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You might be a Nuclear Engineer if...

(submitted by Morgan Brown)

Genre: There once was an Engineer, a Mathematician, ...

(submitted by Piero Pianarosa)

A Thermodynamics Problem:

A thermodynamics professor had written a take home exam for his graduate students. It had one question: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with a proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however wrote the following: First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, lets look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people don't belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. So, if hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose. Of course, if hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over. (It was not revealed what grade the student got.)
(submitted by Charles W. Baetsen)

20 Worst Things To Hear At A Nuclear Power Plant

  1. Fission shmission, relax, I'll increase the water level after my coffee break.
  2. Was that "Open valve A and close valve B" or was it the other way around?
  3. This whole plant will be running under Win95 tomorrow.
  4. HEY! Is smoke coming out of the core normal?
  5. Who forgot to pay the water bill?
  6. We got 12 seconds to WHAT????
  7. Meet your new plan superintendent: Bozo the clown.
  8. A leak? Can't you fix it with duct tape or something?
  9. Oh yeah! 50 bucks says I can make it blow.
  10. It's Russian technology.
  11. Move over Three Mile Island - here we come !!!
  12. Sniff, sniff.... you smell that?
  13. I used to work at Chernobyl.
  14. All the way to the RIGHT, not LEFT you dummy!
  15. It's your turn to wax the core.
  16. How come all the big shots are leaving?
  17. Is that a 60 minute film crew out there?
  18. Is this part really necessary?
  19. OF COURSE I went to high school. Didn't finish it, though.
  20. Look at the good news: we are going to find out whether people actually glow in the dark.
(submitted by Janet Nurnberg)

If driving were like operating a nuclear power plant

(submitted by Charles W. Baetsen)

Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?

(submitted by Walter Keyes)

Dilbert's Theorem on Salary

Dilbert's Theorem on Salary states that engineers and scientists can never earn as much salary as business executives and sales people. This theorem can now be supported by a mathematical equation that is based on the following two postulates:
Postulate 1: Knowledge is Power.
Postulate 2: Time is Money
As every engineer knows: Work / Time = Power
Since Knowledge = Power, and Time = Money,
we have: Work / Money = Knowledge
Solving for Money, we get: Work / Knowledge = Money
Thus, as Knowledge approaches zero, Money approaches infinity regardless of the amount of Work done.
CONCLUSION: The Less you Know, the More you Make.
(submitted by Mike Becke)

A true (?) story about physics and barometers.

Sir Ernest Rutherford, President of the Royal Academy, and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, related the following story: "Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected. read the examination question: "Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer."
The student had answered: "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building." The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics.
At the end of five minutes, he hadn't written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on. In the next minute, he dashed off his answer which read: "Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^2, calculate the height of the building."
At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were.
"Well," said the student, "there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building, and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building."
"Fine," I said, "and others?"
"Yes," said the student, "there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and his will give you the height of the building in barometer units."
"A very direct method."
"Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g [gravity] at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building, in principle, can be calculated."
"On this same tack, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession".
"Finally," he concluded, "there are many other ways of solving the problem." "Probably the best," he said, "is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: 'Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer."
At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.
The name of the student was Neils Bohr."
(submitted by S. Mohammad R. Nejat)

Top 50 Oxymorons

(submitted by George Bereznai)

Unit Conversions

(submitted by Dalton Molson)

New Element Discovered

The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by physicists at Yale's Research Center. The element, tentatively named administratium, has no protons or electrons and thus has an atomic number of 0. However, it does have one neutron, 125 assistant neutrons 75 vice- neutrons and 11 assistant vice-neutrons. This gives it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together in a nucleus by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles called morons.

Since it has no electrons, administratium is inert. However, it can be detected chemically as it impedes every reaction it comes in contact with. According to the discoverers, a minute amount of administratium caused a reaction to take over four days to complete, when it would normally occur in less than one second.

Administratium has a normal life of approximately three years, at which time it does not actually decay but, instead, undergoes a reorganization in which assistant neutrons, vice-neutrons and assistant vice-neutrons exchange places. Some studies have shown that the atomic weight usually increases after each reorganization.

Research at other laboratories indicates that administratium occurs naturally in the atmosphere. It tends to concentrate at certain points such as government agencies, large corporations, universities and hospitals and can actually be found in the newest, best maintained buildings.

Scientists point out that administratium is known to be toxic at any level of concentration and can easily destroy any productive reactions where it is allowed to accumulate. Attempts are being made to determine how administratium can be controlled to prevent irreversible damage, but results to date are not promising.
(submitted by Dan Meneley, Bill Snook, Jeremy Whitlock ...)

Philosophy Lesson

A philosophy professor stood before his class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty pickle jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, rocks about 2" in diameter. He then asked the students if the jar was full? They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles, and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles of course rolled into the open areas between the rocks. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course the sand filled up everything else. He then asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded unanimously - "yes."

The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and proceeded to pour their entire contents into the jar-effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now" said the professor, as the laughter subsided, " I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things - your family, your partner, your health, your children-things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full."

"The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else. The small stuff." "If you put the sand in the jar first" He continued "there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical check ups. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal."

"Take care of the rocks first-the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented. The professor smile. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of beers."
(submitted by Rob Boychuk)

One-liners

Things that make no sense to me

(where DO these silly thoughts come from anyway?)

Funny engineering sound tracks

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