Taking Graduation Into My Own Hands

The eternal academic caste system on full display! Physicists looking down on engineers with that unmistakable "I derive the equations, you just use them" expression. Pure theoretical superiority in human form. The hierarchy is real - physicists discover the laws of nature, engineers merely apply them, and Juan... well, Juan's just trying to pass Intro to Mechanics. Next time your engineer friend says "close enough," just flash this look and watch them dissolve into practical insignificance.

Prince Rupert's Drops are like the ultimate glass ninja warriors. These teardrop-shaped glass structures are virtually indestructible at the bulbous end (you can literally hammer it!), but flick the tail and—BOOM—the whole thing explodes into dust. Materials scientists get weirdly excited about this phenomenon because it's all about that sweet, sweet internal stress distribution. Meanwhile, sci-fi fans are just thinking "cool exploding glass thing" without appreciating the complex thermal gradients and tensile strength principles at work. The meme perfectly captures how materials nerds (looking at you, Mr. Incredible) appreciate the actual science, while sci-fi enthusiasts (Igor from Young Frankenstein, apparently) just want to see things go boom. Science is cool either way, but knowing why it goes boom? That's the real superpower.

SpaceX engineers clearly took inspiration from sushi night. Left: picking up a California roll with chopsticks. Right: SpaceX's mechanical chopsticks catching a 230-foot rocket booster mid-air. Both require precision, but only one costs $3 billion and has Elon tweeting about it. The engineering team must've been really hungry during that design meeting.

Engineers: creating precise instruments for decades to measure and generate electrical signals with exquisite accuracy. Also engineers: "Yeah, that person giving contradictory information is definitely a Mixed Signal Generator." 🤦‍♂️ The technical pun game is strong with this one! In electronics, oscilloscopes display signals and signal generators create them. But when someone's actions don't match their words? That's a whole different kind of waveform analysis.

Engineers getting all high and mighty about practical constraints while physicists are over here like "hold my spherical cow in a vacuum." The ultimate flex in physics isn't solving the problem—it's simplifying reality until the math works out! Nothing says "I'm too powerful for your real-world limitations" like casually erasing friction, air resistance, and the inconvenient shape of literally everything. Next time an engineer gives you grief about assumptions, just whisper "assume spherical rectangle" and watch their soul leave their body.

This is semiconductor physics at its most relatable! The image shows the valence and conduction bands of a semiconductor with a 1.1 eV band gap (exactly silicon's gap, for the ultra-nerds keeping score). Those poor electrons in the valence band are like the dedicated fans stuck in expensive seats watching their team get demolished - they've paid the energy price but can't escape to the conduction band without that crucial 1.1 eV boost. Meanwhile, the few electrons that made it to the conduction band are the lucky ones who've already given up and headed for the exits. Semiconductor physics: where electrons and disappointed sports fans are basically the same thing!