produces a magnetic field, whereas a point charge q produces an electric field, and the magnitude of the magnetic field varies as the inverse square of the distance from the current element, as does the electric field due to a point charge - which is what you were alluding to.

Next question. Are the direction of the two fields the same? Explain. All answers should be submitted in your neatest, most correct hand-writing.

What course are you doing, a straight B Sc or B Sc (Space Science), or what. I have a mate finished his Space Science degree last year and is doing honours in it this year. I wish that's the course I had've done now because that's wat actually holds my interest. Oh well, we all have to battle on.

I'll answer the easy question first: MPhys Physics (Hons). That is provided I have more than 60% at the end of this year, otherwise it will just be a BSc. This is where my interest lies, and i sometimes wish I hadn't done it. The wonders of the natural world are easier to behold if you haven't put them through a mathematical mangle to squeeze out the joy. But by and large I'm still interested.

I don't understand the other question! Opposite charges will attract, currents flowing in the opposite direction will repel. Anything approaching what you meant?

I know you have a different system over there because I ave seen it a number of times here on hootoo. Over here we must finish our undergraduate degree and hope to get an offer to do honours - a fourth year which is based on lab work for my purposes, but my mate doing homours in Physics does have some lectures and exams. But he doesn't have to write a thesis, which I do based on my research, so it even varies between disciplines, but we cannot get "honours" in a 3 year undergrad degree. Certainly in my subject I don't see how it would be possible to let undergrads loose in a lesearch lab to incorrectly use expensive equipment and play with carcinogenic substances without constant supervision to avoid disaster. And where would they find the time to do their experiments when they have lectures and pracs and exams to tend to? Strange system you have there. Yes, if we get 60% in a subject you say you got an credit for it, 70% is an honour, and 80% is a ditinction, but that doesn't get (Hons) written on your degree for you.
The direction of the 2 fields are quite different, the electric field due to a point charge is radial, eg. positive point charge E is directed from the charge to the field point. The magnetic field due to a current element is perpendicular to both the current element and the radius vector.

Oh, that's what you were getting at!

I see what you mean, but they expect us to do labs around other stuff, and somehow we manage it... :-s With supervision however. 70% is a 1st class, 60% an upper second (or 2.1), 50% a lower second (or 2.2) and 40% a third. 30% you can still graduate, but without honours. Most degree's are three years (batchelors), but some are four (masters), which tend to be taken be people with careers in research etc in mind. To get onto the third year of the four year course I need at least 60% overall, which means getting over 70% in all of the upcoming exams. So I might find myself graduating sooner than I think. You can also do postgraduate masters, but it costs far more to do a BSc then an MSc than it does to do an MPhys, don't ask me why.

Well it certainly is a strange system when you can graduate with 30%! And you may have labs to do, but they will be your prescribed 2nd year labs, done in teaching labs - in honours you work in your supervisors lab and do research that will be attributed to him if you make any massive breakthroughs. There are only so many spots that they can offer - there are 8 of us this year - because each lab has a budget. So of the 8 in the department there are 2 honours students in my lab. It's a small lab, there are only 2 other people apart from us, but it's a pretty good environment.
You've left yourself some work then haven't you - 70% is a fair ask of anybody. Get to it young fella.
Can't find that Menzies book, so I shall regale you with some quotes from this years student diary.
"We are not retreating, we are advancing in another direction"
"Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change"
"A father is someone who carries pictures where his money used to be"
"A computer beat me at chess once, but it was no match for me at kickboxing"
"Fact: A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no-one knows why"
"Alcohol & calculus don't mix. Never drink & derive"
"Give me ambiguity or give me something else"
"Make it idiot-proof, and someone will make a better idiot"

I can debunk one of those: Duck's quacks DO echo. It was thought that they didn't but recently someone realised you usually get echos in caves and caverns and places, whereas ducks are used to hanging out around ponds. There is an echo, but it's very quiet, as you would expect in a large open area.

I like the madness one - I think it may as well keep the change, I feel like I'll be a few pence short of a pound soon anywho...