Heard any good ones lately?

[Astronut]

Heard this the other day:

"When you can see the Moon in daylight, it's not the Moon, it's another planet!" :scratch:

Any one got any more?

[Ant]

Following on from that.

Jamie (my son) was told by a teacher that you cannot see the moon during daylight! I happen to pick him up from school and it was the right time of the lunar month - so I said "yeah you can" and pointed it out to him...

Wish teachers would get their facts right before trying to teach kids.

Ant

[Ferox]

A teacher once told my younger sister that the pull of the moon caused volcanic eruptions.

Now I know it does have an effect but I thought plate tectonics was the main factor in vulcanism.

Just shows how wrong you can be. :roll:

[Andrew*]

A friend of mine once pointed out mars on a starry night. The guys who were with him said "don't be stupid, you can't see mars from here".

I'm sure there are more, but I can't think of them.

What really gets me is that people just don't have a clue about astronomy any more. They don't know where they are in the universe, and don't bother finding out. There's too much entertainment to be had indoors on a beautiful starry night, to bother being outdoors and having any form of wonderment about the miracle of life and the universe.

Andrew

[Tim]

I employ this type of person it seems.

My two favourites go like this.

The guys at work were discussing the Comet Hale-Bopp. When "Dave" the FLT driver came up, they asked him whether he would be looking out for it. With a perfectly straight face, and deadly serious he replied "I live on the other side of town, I wont be able to see it from there."

(Perhaps I should mention that "Dave" is the same guy I managed to convince that I had working X Ray specs, (actually 3D Shutter glasses that came with an old video card) and that it was only him out fo the whole office that coudn't see through to peoples bones. And maybe it is only fair to relate that when we asked Dave to blow up the tyre on a wheelbarrow, he did just that, kept the compressor running and running until the tyre exploded completely, bits flying everywhere. You could hear the bang on the other side of the 26 acre site.)

And then there was Judy (RIP). In the daytime we were stood outside watching the aerobatic dsiplay from the locally based Gloster Meteor http://www.vectorsite.net/avmeteor.html

Judy wandered out when the plane had disappeared over the horizon and says

"What are you looking at then?"

"We are watching the Meteor" came the enthusiastic reply.

"Oh, I thought you could only see them at night?" was the genuine response.

Cheers

TJ

[Tiny]

Here is a thing which might sound stupid but I would like someone to tell me yes or no. A proton hit a detector in Argentina. It is known as the O-MY-GOD particle as it hit the detector with energy equal to a baseball doing 55mph. The energy was due to the protons speed, which was so close to the speed of light that it had made the 12 million light year trip from a supernova in just 20 minutes in its timeframe.

So the question is - what would it do to you if you had been standing with your head between it and the detector? Would you explode, not notice it or what?

[Tim]

Maths was never my strong point, so excuse me if I'm wrong, But isnt the whole point of a light year that light DOES travel at the speed of light, and so therefore, if something is travelling at close to the speed of light, from 12 million light years away, then its gonna take at least 12 million years to reach us. SO how could it do that in 20 mins? That'd be like, forty gazillion times the speed of light, in which case, it wouldn't just knock you over, it would send you back in time to the date when the first time machine was invented, which is in the future.

Whenever these brain teasers start to baffle me, I always find the answer from Google. Its very rewarding. You have to pick your search terms carefully, but you might start with something like "Bikini Girls", or maybe "Hot Cheerleaders"

Now, what was the question?

TJ

[GazOC]

As you approach the speed of light time, from your perspective, slows down. If the particle was travelling fast enough it could have easily made the 12,000,000 LY journey in 20 mins in its own time frame. Light itself travels instantaneously (sp) from its own point of view.

Hopefully it woud just pass through your head...

[Tim]

As you approach the speed of light time, from your perspective, slows down. If the particle was travelling fast enough it could have easily made the 12,000,000 LY journey in 20 mins in its own time frame. Light itself travels instantaneously (sp) from its own point of view.

Hopefully it woud just pass through your head...

Trust me, it did.

[Dippus]

Not Lately , but in 1981 when i was 10 our teacher decided to do a talk on the solar system.

"The hottest planet in the solar system is Mercury".

Hand up.

"No its not , it's Venus"

Reply

"Look , Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun , so it's bound to be the hottest".

Was going to explain about the Greenhouse Effect , decided not to.

"Whats the Greenhouse Effect"? .........................

How times have changed......

Mark

[aries]

Having a BBQ one night, and my freinds wife said to me, "what are you cooking tonight, Nick?"

So I ran through the Menu of the various bits and bobs that normally adorn a good "Barbie".

"Pork strip, King Prawn, Steak, Chicken Kebabs, and some Buffalo wings" to which she replied,

"Buffalo wings? Buffalo don't fly, do they?"

I swear I nigh-on messed meself!!!

Nick...... :)

[radioactive]

Bloke goes to his local chippy and promptly orders

Fish and Chips, Twice please

Shop assistant replied "I heard you the first time!" :insects1: