Academic culture Memes

Ah, the classic physics-to-engineering pipeline. Physicists enter engineering classrooms with that insufferable smirk that says, "You're approximating a cow as a sphere while I've derived the Standard Model." Yet there they are, secretly delighted to finally work on problems where you're allowed to ignore quantum effects and just use F=ma. The first-order approximation they mock is the same simplification they'll gratefully embrace when their advisor demands actual results by next Tuesday. Forty years in academia taught me one thing: theoretical superiority is directly proportional to distance from practical application. But we all cash the same paychecks in the end.