Science — best jokes

Taipei, Taiwan (AP) - Diners tempted to lick a plate after a delicious meal can now go a step further - eat the plate.

Chen Liang-erh, 50, an amateur inventor, announced Friday that he had perfected an edible plate made from wheat grain, and that he planned to mass-produce it and other edible crockery including cups, bowls and food containers.

Chen spent six years developing the plate, which he said would retail at about 7 cents each.

Diners who don't want to eat the items - which taste like unsalted popcorn - can boil them for a nutritious meal for animals, he said.

Chen said this can help reduce pollution caused by discarded crockery. The only disadvantage, he said, is his crockery cannot be washed and reused.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson went on a camping trip. After a good meal and a bottle of wine they laid down for the night, and went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend.

"Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."

Watson replied, "I see millions and millions of stars."

"What does that tell you?"

Watson pondered for a minute.

"Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all-powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?"

Holmes was silent for a minute, then spoke. "It tells me that someone has stolen our tent."

A man is driving down a country road, when he spots a farmer standing in the middle of a huge field of grass. He pulls the car over to the side of the road and notices that the farmer is just standing there, doing nothing, looking at nothing.

The man gets out of the car, walks all the way out to the farmer and asks him, "Ah excuse me mister, but what are you doing?"

The farmer replies, "I'm trying to win a Nobel Prize."

"How?" asks the man, puzzled.

"Well, I heard they give the Nobel Prize . . . to people who are out standing in their field."

An instructor in chemical warfare asked soldiers in his class: "Anyone knows the formula for water?"

"Sure. That's easy," said one man.

"What is it?"

"H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O."

"What, what?" reasked the instructor.

"H to O," explained the chemistry expert.

An econometrician and an astrologer are arguing about their subjects.

The astrologer says, "Astrology is more scientific. My predictions come out right half the time. Yours can't even reach that proportion".

The econometrician replies, "That's because of external shocks. Stars don't have those".

The Equation

Engineers and scientists will never make as much money as business executives. Now a rigorous mathematical proof has been developed that explains why this is true:

Postulate 1: Knowledge is Power.

Postulate 2: Time is Money.

As every engineer knows,
Work = Power * Time

Since Knowledge = Power, and Time = Money, we have:
Work = Knowledge * Money

Solving for Money, we get:
Money = Work / Knowledge

Thus, as Knowledge decreases, Money increases, regardless of how much Work is done.

Conclusion: The Less you Know, the More you Make.

Note: It has been speculated that the reason why Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard's math program was because he stumbled upon this proof as an undergraduate, and dedicated the rest of his career to the pursuit of ignorance.

It seems the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has a unique device for testing the strength of windshields on airplanes. The device is a gun that launches a dead chicken at a plane's windshield at approximately the speed the plane flies.

The theory is that if the windshield doesn't crack from the carcass impact, it'll survive a real collision with a bird during flight. It seems the British were very interested in this and wanted to test a windshield on a brand new, speedy locomotive they're developing.

They borrowed the FAA's chicken launcher, loaded the chicken and fired. The ballistic chicken shattered the windshield, went through the engineer's chair, broke an instrument panel and embedded itself in the back wall of the engine cab. The British were stunned and asked the FAA to recheck the test to see if everything was done correctly.

The FAA reviewed the test thoroughly and had one recommendation: "Use a thawed chicken."

The New York Times, among other papers, recently published a new Hubble Space Telescope photograph of distant galaxies colliding.

Of course, astronomers have had pictures of colliding galaxies for quite some time now, but with the vastly improved resolution provided by the Hubble, you can actually see the lawyers rushing to the scene.

NASA was interviewing professionals to be sent to Mars. Only one could go and couldn't return to Earth.

The first applicant, an engineer, was asked how much he wanted to be paid for going. "A million dollars," he answered, "because I want to donate it to M.I.T."

The next applicant, a doctor, was asked the same question. He asked for $2 million. "I want to give a million to my family," he explained, "and leave the other million for the advancement of medical research."

The last applicant was a lawyer. When asked how much money he wanted, he whispered in the interviewer's ear, "Three million dollars."

"Why so much more than the others?" asked the interviewer.

The lawyer replied, "If you give me $3 million, I'll give you $1 million, I'll keep $1 million, and we'll send the engineer to Mars."

A brain walks into a bar and says, "I'll have a pint of beer please."

The barman looks at him and says "Sorry, I can't serve you."

"Why not?" askes the brain.

"You're already out of your head."