(Ones with a (*) at the end may require some explanation -- use the link to
see the comments at the end of the list.)
Disclaimer: We, the creators of this list, claim no responsibility for
failures in courses, other injuries, or anything else due to people attempting
these things. If you want to try them out, you do so at your own risk. :)
2. After he/she finishes deriving an equation, say, "That's nice, but how does it relate to Newton's Laws?"
3. At the beginning of every class, tell him/her that you've just broken a fundamental law of physics or solved an unsolved problem, but that you don't have any proof. For example, "Last night I discovered the Grand Unified Theory, but I lost the piece of paper I wrote it on."
4. If you are ever asked to show your work on a problem, just write (or say) something like, "It is easily shown that this is the answer. I leave the proof of it as an excersize for the reader (or listener)."
5. During labs, continually complain about simplifying the experiment by negelcting things like friction, air resistance, relativistic effects, etc.
6. Remember, your main source of error in labs is God's will -- if He wanted the experiment to work, it would have, but since the experiment failed, He obviously didn't want it to work.
7. Tell him/her that you want a real proof of Schrodinger's wave equation -- none of this demonstration about how it was arrived at.
8. If you don't have your homework for collection, say that the mass of the paper your homework was written on spontaneously annihilated in order to make time go forward. (*)
9. Make the professor use colored chalk. Then when he/she does, complain that he/she is playing favorites and all the colors aren't being used equally --- "Equal rights for every color!"
10. At the same time during every lecture, slowly lift yourself up out of your chair and cry out, "Look! Anti-gravity!" As soon as the professor turns to look at you, let yourself fall back into your chair, shrug your shoulders and say, "Guess not."
11. Solve all mechanics problems using *only* Newton's Laws and solve all E&M problems using *only* Maxwell's equations. Or even better yet, solve mechanics problems using Maxwell's equations and E&M problems usin Newton's Laws.
12. Use *only* Newton's Laws to solve classical mechanics problems and *only* the Schrodinger equation to solve quantum mechanics problems. Better yet, use the Schrodinger equation to solve classical mechanics problems and Newton's laws to solve quantum mechanics problems.
13. Claim to be Mr. C.G.H. Tompkins and say that you have actually seen things like relativistic length contraction and quantum mechanical tunnelling. (*)
14. Threaten to renormalize his/her wave function to zero over all space and time. If you could do that, then not only would he/she not exist now, he/she would never have existed at all!
15. Always plot your data with the x and y axes reversed.
16. Convince your professor to be your lab partner and then blame all of your sources of error on him/her.
17. Whenever you cover topics that have hard-to-visualize concepts, keep asking the professor to draw you a picture of it so that you can see what it looks like.
18. Any time he/she mentions blackbody radiation, claim that he/she is being racist and that he/she should use the politically correct term "continuous thermal radiation."
19. Try to confuse him/her with sentences or questions containing a bunch of unrelated things, but sound like they could actually mean something. For example, "Why not just write the answer as a contour integral in the complex plane of a fourth order tensor in Minkowski space-time?" It helps to sound like you know what you're talking about, too.
20. Never round your answers. "Significant digits? Who needs them?"
21. Always use the full values of known constants and carry out as many decimal places as possible (e.g., c = 2.99792458E8 m/s^2). This is the most fun for pi (3.141592653589793238462643383279... you get the idea) and other numbers like that.
22. When the professor requests that your solutions be given in MKS units, use CGS units instead. Likewise, when the professor asks that your solutions be given in CGS units, give them in MKS instead. When it doesn't matter, use the tie-breaker: the English system.
23. Get into an argument with your professor as to why a particle in a one-dimensional box should really be called a particle following the path of a straight line.
24. Determine the wave function for the Lithium atom at its ground state and take the adjoint of the matrix used to determine the function. Nasty stuff.
25. Always blame the manufacturer of the lab equipment that you are using for experimental error in any lab experiments.
26. Use semi-log paper for graphs when no logarithms need to be taken, and use normal paper when logarithms need to be taken.
27. When taking a test, and a problem asks you to find the area under a curve, ask your professor for a sheet of paper of the same type that your test was printed on, a scale, and a pair of scissors. (Hope the professor is eccentric enough to grant your request.) Cut out the curve for which you need the area, and a square of known area from the blank piece of paper. Weigh the square, then weigh the curve. Set up a proportion to solve for the area under the curve. Say that you had a memory lapse, and forgot how to integrate. (*)
28. Use an economist's view of the Three Laws of Thermodynamics:
29. Whenever you are told that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, immediately respond that the speed of propagation of a DeBroglie wave is faster than the speed of light.
30. When the totalitarian principle is brought up, "Every process that is not forbidden must occur," start arguing with your professor that the reverse must also be true, "Every processes that does not occur, must be forbidden."
31. Start creating your own conservation laws and give proof that the quantities you claim are conserved actually are.
32. Instead of doing your regularly scheduled lab, start running into the wall. When the professor asks why, say that you are attempting to tunnel through the wall and prove that macroscopic tunnelling is possible. "There is a non-zero probability that I can tunnel through the wall, so if I run into the wall often enough, eventually I should be able to go through it!"
33. Refuse to use any Greek letter, particularly that scribble of a letter, lowercase xi. Alternatively, substitute Klingon letters for Greek.
34. The solution to any astronomy related problem is "Warp Drive." If asked for clarification, say, "It's simple. Invent warp drive and then just go to the star or whatever it is you want to know about. It's the best way to test your theories!"
35. When the professor asks you to explain the concept of the theory of relativity, use a diagram. Put your name at the top and draw two branches from your name. Then put your parent's name. Everybody on the diagram should be relative.
36. Attempt to answer any astronomy related question using Star Trek. For example, blame the slow advance of technology on the Romulans.
37. Refuse to study any particle physics unless you can use a particle accelerator or cyclotron to actually see some reactions.
38. Complain any time the professor does not give a rigorous mathematical proof, but instead uses "physical intuition" or a "hand-waving" argument.
39. When describing Newton's laws of conservation, give answers from the GOP's Contract with America.
40. If a Physics professor gives a demonstration of a pendulum in the class, do the following. Set the pendulum up, and place the prof in the strategic location. Set the pendulum up so that it swings up close to the prof's nose. Once this is done, hold the pendulum up to the prof's nose. Then, give the pendulum a good shove. Don't just let go of the pendulum. You must shove it. Prof gets a broken nose and should thoroughly be annoyed.
41. Start hanging a magnetic tape up in the middle of class, stringing it as far across the room as you can possibly get, and explain that you're setting up a catenary.
42. Make coffee in the middle of physics class, and stick a thermometer in the
pot to demonstrate Newton's Law of Cooling. The smell should thoroughly annoy
the prof and effectively distract the class, especially on Monday mornings.
43. When asked to show the symbols used for "Bra-Ket" notation, draw a bra for the bra part and a kite for the ket part. Call it "Bracket" notation in class, too. Not "Bra-Ket" notation.
44. When asked to demonstrate the properties of a gas that is heavier than air, pour some bromine vapor into a styrofoam cup and pass it around. The whole class will gag.
45. When in the Physics lab, and asked to demonstrate projectile motion, get out the dartboard and play a game of darts. Of course, to really annoy the professor, you can aim the darts at him/her. This guarantees an F in the course.
46. Never take a linear regression of a line. Always take the linear regression of curves or parabolas.
47. Charge a capacitor to full capacity and then short it out to make that cool spark and pop sound. Likewise, charge the capacitor until the thing just explodes.
48. When asked to demonstrate Newton's law, throw some of the weights used for the balances at the prof. Tell the prof that the sting of the weight hitting his/her face is the result of the mass of the weight times the acceleration you forced on it plus drag due to gravity. You can be scientific about this. Is pain intensity a function of the weight of the mass? Or does pain remain constant?
49. This requires some technical skill. Replace an oscilliscope screen with that of a small television set. The little knobs can be used to change the channel. What would be even more annoying is to make the picture roll.
50. Build a bridge out of toothpicks in E&M lab. Put a sign on it. "Wheatstone." Don't forget to put it across a small puddle of water on your lab bench.
8. Mathematics professor Alexander Abian of Iowa State University has a theory that mass and time are equivalent and in order for time to advance, mass is necessarily lost. See the Usenet archives of sci.astro and/or sci.physics for possible postings by him, frequently identified by subject lines in ALL CAPS. They are usually quite amusing. :) He passed away in 1999.
13. C.G.H. Tompkins is a character created by George Gamow. Mr. Tompkins has many dreams about different kinds of worlds where effects such as relativistic length contraction and quantum mechanical tunneling are everyday effects. Try to find _Mr._Tompkins_In_Paperback_ if you want to read about his adventures. It's a very good book. _The_New_World_of_Mr._Tompkins_ by George Gamow and Russell Stannard is the revised and updated version.
27. Apparently this method was actually used at one time and it has shown up at least one lab manual as an optional method for solving the problem.
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