Not The Road's Fault

When your CFD simulation goes from solving partial differential equations to international politics in one boundary condition. Nothing says "I've given up on convergence" like adding a dictator to your flow field. The poor grad student who made this was probably on their 47th hour without sleep, surviving on cold coffee and mathematical despair. This is what happens when you tell engineers to "think outside the box" but the box is a domain with Dirichlet boundary conditions.

Nothing validates your experimental design quite like putting yourself in the line of fire. This gentleman's approach to testing his "death ray" is the perfect embodiment of the scientific method's forgotten step: "If all else fails, become the test subject." Thirty years of teaching physics, and I've never seen such commitment to empirical evidence. The poor fellow's confusion about why he isn't dead yet is basically every grad student's reaction when their supposedly groundbreaking experiment fails spectacularly. Remember kids, if your doomsday device doesn't work, don't troubleshoot—just stand in it longer!

The infamous treadmill plane problem - breaking friendships and ruining family dinners since 2005! Here's the deal: planes don't take off because their wheels spin faster. They take off because their engines push air backward, creating forward thrust. The wheels just roll along for the ride. It's like trying to stop Superman by making him run on a treadmill. Good luck with that! The conveyor belt would just make the wheels spin twice as fast while the plane's position relative to the air remains unchanged. So yes, the plane absolutely would take off. The bottom image showing an airplane taking off from a moving truck is actually demonstrating this exact principle. The poor Star Wars kid's reaction is what happens when you try explaining this at parties.

Only in America would you measure wood in "3/4 inch" instead of millimeters! The irony is delicious—a country that sent humans to the moon with NASA's calculations (done in metric, btw) but can't seem to handle the simplicity of base-10 measurements for everyday life. Meanwhile, the entire rest of the planet is like "19mm? Cool, got it." But no, Americans need their fractions on plywood because apparently decimal points are terrifying. It's like they're allergic to easy conversion! Next they'll be measuring kitchen counters in "football fields divided by hamburgers."

Ever notice how transportation engineers are basically the Spider-Man meme personified? They're too busy pointing fingers at enforcement and education while 4 million bodies pile up from car crashes. That fine print disclaimer is peak bureaucratic poetry: "Safety is not our job." Translation: We design the roads, but if you die on them, that's a you problem. Nothing says American infrastructure quite like prioritizing "vehicle level of service" over, you know, human survival. Next time someone complains about a dangerous intersection, just remember—those engineers are technically correct, the best kind of correct!

This flowchart is what happens when career counselors have a mental breakdown. Engineering? Only if you're "good with things." Chemistry? Congratulations on your future as a "fussy pedant." And let's not forget Computer Science, perfect for those who prefer "slow, indirect evil" over the more efficient varieties. The beautiful part is how it nails the existential crisis of every STEM student. "Why do you want to major in a STEM field?" Options include "curiosity" (adorable), "to save the planet" (delusional), or my personal favorite, the dawning realization that STEM was supposed to involve actual plants for Biology majors. After 30 years of teaching, I can confirm this is approximately 87% accurate. The missing 13% is the path where you choose your major based on which department has the least uncomfortable chairs in the lecture hall.