I was sitting in physics class this morning — no surprise there. I wasn’t paying attention — also no surprise. I think there are some physics majors who actually participate in class; I personally find learning more fulfilling when I don’t learn. Oh hush, I’m only joking, you silly audience.
All kidding aside, I was totally out of it — I was rather engaged in coming up with my very own physics joke. You know how sometimes you can be paying attention to a lecture and something a teacher says can set you off on your own mental tangent? That’s exactly what happened to me: we started talking about retarded time and I just couldn’t resist.
Retarded time is a legitimate physical concept, so don’t start with me. It has to do with relativity.
I won’t repeat my joke here — it was about retarded time, for goodness sake. Use your imagination. Most people wouldn’t get it anyhow. They’d probably look at me like I was twisted until I explained myself, then they’d tell me they hate physics.
Man, I’m so sick of people telling me that they don’t like what I study. I’ll meet someone new and we’ll start chatting. “Hey, what’s your major?” they’ll ask.
“I do physics,” I’ll respond.
“Oh man, I feel for sorry for you. I hate physics,” they’ll respond, trying to sympathize as they casually defecate on my interests.
Hey guys, it’s OK. I hate what you do, too. Whatever it is, I hate it just because I don’t understand it. I hope that makes you feel better about yourself.
If you say you like to ride horses, then I say that riding horses sucks. I hate horses; they eat up all my hay and breathe up all my air. If you like to eat banana pie, then screw pie. Screw bananas as well. I say bananas have no place in delicious pastry crust. If you say you enjoy reading my columns in Technician, well — ahem, let me stop before I get ahead of myself.
Wow, can you feel the empathy? I can identify with you simply by stating that I hate what you spend most of your productive time doing. It’s almost a bit ironic when someone states as a matter of fact that physics sucks. It’s like saying, “the laws of nature that hold me to the ground and prevent my subatomic particles from collapsing into a heap of nonsensical probability really blow chunks. From now on I’ll stick to intelligent design because it doesn’t involve vector calculus.”
Well, I’d better stop whining and get on with the show here. My main point is that even though I enjoy physics, I often find my mind otherwise occupied in class.
A good buddy shot me an IM today telling me he wants to make himself a sports history class. He’s bored with engineering and wants to take a course in something he finds recreationally interesting. I like to be encouraging, so I said that he should go ahead and make the class, and while he’s at it he should train the N.C. State football team’s offense and maybe graft wings to some pigs at the vet school (you know, make ’em fly.)
It did get me thinking, though. I didn’t really mean to make this into a “wouldn’t it be awesome” column, but wouldn’t it be awesome if you could make your own class? I would love to take a class in comedy, maybe I could come up with jokes that work with a limited knowledge of physics.
As things stand, the only really random classes at our university are physical education ones like social dance or bowling. We need to expand on our recreational education, and start formal courses in things like l33t etymology, competitive belching and modern history of streaking and public nudity. I know there’s already the opportunity to form a student club around just about any topic, but we all know the best way to learn something is to sleep through real classes.
As I’ve always said: anything to expand the scope of my education and broaden my horizons. By the way, I’ll be the first volunteer to teach a course in B.S.
Tell Ken you hate physics at [email protected].