Great one-liners from PF members

[PeroK]

You can't beat someone to death with a handful of algae.

 

[berkeman]

In a thread where a user is asking about derivations for an equation in Relativity...

It looks like you are just throwing letters and equal signs randomly on a wall.

 

[berkeman]

From a thread where a user is asking about Gell-Mann matrices...

That's because you haven't bought a textbook, but are just trying to eat graduate-level topics like physics is box of Christmas chocolates.

 

[Tom.G]

from a thread asking if any well known or famous scientists have visited PF.

Why should they come here? They can find the ungrateful and demanding at their home institutions.

 

[gmax137]

Flying is much easier than nuclear fusion.

 

[PhDeezNutz]

“Real life isn't a movie. Not everything gets resolved in an hour and a half.”

@ohwilleke

 

[berkeman]

From a thread where the newbie is trying to build a particle accelerator, and making some fundamental mistakes...

"A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a couple of hours in the library". Crampon, Jean E. 1988.

 

[DrClaude]

One liner with an extra line for context.

I have no specific references, just some experience with stress relief by hitting things.

Remember that you must display unto them the instruments of torture, before they will recant.

 

[berkeman]

From the Chinese "weather" balloon thread, responding to a comment that every country spies on other countries:

Reminds me of the old joke about peeing in the swimming pool.
You know, even if it's a bit fuzzy thing, doing it from the jump [diving] board is kind of different...

 

[berkeman]

In a thread with a basic question about antennas, where the question was answered but the OP then went on to ask the helpful responders how they learned all of the things they were able to help others with:

Apparently, I spent my first 10 years taking things apart, then the next five putting broken things back together, so that by the age of 15, my constructive profit had finally exceeded my destructive loss.

 

[sysprog1]

I'll take a stern reprobation for this one if I have to (I request mercy); it was too good to pass up:

One will not need to understand the language. The formulas speak for themselves. -- @fresh_42

Reference: https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...l-number-of-unimaginable-proportions.1050015/

 

[pinball1970]

I'll take a stern reprobation for this one if I have to (I request mercy); it was too good to pass up:

One will not need to understand the language. The formulas speak for themselves. -- @fresh_42

Reference: https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...l-number-of-unimaginable-proportions.1050015/

Previous sysprog?

 

[PeroK]

There speaks someone who has never actually used an interferometer.

 

[BoraxZ]

I read this one by Ibix :

"Tidal forces may tear you apart over the weekend, but you will still arrive at Monday morning."

 

[malawi_glenn]

Perhaps not a one-liner, but I really liked this one

You simply cannot take statements intended for the general public and treat them as rigorous scientific truths. If I told you that I read in My First Book of Stars (not a real book) that stars come in all sizes, shapes and colors, so there must exist somewhere a green cubical star that fits in my pocket, what would you say?

 

[pinball1970]

"Amateur" is just a french word.

@malawi_glenn - Why is it in an English dictionary then?

 

[Astronuc]

@malawi_glenn - Why is it in an English dictionary then?

The English have a thing for pissing off (annoying, irritating, . . . ) the French. The feeling is mutual.

Maybe it's a Norman thing.

It's like one of those insights one learns from Monty Python.

Another insight from Monty Python - the Scots cannot play tennis, or perhaps not very well.

 

[pinball1970]

The English have a thing for pissing off (annoying, irritating, . . . ) the French. The feeling is mutual.

Maybe it's a Norman thing.

It's like one of those insights one learns from Monty Python.

Another insight from Monty Python - the Scots cannot play tennis, or perhaps not very well.

We have love hate relationships with some of our European cousins to some extent.

Not many rival the French though, we have had 23 wars with them in the last 600 years including one that went on for over 100 years.
We want to be friends but that has to mean something!

 

[Arjan82]

Another insight from Monty Python - the Scots cannot play tennis, or perhaps not very well.

Andy Murray be like:

 

[Astronuc]

Andy Murray be like:
View attachment 323870

Of course. I was being facetious, referring to a skit or segment on one of Monty Python's Flying Circus, in which the poked fun at the Scots. Coincidentally, I'm more Scottish than English, with a bits of Germanic Eu, Norway, Wales, Ireland and Sweden/Denmark included. In other words, I'm just a mongrel from the UK whose ancestors immigrated as far from the UK as the could get at the time.

 

[Vanadium 50]

"For sale, one French army rifle. Never fired, only dropped once."

 

[Arjan82]

Of course. I was being facetious,

Hey, but I'm a very serious tennis fan

 

[Astronuc]

Hey, but I'm a very serious tennis fan

My father is a big tennis fan, and both my father and brother are big golf fans. I'm more a football (aka soccer) fan, but I'd rather play the sport than spectate.

 

[Arjan82]

Is it wrong of me to have this insane desire to lick it?

-Dan

If someday you are famous enough that your quotes are listed on a website I wonder if the context of this particular one will be lost.

 

[Tom.G]

After much back-and-forth, in post #26 of the thread.

After all this seems to be one of those problem that is immediately clear only to people whose job is inventing textbook problems.

 

[malawi_glenn]

Asking why a particle with zero spin has no magnetic moment is like asking why a bald man has no hair on his head.

 

[sysprog1]

There are a lot of things that can seem counter-intuitive, depending on the quality of your intuition. Intuition can be re-trained. $-$ @Dullard

Reference: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/archimedes-principle-a-rock-and-water-magic-trick.1051427/

 

[malawi_glenn]

Have you played billiards with photons or another massless particle?

 

[berkeman]

Further, when discussing rotation, it is not a good idea to use the word "moment" to mean an instant in time.

 

[pinball1970]

It was a great line but would have had been better if I would have posted it for you.
Like a homage.

 

[TonyStewart]

What else is measured by the lack of evidence besides Security? ( and don't say String Theory)

 

[phinds]

In his Insights article on pop-sci presentations by reputable scientists, @fresh_42 said

Enjoy them, but don’t mistake them for real science.

Reference: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/opinion-when-pro-scientists-explain-using-pop-science/

 

[berkeman]

More than one line, but the first sentences set up the context:

Yes, visual models lead to inaccuracies in QM. They can be useful, as you would hope any model is. In science (and other things as well) it is often said: "The map is not the territory" (Korzybski).

 

[phinds]

Regarding the need for military folks in particular not to post on social media

War can be a poker game where both sides are cheating with folks posting about the hand a player is holding to the other players.

 

[Tom.G]

In a back-and-forth between two people that who both "know" they are right.

Then you need to learn that, when you are holding a hammer, everything is not a nail.