Different Fields, Different Research Questions

Physics professors everywhere just nodded in approval. The left drawing perfectly captures what happens when physicists say "let's simplify the problem" – suddenly that complex chicken becomes a perfect sphere! This is the infamous "spherical cow approximation" in action, where messy real-world objects get transformed into perfect mathematical shapes so equations actually work. Meanwhile, the real chicken on the right is just living its non-spherical life, completely unaware it's breaking several laws of theoretical physics by having actual features. Next up in the physics textbook: frictionless chickens in a vacuum!

Newton's first law of motion basically says objects stay put unless something pushes them. Revolutionary? Not really. It's like "discovering" that water is wet or that pizza tastes good! Picture Newton having this MIND-BLOWING epiphany and just standing there with his arms outstretched like he's the messiah of the obvious. "EUREKA! If I don't touch it... IT DOESN'T MOVE!" *gasp* Someone give this man a medal for noticing what literally every rock has been doing since the beginning of time! 🤯

Oh look, a physics pun that only 0.0001% of the population will understand! The meme is playing with the fact that "hc" in physics represents Planck's constant (h) multiplied by the speed of light (c), which equals approximately 1.986 × 10^-25 Joule-meters. But the creator suggests it could also stand for "hardcore" and "honoris causa" (an honorary degree). This is peak physicist humor—the kind that makes normal people back away slowly at parties. The formula E = hc/λ is how we calculate a photon's energy based on its wavelength. What should we name this quantity? How about "Hopes Crushed"—the feeling every grad student gets trying to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity.

The ultimate scientific flex! While humanity panics about running out of oil in 50-100 years, physicists are over here casually creating entirely new particles and forces using just 24 Greek letters. Talk about resource management skills! The contrast is brilliant—we're supposedly doomed by resource scarcity, yet theoretical physics keeps building entire universes of knowledge with an alphabet smaller than English. Next time someone complains about limited resources, just point to physicists who turned "β" and "γ" into the foundations of quantum mechanics and relativity. Who needs oil when you've got lambda (λ)? 🤓

That moment when your physics teacher's motivational speech has a hidden punchline. In physics, potential energy is stored energy that isn't being used yet—just sitting there, doing absolutely nothing productive. Kind of like that homework you're procrastinating on. The teacher is technically correct though—you should convert that potential to kinetic energy before the final exam. Otherwise, you'll remain in your state of rest until acted upon by the force of failing grades.

The perfect encapsulation of what happens after watching a Veritasium video on quantum mechanics or time paradoxes! While idealists dream of using time machines for heroic historical interventions, anyone who's actually absorbed Derek Muller's mind-bending explanations knows the truth: mess with time, and you'll probably collapse reality itself. The bottom panel perfectly captures that post-Veritasium existential crisis where you're suddenly aware of quantum uncertainty principles, the grandfather paradox, and how the universe might be a simulation. The desperate "DON'T. LOOK. INTO. IT." is basically the scientific equivalent of "what has been seen cannot be unseen."