The Great STEM Hierarchy Showdown

Nuclear meltdowns as a personality test! The meme shows corium (that molten radioactive nightmare fuel that forms during nuclear reactor meltdowns) personified as three-headed dragon. Chernobyl and Fukushima are portrayed as terrifying beasts, while Three-Mile Island is the derpy cousin who didn't quite commit to the whole "catastrophic disaster" thing. For the nuclear nerds: corium is what happens when reactor fuel, control rods, and structural materials melt together into a lava-like mass that can burn through concrete and steel. Chernobyl's version (nicknamed "Elephant's Foot") could kill you in minutes just by standing near it. Fukushima created its own hellish blend. Meanwhile, Three-Mile Island had a partial meltdown but contained most of its radioactive material—hence the goofy, relatively harmless face. Nothing says "we've mastered atomic energy" quite like creating substances that can melt through the Earth while giving you radiation poisoning through a concrete wall. Progress!

The eternal physics grad student struggle captured in its purest form! Sleep becomes optional when you're trying to understand the subtle differences between interferometer calculations. For the uninitiated, a Michelson/Mach-Zehnder interferometer is used to measure tiny phase differences by splitting light beams and recombining them to create interference patterns. The homework solutions probably just say "trivial exercise left to reader" while our sleep-deprived hero is desperately trying to figure out why his calculations are giving him complex eigenvalues instead of power measurements. Behind him, that whiteboard with hexagonal structures (probably graphene or benzene rings) and equations is basically the inside of every physicist's brain at 4am. The academic version of "I've made a terrible mistake."

The duality of physicists! Dismisses astrology as "made up nonsense" but gets absolutely giddy about theoretical spacetime tunnels that might not even exist. Sure, wormholes are mathematically consistent with general relativity, but so is my theory that grading papers causes temporal distortion. The irony of rejecting star signs while worshipping equations that describe cosmic shortcuts nobody's ever seen is just *chef's kiss*. Next time someone scoffs at your horoscope, ask them about their feelings on string theory.

Spongebob perfectly demonstrates the penetrating powers of different radiation types! Alpha particles (α) are big chunky bois that can't even get through paper—they'll burn your skin but that's about it. Beta particles (β) are slicker, zipping through aluminum but getting stopped by lead. Then there's gamma rays (γ)—the ultimate cosmic party crashers that'll blast through almost anything! Your lead shield? Cute. Your concrete bunker? Adorable. Gamma rays are that uninvited guest who shows up and raids your fridge no matter how many locks you have. No wonder Spongebob looks terrified—he's being bombarded by the electromagnetic bad boy of the radiation family!

The eternal disciplinary smackdown captured perfectly! Physicists love to smugly declare chemistry as "just applied physics" while patting themselves on the back for understanding fundamental forces. Meanwhile, chemists are busy creating actual useful compounds without spending a single neuron contemplating whether quarks feel lonely. This hierarchical science beef goes back decades. Rutherford once called all science "either physics or stamp collecting" - the absolute nerve! Yet chemists get the last laugh here with their perfect "I don't think about you at all" energy. They're too occupied balancing equations and making molecules do their bidding to care about physicists' superiority complex. The true irony? Both fields desperately need each other but would rather die than admit it. Classic academic rivalry at its finest!

A beautiful linguistic ambush here. The word "staged" has two meanings - conspiracy theorists think the moon landing was faked on a movie set, while aerospace engineers know rockets literally use "stages" that separate during launch. The Saturn V had three main stages, each discarded after fuel depletion, allowing the vehicle to shed mass and increase efficiency. So yes, technically, the moon landing was staged. Just not in the way your uncle who watches too many YouTube videos thinks it was.