The Temperature Scale Civil War

That expression is the universal physics student trauma response. The title bans all the "friendly" textbooks, leaving only the notoriously dense ones that explain quantum mechanics with the phrase "it can be trivially shown that..." right before dropping 17 pages of calculus. Nothing says "I've made terrible life choices" quite like staring at incomprehensible equations at 3 AM while your non-STEM friends are out living.

Just your typical radioactive decay enthusiast, waiting around for 180 septillion years to witness tellurium-128 transform into xenon. That's commitment to the scientific method that makes grad school seem brief by comparison. The half-life of Te-128 is so absurdly long (2.2×10 24 years) that you'd have better luck watching paint dry on every surface in the universe. Twice. What's even more ridiculous is that this transformation would happen regardless of whether our curious canine friend was watching or not. Quantum mechanics doesn't care about your observation schedule.

Engineering students know the struggle is REAL! Thermodynamics vs Fluid Mechanics is like the ultimate academic civil war. Both subjects will have you questioning your life choices at 2AM while surrounded by equations that might as well be written in ancient Klingon. The debate over which one is more soul-crushing is so intense that even seasoned engineers would rather discuss literally anything else. It's the academic equivalent of choosing between stepping on Legos or stubbing your toe - both options make you want to cry!

The agony of holiday science conversations captured in four painful panels! The relative confidently questions why space photos lack stars (a common conspiracy talking point), while the exhausted scientist tries explaining light pollution. When the relative doubles down with "light isn't a physical thing, it can't cause pollution," you can practically feel the scientist's soul leaving their body. Light pollution is actually the excessive artificial light that drowns out celestial objects in our night sky. But the real issue here is the space photos conspiracy theory - NASA images often use exposure settings optimized for their main subject (like the Moon or spacewalking astronauts), making stars too dim to capture. The same reason you can't see stars in daylight photos! The desperate "Auntie please" is the universal cry of scientists everywhere who just wanted to enjoy their turkey in peace.

Engineers have never met a problem they couldn't solve with a good approximation! When no one's asking for solutions, there's always that one engineer ready to whip out their calculator, scribble some equations, and proudly announce "So anyway, I started approximating." The beauty of engineering isn't finding the perfect answer—it's finding one that's close enough to work while everyone else is still defining the problem! That paper full of calculations? That's just Tuesday morning coffee thoughts.

Someone's been paying attention in physics class but skipping cooking 101! The question brilliantly applies thermodynamics to culinary arts in the most ridiculous way possible. Technically, you'd need to slap a chicken at about 1,665 m/s (3,725 mph) to generate enough thermal energy to cook it in one go. That's approximately 23,034 slaps of average force. So unless you've got superhuman slapping abilities or really hate that particular chicken, maybe just use an oven? The beautiful marriage of physics and absurdity here is what makes science both fascinating and hilarious.