Scientific joke

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A scientific joke is a joke or joke that is directly related to science and parodies its forms . The term is not clearly delimited, the punch line is often only directly accessible to members of the respective scientific discipline. It differs from an inside joke of such groups in general, however, in that it refers to general clichés and forms of the scientific community and often takes the form of one or more scientific publications, or it is anecdotes about and about outstanding personalities in the field and theirs Job.

The subject is often the gap between scientific practice and everyday understanding, which makes it possible to hide the absurdity or lack of plausibility of the content by choosing the scientific form. You are referring to the possibility of fraud and forgery in science . Scientific jokes and humorous publications have been documented since the 17th century at the latest.

Manifestations

Fictional people

Many scientific disciplines know fictional personalities. Often these are fictional members of the scientific community to whom individual inventions or discoveries are ascribed.

For example, in mathematics, an Alessandro Binomi is said to be the discoverer of binomial formulas . The invention of the eigenvalue is said to go back to the fictional mathematician Julius Eigen (alternatively to Manfred Eigen , an existing chemist) . FDC Willard , who published internationally in 1975 and 1980 as an author in renowned journals on physics, was a Siamese cat . The choice of the collective pseudonym Nicolas Bourbaki , under which a circle of leading mathematicians of the 1930s published a series of textbooks, goes back to a joke. Other examples of such collective pseudonyms in mathematics are Boto von Querenburg , Blanche Descartes , GW Peck (the name was used by a number of mathematicians, including Daniel Kleitman ), John Rainwater (a pseudonym shared by a number of mathematicians in the field of functional analysis, for example Robert Phelps , and that started as a student joke in a math lecture in 1952) and Arthur Besse . A professor by the name of Ernst August Dölle is said to have held a chair for psychology and education (at a university for whose existence there is no evidence), and a constitutional lawyer by the name of Friedrich Gottlob Nagelmann was based at the University of Potsdam . PDQ Bach is said to have been the last son of Johann Sebastian Bach and, like his father, was a composer, under this name his creator wrote numerous works.

Fictitious lexicon articles

The stone louse (here a female, freely adapted from Loriot ) is in the Pschyrembel

In scientific lexicons of different subject areas, fictitious topics are sometimes included or everyday things are dealt with from a (highly) scientific point of view. One of the best-known is the entry on the stone louse in the Pschyrembel from a sketch by Loriot . When it was removed from this medical reference work after two editions in the 257th edition, there was protest from the readers, and it was resumed later. In the Pschyrembel dictionary of naturopathy and alternative healing methods by the same publisher, the Kurschatten is explained as a medical phenomenon. The first volume of the Neue Pauly , an encyclopedia on antiquity, contains an entry on Apopudobalia , an imaginary ancient predecessor of football. The ninth edition of the Römpp chemical dictionary is a joke version of the KKK rule .

Some of these nihil articles also refer to fictional personalities in science, for example PDQ Bach is listed in the personal section of the encyclopedia Music in the past and present .

Other scientific jokes

Outside of specialist encyclopedias, the scientific literature sometimes only appears to appear serious scientific work, for example in scientific journals or as independent publications. In 1931, the still young physicist and later Nobel Prize winner Hans Bethe and his colleagues Beck and Riezler managed to include a nonsense piece of work in the respected journal Die Naturwissenschaften , with which they parodied the number games of the then famous British astrophysicist Arthur Stanley Eddington . In 1948 George Gamow played a prank on his friend Bethe when he named Bethe as another author without his knowledge for a (serious) work that he and his student Ralph Alpher were doing , in order to complete the echoes of the beginning of the Greek alphabet . It became known as "Alpha-Beta-Gamma" work . Bethe was on the magazine's review panel but didn't object to the joke.

Inspired by Christian Morgenstern's poem Das Nasobēm , the zoologist Gerolf Steiner invented the mammalian order Rhinogradentia and published the textbook Bau und Leben der Rhinogradentia in 1957, preserving all formal aspects . The animals, known in German as "nasal striders", are repeatedly taken up in publications and have thus developed into a running gag .

A series of scientific jokes puts the mundane or everyday in a scientific context or applies scientific methods to a topic that is not the subject of investigation of the respective scientific discipline . Examples of this are the mathematical essay A Contribution to the Mathematical Theory of Big Game Hunting , published in 1938 in the American Mathematical Monthly by Ralph Boas and colleagues under the pseudonym H. Pétard, which deals with applications of mathematics in big game hunting. In the monograph Pasta Theobromae in Max Wichtl's Teedrogen und Phytopharmaka , chocolate is described as a drug that is said to have a soothing effect in the healing of tears in children after minor injuries.

The Nacirema (read backwards: 'American', English for 'American' ) were studied by the ethnologist Horace Miner in 1956 . In an article in the American Anthropologist magazine , he described their body rituals, for example how men maltreat their facial skin with sharp blades every day (shaving) or women regularly bake their heads (hairdressing).

The computer scientist Donald Ervin Knuth wrote a satirical article on the complexity of songs in 1977 , in which he applied the methods of complexity theory to popular pop and children's songs .

The economic sciences are sometimes accused of only evaluating all situations in life economically. Gary Becker applied the basics of price theory to crime and family relationships (see also Rotten Kid Theorem ). Alan Blinder , a professor of economics at Princeton University , then wrote an article about brushing teeth from an economic point of view as a satire, which was published in 1974 in the prestigious Journal of Political Economy . Blinder introduces an (artificially inflated) mathematical model that deals with optimizing the time spent brushing teeth every day, based on the assumption that a person's income is a function of working hours and dental hygiene. According to the author, the model can be used to derive "many empirically verifiable hypotheses."

Two examples of structural formulas of anthropomorphic molecules

Stephanie H. Chanteau and James M. Tour (Rice University, Houston, Texas) published Pathways to the Synthesis of Anthropomorphic Molecules in the prestigious Journal of Organic Chemistry in 2003 .

In the heyday of postmodern theory, Alan Sokal published an essay in the journal Social Text in 1996 entitled Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity. His aim was to show whether a leading science magazine publishes a fictitious context as long as it sounds impressive and conforms to the ideological baseline of the magazine. The subsequent so-called Sokal affair led to heated discussions about the correctness of the deconstructivist questioning of positivist natural science .

The magazine Totalitarismus und Demokratie unknowingly published a satire in 2015 that makes use of the jargon of "Human Animal Studies" and the theory of totalitarianism . The fictional historian "Christiane Schulte" claims in it a. a., the first " wall victim " was not a person, but a police dog named Rex .

reception

As early as the 17th century, scientific jokes were included in the didactic repertoire, especially by Jesuits . They are still used in magazines today.

An important international journal are the Annals of Improbable Research , whose Ig Nobel Board of Governors annually (and not always to the delight of the “winners”) awards the Ig Nobel Prize for publications that were written in a serious manner, but in terms of subject and title can be described as bizarre .

The computer magazine c't regularly publishes April Fools' jokes that are more or less scientifically disguised in its issue at the beginning of April (which is published by the end of March) . Examples were a radial recording floppy disk drive in 1985 or an Internet accelerator in a Resource Reservation Protocol in 1999 . Some of the April Fools jokes later became a partial reality. A Head Vision Projector was presented in 1987 , which was later implemented as a head-mounted display . The c't mistakenly attributed the instructions to activate the coprocessor in a 486SX processor with an existing but not functioning or activated mathematical coprocessor by drilling into a certain part of the housing. It appeared in DOS International 4/93 on page 134 ff. A drilling template was announced in the article in great detail.

The electronics magazine Elektor always includes a few joke circuits in its semiconductor notebooks, such as a short-circuit circuit as a fuse destroyer or the NEVER logic gate .

In cryptography , articles from the border area of ​​this science are published in the “Journal of Craptology” (editor Nigel Smart ).

Examples

Literary studies

The monograph The Truth about Hansel and Gretel by Hans Traxler is supposedly a “documentary report on the excavations of the witch's house on Engelesberg in Spessart” and thus postulates a verifiable historical basis for the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale . The book was initially taken seriously and aroused great international interest. In the second edition of the dust jacket with the addition “a credible parody ”, the extra-scientific character of the work was pointed out.

mathematics

Sometimes joking allusions are hidden in the registers of textbooks. An example of this can be found in the book Lectures on Topology by Béla Kerékjártó (1923): Erich Bessel-Hagen is referred to in the register, but he is not mentioned on the specified page, an illustration of a ball with two handles the topology of a double torus, an allusion to the distinctive features of Bessel-Hagen's physiognomy, popularly known as sail ears . Another example of such an index joke are the lectures on number theory by Helmut Hasse : On the place indicated in the register under God there is Leopold Kronecker's well-known quote "God made whole numbers, everything else is human work".

physics

At the spring meeting of the German Physical Society in 1998, a lecture on the fictional crystal Dilithium (from Star Trek ) was submitted, approved and held.

In 1957 Donald Knuth introduced the Potrzebie scale system ("Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures"). It is z. For example, the thickness of a Mad magazine is the fundamental unit of length.

chemistry

Dealing with DHMO without protective measures appears at first glance to be risk-free

Dihydrogen monoxide (abbreviation DHMO ) is a chemically correct, but only ironically used name for water (H 2 O). The technical-abstract term for an everyday, vital substance suggests a dangerous substance and was coined with the intention to caricature the widespread fear of the chemical industry and to illustrate how easily people can be manipulated by one-sided information. With the properties and dangers of water in different physical states (such as electrical short circuit , scalding , frostbite , drowning , solvents of toxic substances, etc.) presented in a provocative or shocking manner, bans are jokingly demanded or the assertion made that a powerful DHMO conspiracy such a ban prevent.

biology

The articles by “Prof. Wilhelm Selhus ”(pseudonym of Wilhelm Sandermann ) about the square tree and W. Liese about the square bamboo from the Natural Science Review of 1978 and 1979 were perceived by many readers as true reports. The Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau published further detailed April articles by Wilhelm Selhus for many years and could still be sure of a broad and similar response. Even before Loriot's clearly humorous contribution to stone lice in 1976, Wilhelm Selhus had published a book translated into many languages ​​in which he allegedly presented evidence of visits by extraterrestrials.

theology

The dark man's letters are a classic example of a parody of the scientific community : the authors mock the scholastic theologians of the sixteenth century by pretending to be such; at the same time the work has the fictitious form of a scientific correspondence.

An equally classic satire for the 18th century, this time targeting the level of theology students, is the Jobsiad .

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinrich Zankl: Insane things from science: From light rabbits and dark pears . Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2008, ISBN 3-527-32114-4 , pp. 32-33; Strange things from astronomy, physics, mathematics and chemistry. (PDF, pp. 13–15).
  2. ↑ Stefanie Schramm: Handbook for Hypochondriacs . In: The time . No. 39 , September 20, 2007 ( article online on the Internet pages of the time).
  3. ↑ Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present. General encyclopedia of music . 2nd Edition. Kassel 1999, Person Part 1, Sp. 1551 ff .
  4. ↑ G. Beck, H. Bethe, W. Riezler: Remarks on the quantum theory of the absolute zero of temperature . In: The natural sciences . No. 19 , 1931, pp. 39 .
  5. ↑ Karl Svozil: The everyday life of a “peer”. (PDF; 90 kB) Retrieved April 26, 2010 .
  6. ↑ Ben Weiner: A parody paper in solid state physics, published in 1931. Accessed April 26, 2010 (English).
  7. ↑ A Gamov Joke. American Institute of Physics, accessed April 26, 2010 .
  8. ↑ Harald Stümpke: Construction and life of the Rhinogradentia . 1st edition, 83 pages, Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart 1961, ISBN 3-437-30083-0 .
  9. ^ HWO Pétard (= Ralph Boas, Smithies) A Contribution to the Mathematical Theory of Big Game Hunting In: The American Mathematical Monthly 45, Volume 7., pp. 446-447, online at JSTOR .
  10. ↑ Horace Miner: Body Ritual among the Nacirema . In: American Anthropologist, New Series . tape 58 , no. 3 . Blackwell Publishing, 1956, pp. 503-507 .
  11. ^ Alan Blinder: The Economics of Brushing Teeth . In: The Journal of Political Economy . Vol. 82, No. 4 (July-August 1974), pp. 887-891.
  12. ↑ Stephanie H. Chanteau, James M. Tour: Synthesis of Anthropomorphic Molecules: The NanoPutians . In: Journal of Organic Chemistry . tape 68 , 2003, p. 8750-8766 , doi : 10.1021 / jo0349227 .
  13. ^ Christiane Schulte: The German-German Shepherd Dog - A contribution to the history of violence in the century of extremes. In: Totalitarianism and Democracy. 12th year, issue 2, 2015, pp. 319–334;
    The article was preceded by a conference contribution, cf. Anett Laue: "Animals of our homeland". Effects of the SED ideology on social human-animal relationships in the GDR. February 6, 2015, Center for Metropolitan Studies at TU Berlin . In: H-Soz-Kult . March 28, 2015, accessed January 25, 2020;
    Christiane Schulte & Freund_innen: Inspector Rex shot at the wall? In: Telepolis . February 15, 2016, accessed January 25, 2020;
    Velten Schäfer: The great Wall Nazi dog fraud. In: New Germany . February 16, 2016, accessed January 25, 2020;
    Matern Boeselager: This is the best science hoax we've seen in a long time. In: Vice . February 17, 2016, accessed January 25, 2020;
    Aiyana Rosen: Christiane S. and the new forms of human-animal-studies-bashing. In: chimaira-ak.org. February 23, 2016, accessed January 25, 2020;
    Florian Peters: About totalitarian shepherd dogs and libertarian wall rabbits. In: Contemporary history online . February 2016, accessed January 25, 2020;
    Philip Oltermann: Human-animal studies academics dogged by German hoaxers. In: The Guardian . March 1, 2016, accessed January 25, 2020;
    Harald Martenstein: About Nazi Shepherd Dogs and other stories of lies. In: Zeitmagazin . March 3, 2016, accessed January 25, 2020;
    Patrick Kilian: Theory guerrilla or old joke? A comment on the current science hoax. In: History of the Present . March 6, 2016, accessed January 25, 2020;
    Thomas Hoebel: Unmask "Totalitarian Shepherd Dogs". ( Memento from March 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: uni-bielefeld.de/soz. March 12, 2016, accessed January 25, 2020;
    Martin Machowecz: The dog misery. In: The time . April 14, 2016, accessed January 25, 2020;
    Editorial management: Statement on the article “The German-German Shepherd Dog - A Contribution to the History of Violence in the Century of Extremes” (TD 2015, 2, pp. 319–334). ( Memento of March 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: hait.tu-dresden.de. Retrieved January 25, 2020.
  14. ↑ Paula Findlen, 1990: "Jokes of Nature and Jokes of Knowledge: The Playfulness of Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Europe" . Renaissance Quarterly 43 (2): 292-331, p. 301
  15. ↑ A review of this appeared in issue no. 24 of 2003, p. 151. Newer April Fools jokes are listed in the Heise Forum .
  16. ↑ These instructions were quoted by Hans-Peter Messmer in the PC hardware book , 3rd edition, p. 313 , among others .
  17. ↑ Journal of Craptology
  18. ↑ Hans Traxler : The truth about Hansel and Gretel . pardon library Bärmeier & Nikel, 1963.
  19. ↑ Hansel and Gretel. With a fake beard . In: Der Spiegel . No. 28 , 1964 ( online ).
  20. ↑ The name and subject index refers to this page , see also the explanation and the comparison with the original
  21. ^ V. Renz, G. LaForge and M. Scott: Dilithium - a post-present crystal , negotiations of the German Physical Society 1998.
  22. ↑ An illustration can be found here: The Potrzebie system illustrated by Wallace Wood ( Memento of the original from September 14, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.crossmyt.com
  23. ^ Karl S. Kruszelnicki: Mysterious Killer Chemical . Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 2006. Retrieved December 21, 2010.
  24. ^ Ernst Corinth : The Worldwide Dihydrogen Monoxide Conspiracy , Telepolis of March 20, 2004, accessed on December 19, 2018.
  25. ↑ Wilhelm Selhus: The "square tree ", Quercus quadrata van Hoosten, a sensational find. In: Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau 31, 1978, pp. 139–142.
  26. ↑ William Selhus: The "square tree," Quercus quadrata van Hoosten, a sensational discovery, Message II. In: Science Rundschau 32, 1979, pp 135-137.
  27. ^ W. Liese: Chimonobambusa quadrangularis, the square bamboo. In: Naturwiss. Rundschau 32, 1979, pp. 137-138.
  28. ↑ Wilhelm Selhus: And yet they were there: Scientific evidence for the visit from space . Bertelsmann Verlag, 1975.