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by Bethany Steichen
Brainy kids are often the butt of jokes--just look at Martin from The Simpsons and you’ll see. Those kids often grow up to be scientists and engineers. But when professors and professionals bear the brunt of this sort of humor, do they get it?
| A neutron walks into a bar and asks the bartender, ‘How much for a beer?’ The bartender looks at him, and says ‘For you, no charge.’ |
According to Des MacHale, a noted researcher of the connections between science and humor, they do! MacHale, professor of mathematics at University College in Cork, Ireland, says that while people admit to theft, arson, and murder, absolutely no one will claim to lack a sense of humor. In fact, humor is one of the staples of sciences; without it, new discoveries and the long, arduous hours in the lab required to make them would hardly be possible.
If this is the case, then why are so many professional science journals, textbooks, and classes utterly devoid of humor? According to MacHale, it is because science is perceived as serious and difficult, and humor is not. Besides, governments and corporations might not fund research if they thought it was becoming too entertaining.
Still, many of the world’s most notable scientists possess a childlike sense of humor, even in the most serious of situations. For example, activities of British scientists during World War II can be described as a series of grand April Fool’s Day jokes. Scattering large pieces of scrap metal in the air to fool radar detectors; building entire ‘armies’ of wood and plastic in East Anglia, England, to trick German troops into preparing for an attack north of British troops’ actual position; and parachuting exploding decoys behind enemy lines on D-day may have seemed amusing to the scientists at the time, but they also helped win a war.
Existing technology and theories aren’t the only sources of humor among scientists. Often new and revolutionary theories are regarded as preposterously comical at the time of their inception. The alchemists who formed an early foundation for chemistry were thought to be madmen for trying to transform lead into gold. Their dream has since been realized; the gold yielded just isn’t enough to pay for the process.
Mathematics had to be rethought after the introduction of the following riddle:
| 3-3 = 2-2 |
| 3(1-1) = 2(1-1) |
| 3 = 2 |
Perhaps you look at this now and think to yourself, "one can’t possibly divide by zero. All numbers would have to be equal!" However, this question wasn’t satisfactorily examined until George Berkley, Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland, grappled with its implications for calculus in the 1700s.
| Theorem: $1 = 10¢. |
| Proof: We know that $1 = 100¢. |
| Divide both sides by 100: $1/100 = 100¢/100 => $1/100 = 1¢. |
| Then take square root of both sides: sqr($1/100) = sqr(1¢) => $1/10 = 1¢. |
| Multiply both side by 10: $1 = 10¢ |
Today, evolution is considered perfectly logical by some and absolutely ridiculous by others. Not all new theories have lead to an upheaval in scientific thought, but many have provoked a good laugh along the way.
Both science education and science practice can be enhanced by humor. Serious research has found that peppering lectures with jokes increases information retention and improves test scores. Rhymes are also often used to help students remember information. For example:
| Johnny’s life was such a bore He swallowed H2SO4. His father was concerned, you see And gave him CaCO3. Now he’s neutralized, it’s true But he’s filled with CO2! H2SO4 + CaCO3 => CaSO4 + H2O + CO2 |
Or the poem that explains how a Klein bottle (a single-sided bottle with no edge made by attaching the edges two Möbius strips--loops with only one surface and one edge--in four dimensions) is created:
| A mathematician called Klein Thought the Möbius strip was divine; And he said, "If you glue The end edges of two, You’ll get a weird bottle like mine." |
Small jokes and memory devices also help humanize the subject and make it more palatable for future scientists.
And as technology progresses with computers, so does the humor of technology. The latest step in both the humor of science and the science of humor (the two are completely different after all) is to discover if computers can learn to make up jokes.
This area of study is relatively newstarting in the mid-90s. Given a set of inputs, today’s computers have come up with humor on the level of "Why did the kid stick a knife in the corn flakes? To become a cereal killer!"
Jerry Seinfeld, beware. Then again, in the 1950s no one believed a computer could never rival a Grand Master in chess.| What do physicists enjoy doing the most at baseball games? The ‘wave’ |
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
"Comic Sections: The Book of Mathematical Jokes, Humour, Wit, and Wisdom" by Desmond MacHale
