Scientists have ways of making you laugh

Under the Microscope: This week I am providing some light relief before winter sets in. Many of the jokes below were taken from www. juliantrubin.com/miscellaneousjokes.html:

A priest, a lawyer and an engineer are about to be guillotined. The priest puts his head on the block, they pull the rope and nothing happens. He declares that he's been saved by divine intervention, so he's let go. The lawyer is put on the block and again the rope doesn't release the blade. He claims he can't be executed twice for the same crime and he is set free too. They grab the engineer and shove his head into the guillotine. He looks up at the release mechanism and says: "Wait a minute, I see your problem . . ."

A lion escaped from the zoo. He was at large for a month when he was finally captured and returned to his cage. His cage-mate asked: "How did you manage to stay alive for a whole month?"

"It was easy," said the lion, "Every day I went to the university and ate a professor."

"How did they catch you?" asked the cage-mate.

"One day, I made a mistake and ate the lady who brings the tea."

A mushroom walked into a bar and ordered a drink.

"Sorry," said the barman. "I can't serve you".

"This is a public bar," said the mushroom. "I demand to be served."

"We don't serve the likes of you," said the barman.

"Why not?" asked the mushroom. "I'm a fun guy."

Q: What's the difference between a tenured professor and a terrorist?

A: You can negotiate with a terrorist. (Mark Frascinella)

"Colleges don't make fools; they only develop them." (Ted Smith)

Science doesn't have a chance until scientists learn to carry their intelligence the way James Dean carried his cigarette.

Niels Bohr, the famous physicist, had a horseshoe over his desk. One day a student asked if he really believed that a horseshoe brought luck. Bohr replied: "I understand that it brings you luck if you believe in it or not."

Scientific theories tell us what is possible; myths tell us what is desirable. Both are needed to guide proper action. (John Maynard Smith)

Q: Why are university professors like the Mafia?

A: Because they only kill they own.

Paul Erdos (Hungarian mathematician, 1913-1996) had the habit of phoning fellow mathematicians around the world, no matter what time it was. He remembered the phone number of every mathematician, but did not know anybody's first name. The only person he called by a Christian name was Tom Trotter, whom he called Bill.

On one occasion, Erdos met a mathematician and asked him where he was from.

"Vancouver," the mathematician replied.

"Oh, then you must know my good friend Elliot Mendelson," Erdos said.

The reply was: "I am your good friend Elliot Mendelson." (Paul Hoffman)

Around the time the Cold War started, Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher and mathematician, was giving a lecture on politics to a Conservative Women's Club in England. Being a leftist, he was not received well at all; the ladies started attacking him with whatever they could get their hands on.

The guard, being an English gentleman, did not want to be rough to the ladies and yet needed to save Russell from them. He said: "But he is a great mathematician!" The ladies ignored him. The guard said: "But he is a great philosopher!" The ladies ignored him again. In desperation, finally, the guard said: "But his brother is an earl!" Russell was saved.

"It is said that there are, besides Dr Einstein himself, only two men who can claim to have grasped the theory in full. I cannot claim to be either of these . . . The attempt to conceive infinity has always been quite arduous enough for me. But to imagine the absence of it; to feel that perhaps we and all the stars beyond our ken are somehow cosily (though awfully) closed in by certain curves beyond which is nothing; and to convince himself, by the way, that this exterior is not (in virtue of being nothing) something, and therefore . . . but I lose the thread." (Max Beerbohm, 'A Note on the Einstein Theory', Mainly on the Air, 1947)

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught." (Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1890)

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