What is the difference between a physicist, an engineer, and a mathematician?
Well...
If an engineer walks into a room and sees a fire in the middle and a bucket of water in the corner, he takes the bucket of water and pours it on the fire and puts it out.
When a physicist walks into a room and sees a fire in the middle and a bucket of water in the corner, he takes the bucket of water and pours it eloquently around the fire and lets the fire put itself out.
If it's a mathematician who walks into a room and sees a fire in the middle and a bucket of water in the corner, he convinces himself there is a solution and leaves.
A Princeton plasma physicist is at the beach when he discovers an ancient looking oil lantern sticking out of the sand. He rubs the sand off with a towel and a genie billows out in a puff of smoke. The genie offers to grant him one wish. The physicist finds a map of the world in his car and circles the Middle East and tells the genie, "I wish you to bring peace to this region".
After ten long minutes of silent deliberation, the genie replies, "Gee, there are lots of problems there with Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, and all those other places. This is awfully embarrassing. I've never had to do this before, but I'm just going to have to ask you for another wish. This one is just too much for me".
Surprised at the audacity of the magical being in front of him, the physicist thinks for a while and says: "I wish that the Princeton tokamak would achieve nuclear fusion energy break-even."
After another bit of quiet thinking the genie asks, "Could I see that map again?"
Researchers in Fairbanks Alaska announced last week that they have discovered a superconductor which will operate at room temperature.
A student recognizes Einstein in a train and asks: Excuse me, professor, but does New York stop by this train?
Old physicists don't die; their wavefunctions go to zero as time goes to infinity.
A horrible one:
Why did the chicken cross the Mobius strip?
To get to the same side.
There is this farmer who is having problems with his chickens. All of the sudden, they are all getting very sick and he doesn't know what is wrong with them.
After trying all conventional means, he calls a biologist, a chemist, and a physicist to see if they can figure out what is wrong.
So the biologist looks at the chickens, examines them a bit, and says he has no clue what could be wrong with them.
Then the chemist takes some tests and makes some measurements, but he can't come to any conclusions either.
So the physicist tries. He stands there and looks at the chickens for a long time without touching them or anything. Then all of the sudden he starts scribbling away in a notebook. Finally, after several gruesome calculations, he exclaims, "I've got it! But it only works for spherical chickens in a vacuum."
Two atoms bump into each other. One says "I think I lost an electron!" The other asks, "Are you sure?", to which the first replies, "I'm positive."
You enter the laboratory and see an experiment. How will you know which class is it?
If it's green and wiggles, it's biology.
If it stinks, it's chemistry.
If it doesn't work, it's physics.
On the door to an optics lab:
"CAUTION! Do not look into laser with remaining good eye."
Heisenberg had just driving down the autobahn when he was pulled over by a policeman.
The policeman asked, "Do you know how fast you were going back there?
Heisenberg replied, "No, but I know where I am."
What's the difference between an auto mechanic and a quantum mechanic?
The quantum mechanic can get the car inside the garage without opening the door.
Eight ways to use a barometer to find the height of a building:
1. Measure the height of the barometer. Scale the side of the building, measuring its height in barometer-units.
2. Drop the barometer from the top of the building.Measure the time until it hits the street.Correcting for the mass/surface ratio of the instrument, use basic acceleration equation to find the height.
3. Tie string to top of barometer. Lower it from the roof to almost ground. Swing. Period of pendulum can be used to find distance from barometer's Center of Gravity to top of building.
4. Tie a long cable to the barometer and lower it from the top of the building to the ground, and then measure the length of the cable.
5. Take the barometer outside on a sunny day, measure its shadow and the buildings shadow.
6. Drop the barometer from the top of the building. Measure how far was it shifted by Coriolis effect. The rest is trivial.
7. Sell the barometer. Purchase a tape measure long enough to measure the height of the building.
8. Find someone who knows how tall the building is, and trade him the barometer for the information.
A classic.
Rene Descartes is sitting in a bar, doing what he does
best--philosophising. he's had a few pints of ale over the course of the evening, and it's now last call. The bartender asks him if he wants another drink. Descartes says, "I think not," and promptly vanishes.
The most glib explanation of the late twentieth century's probing into the structure of elementary matter:
When they broke open molecules, they found atoms. When they broke open atoms, they found explosions.
As much as I wish they were, these aren't mine | 
