Sign seen in London department store: Bargain Basement Upstairs
Sign seen in the vicinity of Victoria Station: Closed for official opening.
Sign in a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk.
Sign in a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.
Sign in a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.
A farmer was milking his cow. He was just starting to get a good rhythm going when a bug flew into the barn and started circling his head. Suddenly, the bug flew into the cows ear. The farmer didnt think much about it, until the bug squirted out into his bucket. It went in one ear and out the udder.
Here is the report on our SCIENTIFIC CORRECTNESS SURVEY. The question was:
Is faster-than-light travel possible?
This survey drew an onslaught of opinions.
The vote was a landslide (72%) for the YES side. Thus, another controversy is put to rest. Henceforth, it will be scientifically correct to believe that faster-than-light travel is possible.
Opinions ranged from positive to negative, and from simple (Yes) to hideously complex. While the results are interesting, the variety of methods used to obtain them is dazzling.
* * *
Some readers used fuzzy logic:
I have never really believed that light actually goes at the speed of light. Have we any proof? I worked out that it should go at root two times the speed of light (c) making the constant itself irrelevant.
–Graeme Winter
* * *
Other readers used higher-level fuzzy logic:
This is an interesting question, coincidentally I was driving through a Minnesota blizzard last week when my wife told me to slow down because I was over driving my headlights. I was so excited I almost spilled my coffee because I thought that she meant I was traveling faster than the speed of light, but then I realized that she meant that because of the poor conditions, the stopping distance for my car was greater than my visibility.
–Don Berryman
* * *
One reader used tangential logic:
Since light has yet to dawn on school boards here in Texas, we are unable to answer this question.
–Julia Frugoli
* * *
Some took a theoretical bent:
Yes, but no matter what the destination, you always arrive at night.
–Dick Baker
My fraternity brother Charles Jones (MIT 63) created a faster- than-light vehicle in 1960. A beam of light is reflected in a mirror. Approaching the mirror, the lights velocity is (+)c. After reflection it is -c. Ergo at the instant of reflection, its velocity is 0. When the vehicle passes the mirror, it goes faster than light.
–A. D. Snider
* * *
Others relied on advanced theories:
Faster than light travel IS possible but only if you are facing backwards.
–Charles Belair
It depends on how fast the light is going.
–Michael Castleman
* * *
Some readers cited empirical evidence:
Of course. It is demonstrated every week in Star Trek: The Next Generation. They also demonstrate crystal power, telepathy, reversal of the polarity of neutron fluxes in starboard power couplings, and other facets of modern science.
–Stephen Trier
No. No no no no no no. Most people think Star Trek has solved the problem of faster-than-light travel. I am much more fascinated by Star Treks solution to the sound-in-a-vacuum problem.
–Karen Lingel
Yes! E-mail uses delivery through electrical circuits, therefore traveling at the speed of light (one of the reasons for its popularity over the historically traditional US Postal Service). America OnLine uses these same electrical circuits. It is well known that almost anything travels faster than AOL these days.
–G. Borochoff
* * *
Not everyone relied on intellectual arguments. Two readers, Charlie Cerf and Peter Thorp, sent in variants of the same classical argument:
There was a young lady called Bright
who could travel much faster than light.
She departed one day
in a relative way
and returned on the previous night
* * *
Practical experience, too, was useful in solving the question:
Of course faster-than-light travel is possible. However, the probability that your luggage will wind up at the wrong destination increases as the cube of the velocity.
–Bob OHara
Yes. Faster than light travel is possible and can be readily demonstrated by making the mistake of having two dates show up at your place at the same time. Ive done this and witnessed first hand the flight, which happens so fast that you cant see it.
–P. Hughes
Yes, but tickets must be purchased at least three weeks in advance and a Saturday night stay is required.
–Kristina Pawlikowski
After my cat decided it was play time at AM, he was forcefully accelerated from the bed. Quickly, his velocity reached the of light resulting in a mid-air white hot flash of spontaneous combustion (matter to energy.) Conversely, all internal energies (neuroelectrical, biochemical, etc.) were converted to matter. A strange ash covered the room, very similar to scoopable litter. The other possibility is that he landed on my camera equipment and has been hiding ever since.
–Don Copeland
* * *
Finally, one response defied categorization: Of course, as a physics teacher I tell my students that faster- than-light travel is impossible, but thats just to crush their spirits.
–LaNelle Ohlhausen
Never show a bar chart at an AA meeting.
How does a blonde kill a fish? She tries to drown it!
A sloth was walking through the jungle one day when he was
set upon by a gang of vicious snails. The snails left
him bleeding and confused at the bottom of a tree where
several hours later he summoned the strength to go to the
police station and report the assault. He was asked
by the desk sergeant to describe his attackers. He replied,
I dont know what they looked like, it all happened so
fast.
Two men are walking along the beach on day when they find a bottle buried in the sand. As they are brushing the sand off, a genie pops out and tells them he will give each of them one wish.
After thinking a moment the first man says, I wish I were the worlds smartest man.
Done, says the genie, and the man suddenly starts explaining Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to his friend.
The second man thinks for a moment, then says, I want to be smarter than him!
Done, says the genie, and turns him into a woman!
En una base militar de Tontilandia están planeando una invasión y el capitán informa:
1. Volamos a 500 metros de altura sobre territorio enemigo. 2. En el punto señalado nos tiramos del avión, contamos hasta tres y abrimos el paracaÃdas. 3. Una vez abajo, detrás de los juncos se encuentran motocicletas listas para partir al punto X de encuentro.
¿Comprendido? ¿Comprendido?, grita el capitán.
¡Comprendido!, le responden sus soldados.
Ya en vuelo, se tira el primer tontilandés, cuenta hasta tres, abre el paracaÃdas y, una vez en el piso, busca la moto, la enciende y sale. Se tira el segundo tontilandés y lo mismo; se tira el tercero, y no se abre el paracaÃdas. Enojado maldice:
¡Puta, qué suerte la mÃa, lo único que falta es que cuando llegue abajo, la moto no arranque!
Every solution breeds new problems.
A Canadian is walking down the street with a case of beer under his arm.His
friend Doug stops him and asks, Hey Bob! Whacha get the case of beer
for?
I got it for my wife, eh. answers Bob.
Oh! exclaims Doug, Good trade.