Exam Memes

The eternal struggle of physics students everywhere! Your gut says the spring balance reads 9kg (just add 'em up, right?), but then you remember torque exists and suddenly it's all about moments and pivot points. The correct answer is actually 9kg, but proving it requires remembering that pesky static equilibrium formula that you definitely should have memorized. The look of existential dread when you're staring at the exam question knowing exactly what the answer is but completely blanking on how to show your work... pure academic trauma in meme form.

The eternal physics student struggle captured perfectly! On the left, we have the exam expectations—a terrifying buffet of thermodynamics equations, Schrödinger's equation, and van der Waals equation—all guarded by a muscular, intimidating Doge. Meanwhile, on the right is the sad reality: all that survived the pre-exam cramming session is the ideal gas law (PV = nRT) repeated over and over. That's it. That's the entire knowledge base, accompanied by a derpy lab Doge who's clearly as lost as your understanding of quantum mechanics. The ideal gas law is the physics equivalent of knowing only "E=mc²" and hoping it somehow applies to every question. Spoiler alert: it doesn't. Your professor spent months teaching complex thermodynamic principles, and your brain decided "nah, just remember the gas thingy."

Oh sweet mother of approximations! Physics professors creating exam problems be like: "Let's just ROUND THE UNIVERSE for convenience!" 🤪 The image shows a highway with a massive gap between sections—exactly what happens when engineers take those "consider π=3" physics problems too literally! Pure mathematical blasphemy that would make mathematicians scream into their coffee mugs! The gravity approximation (g=10m/s²) is just the cherry on top of this reality-bending sundae. Next they'll tell us friction doesn't exist and cows are perfect spheres!

The ultimate power move in physics class! Those Euler-Lagrange equations aren't just mathematical gibberish—they're the fancy way of saying "trust me, I did the math." What makes this truly diabolical is that these are the equations of motion from analytical mechanics, and the person just drops them like a mic and walks away without showing any work. It's like telling someone "the proof is trivial" and refusing to elaborate. The smug grin says it all: conservation of energy applies to everything except the mental energy needed to justify your solutions on an exam!

The classic physics exam trap in its natural habitat! The problem mentions a charged object in a constant electric potential field, and then asks about the work done when its speed changes. Here's where students panic and split into three camps on the bell curve: The clueless ones (left side): "Work equals change in kinetic energy, duh!" The overthinking geniuses (middle): *sweating profusely* "Wait, there's a charge in an electric field... must calculate electric potential energy... what's the field strength? Is this a trick?!" The enlightened few (right side): "Total work is just ΔKE because constant potential means zero electric field, so no electric work." The beauty is that the simplest answer (ΔKE) is correct, but physics students are conditioned to suspect traps everywhere. This is why physicists make terrible dinner guests - we overthink even passing the salt.