CHILI CON CARNE FOR THE SCIENTIFIC SOUL

PURE GENIUS

A contest was held for people to submit their theories on ANY subject.
Below are the winners.

4th RUNNER-UP (Subject: Probability Theory)  If an infinite number of rednecks riding in an infinite number of pickup trucks fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds at an infinite number of highway signs, they will eventually produce all the world’s great literary works in Braille.

3rd RUNNER-UP (Subject: Bio-Mechanics) Why Yawning Is Contagious: You yawn to equalize the pressure on your eardrums.  This pressure change outside your eardrums unbalances other people’s ear pressures, so they then yawn to even it out.

2nd RUNNER-UP (Subject: Symbolic Logic)  Communist China is technologically underdeveloped because they have no alphabet and therefore cannot use acronyms to communicate technical ideas at a faster rate.

1st RUNNER-UP (Subject: Newtonian Mechanics) The earth may spin faster on its axis due to deforestation.  Just as a figure skater’s rate of spin increases when the arms are brought in close to the body, the cutting of tall trees may cause our planet to spin dangerously fast.

HONORABLE MENTION (Subject: Linguistics) The quantity of consonants in the English language is constant.  If omitted in one place, they turn up in another. When a Bostonian “pahks his cah,” the lost R’s migrate southwest, causing a Texan to “warsh” his car and invest in “erl” wells.

GRAND PRIZE WINNER (Subject: Perpetual Motion) When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands buttered side down.  It was proposed to strap giant slabs of hot buttered toast to the back of each of a hundred tethered cats; the two opposing forces will cause the cats to hover, spinning inches above the ground. Using the giant buttered toast/cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.


ASTRONAUT LORE

     When NASA was preparing for the Apollo project, they did some astronaut training on a Navajo Indian reservation.  One day, a Navajo elder and his son were herding sheep and came across the space crew.  The old man, who spoke only Navajo, asked a question, which his son translated.  “What are the guys in the big suits doing?”
     A member of the crew said they were practicing for their trip to the moon.  The old man got really excited and asked if he could send a message to the moon with the astronauts.  Recognizing a promotional opportunity for the spin-doctors, the NASA folks found a tape recorder. After the old man recorded his message, they asked the son to translate.  He refused.
     So the NASA reps brought the tape to the reservation, where the rest of the tribe listened and laughed, but refused to translate the elder’s message.
     Finally, NASA called in an official government translator.  He reported that the moon message said, ”Watch out for these guys- they’ve come to steal your land.”

     When Apollo Mission Astronaut Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, he not only gave his famous "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" statement but followed it by several remarks, mostly com traffic between him, the other astronauts and Mission Control.
     Just before he re-entered the Lander, however, he made the enigmatic remark, "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky." Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival Soviet Cosmonaut.  However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space programs.
     Over the years many people questioned Armstrong as to what the "Good luck Mr. Gorsky" statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled.
     On July 5, 1995 in Tampa Bay FL, while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26 year old question to Armstrong. This time he finally responded. Mr. Gorsky had finally died and so Neil Armstrong felt he could answer the question.
     When he was a kid, he was playing baseball with a friend in the back yard.  His friend hit a fly ball, which landed in the front of his neighbor's bedroom windows.  His neighbors were Mr. & Mrs. Gorsky.  As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky.  "Sex! You want sex?! You'll get sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!"


COMPREHENDING ENGINEERS

Comprehending Engineers - Take One
     A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were playing golf behind an unbelievably slow threesome. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting at least 20 minutes at each tee!"  The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!"  The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greenskeeper.  Let's have a word with him."
     "Hi George. Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're terribly slow! Shouldn't they be taken aside or we be allowed to play through?  "The greenskeeper replied, "Oh, yes, I know who they are.  That's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime." The group was stunned into silence for a moment.
     The pastor broke the ice: "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight and even take up a collection." The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist friends to see if there's anything further than can be done for them." The engineer, puzzled with all this slobbering, simply said, "Hey. Why can't you just have these guys play at night?"

Comprehending Engineers - Take Two
     In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall.  Every ten seconds, they stepped toward each other until they were separated by half the previous distance. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked to solve the following problem: How long until the girls and the boys meet?
The mathematician said, "Never."
The physicist said, "Wrong.  In an infinite amount of time."
The engineer said, "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes."

Comprehending Engineers - Take Three
     There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multi-million dollar machines. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine fixed, but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past.  The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine.  At the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine and proudly stated, "This is where your problem is." The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again.
     The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service.  They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges.  The engineer responded briefly:
     One chalk mark$1
     Knowing where to put it $49,999
     It was paid in full and the engineer retired again in peace.

Comprehending Engineers - Take Four
Q: What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?
A: Mechanical Engineers build weapons; Civil Engineers build targets.

Comprehending Engineers - Take Five
The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

Comprehending Engineers - Take Six
     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...."