Quips and quotes from a few quick thinkers

Under the Microscope:  This week, for a little diversion, I have put together a collection of humorous quotations and stories from the world of science and mathematics, extracted from Des MacHale's excellent book, Comic Sections (Boole Press 1993):

William Thompson, Lord Kelvin, once bought a parrot from a pet shop but it never spoke a single word, so he returned it and complained. "Why didn't you tell me you wanted a talker?" said the proprietor. "If you had told me that, I would have given you one; naturally, to a man like yourself, I sold a thinker."

Teacher: "Tell me how fast light travels." Student: "The same way slow light travels."

Bertrand Russell was once standing on the platform at Oxford railway station having just missed his train to London. Suddenly an express train to London made an unscheduled stop there, so Russell jumped on board. "I'm sorry, sir," said a porter, "You'll have to get off, because this train doesn't stop here." "That's all right," said Russell, "because in that case I'm not on it."

The philosopher Kierkegaard was discovered by a park-keeper at midnight sitting in the middle of a large flower bed in a public park. "What are you doing there?" asked the keeper angrily. "What is any of us doing here?" answered Kierkegaard.

When God created the animals he told them to go forth and multiply. A year later he visited the Garden of Eden to see how things were going and found that all the creatures had multiplied except the snakes. "What's the matter?" He asked them. "We can't multiply, we're adders," said the snakes. So God chopped down some trees and made the snakes some log tables.

The internet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhoea: massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it. - Gene Spafford

When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute - and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity. - Albert Einstein

All science is either physics or stamp collecting. - Ernest Rutherford

Committee: a group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done. - Fred Allen

If a man is a fool you don't train him out of being a fool by sending him to university. You merely turn him into a trained fool, 10 times more dangerous. - Desmond Bagley

In real life a right-angled triangle is very unlikely to have a square on its hypotenuse.

- H.F. Ellis

We call the slope of a line m because the word "slope" begins with the letter m.

- Howard W. Eves

Some very good mathematical students become actuaries. An actuary is someone who cannot stand the excitement of chartered accountancy. - Glannfryd Thomas

Knowing the fact that Newton died a virgin will count for much more at most parties than being able to prove the binomial theorem.

- Robert Ainsley

A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. - Joseph Stalin

The Ten Commandments should be headed like an examination paper: No more than six to be attempted. - Bertrand Russell

Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing. - Ambrose Bierce

Nothing puzzles me more than time and space, and yet nothing puzzles me less, for I never think about them. - Charles Lamb

Normal young tigers do not eat people. If eaten by a tiger you may rest assured he was abnormal. - Will Cuppy

The ambition of the present Labour government is that every worker in the country will have a greater than average income.

- Harold Wilson

I think it's time, therefore it is.

- Paddy Descartes

Here is the solution to last week's test: (1) 26 letters in the alphabet. (2) 7 days in a week. (3) 7 wonders of the world. (4) 12 signs of the zodiac. (5) 66 books of the bible. (6) 52 cards in a pack (without jokers). (7) 13 stripes in the United States flag. (8) 18 holes on a golf course. (9) 39 books of the Old Testament. (10) 5 toes on a foot. (11) 90 degrees in a right angle. (12) 3 blind mice (see how they run). (13) 32 degrees is the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit at which water freezes. (14) 15 players in a rugby team. (15) 3 wheels on a tricycle. (16) 100 cents in a dollar. (17) 11 players in a football (soccer) team. (18) 12 months in a year. (19) 13 is unlucky for some. (20) 8 tentacles on an octopus. (21) 29 days in February in a leap year. (22) 27 books in the New Testament. (23) 365 days in a year. (24) 13 loaves in a baker's dozen. (25) 52 weeks in a year. (26) 9 lives of a cat. (27) 60 minutes in an hour. (28) 23 pairs of chromosomes in the human body. (29) 64 squares on a chess board. (30) 9 provinces in South Africa. (31) 6 balls to an over in cricket. (32) 1000 years in a millennium. (33) 15 men on a dead man's chest.

William Reville is associate professor of biochemistry and director of microscopy at University College Cork