My Mom Was Right

Four physics problems might as well be forty. The transformation from happy cartoon face to existential horror perfectly captures that moment when you realize each physics question contains six sub-questions, three diagrams, and requires remembering formulas you're pretty sure weren't even taught. Physics homework doesn't just break your pencil—it breaks your spirit. Each problem is like a tiny black hole, sucking away hours of your life while violating the conservation of sanity.

Physics departments desperately trying to convince prospective students they're not just wizards with calculators. Sure, we have radioactive rocks that could level cities, floating apples on magnets, circuit diagrams that look suspiciously like summoning circles, and mathematical symbols that might as well be ancient hieroglyphics—but it's all perfectly scientific. The defensive "SHUT UP" really sells the whole "we're not practicing arcane arts" vibe. Next they'll tell us the blue glow from Cherenkov radiation isn't actually a soul-capturing device.

The sweet irony of quantum mechanics strikes again! 🧪⚡ The teacher thinks they're being clever by throwing in electron travel directions to confuse students, but our accidental hero stumbles onto the correct answer through pure cosmic coincidence. It's like when I accidentally created a superconductor while trying to reheat yesterday's pizza! Sometimes in science, being completely wrong in the right way is indistinguishable from brilliance. Remember kids, in physics as in life: two negatives really DO make a positive!

The duality of the scientific mind on full display! Dismisses astrology as "made up nonsense" but immediately gets excited about the ideal gas law (PV = nRT). The title nods to Van der Waals, who actually improved this equation to account for real gases because—plot twist—the ideal gas law is also an idealized model that doesn't perfectly describe reality. Scientists: rejecting one set of approximations while worshipping another since 1873. The only difference? One has math.

The ultimate philosophical paradox, served with a side of existential crisis. One person declares belief in a deterministic universe where all events are predetermined by prior causes, while the other "chooses" to disagree... then immediately questions whether that choice was actually free or predetermined. It's like saying "I reject your reality and substitute my own, unless that substitution was already written into the cosmic script." Philosophers have been having this circular argument since before it was determined they would.

The ultimate scientific plot twist! Peeling back the mask of astronomy reveals physics underneath, but keep going and—surprise!—it's just math all the way down. Ever noticed how astronomers study beautiful cosmic phenomena only for physicists to reduce it to equations, which mathematicians then claim as their territory? The universe is basically just running on mathematical code, and we're all living in a giant calculation. Next time someone asks what you're studying, just say "applied mathematics" regardless of your scientific field—technically not wrong!