Guest Entry Series #1: Funny and Entertaining by Julia Ong Hui Li

Foreword

From now on I will try to get people I know to write guest entries on my blog. This is so that all faithful readers can get to read opinions and complaints of people I know and not because I'm ... ahem ... lazy. The authors are REAL people and not split personalities of mine. If you want to be a guest entry please drop me a tag. All I require are semi-lunatics who can write funny and entertaining entries.

First up is Julia, a very cool and very young friend of mine. She was probably the first person who gave me the idea of erm .. saving some time on filling in entries on this blog. Hence, readers, please note the hint of reluctance and mockery in her entry.

So here it is, in its unaltered form:

Funny and Entertaining

In a world where everything is funny and entertaining, everything is funny and entertaining. Even blogs are funny and entertaining, they have to be (funny and entertaining) otherwise people won’t find them funny and entertaining and they’d go look for something else more funny and more entertaining. So I have to make this funny and entertaining, otherwise you won’t find it funny and entertaining and this not funny and not entertaining entry might not even find its way to the funny and entertaining blog of The XXman.

Oh btw. The XXman is funky hip and groovy pelvis.

(he was also my physics teacher) but I didn’t just say that.

I feel like eating jelly.

Anyway, yes. Since The XXman is totally into physics (look his name is even a variable) I will honour his coughlegacycough and not complain about physics.

BUT

Do I seriously want to know how many Joules are needed to lift a box? No. I mean I’m sorry for myself my name has such great affinity with the unit, but well, I honestly don’t really want to know.

Why must you go through all that calculation when you actually can really

Step 1: bend down

Step 2: bend your knees

Step 3: try to lift the box

If you lift it, well done you’re strong. If you don’t lift it, too bad you’re weak.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Oh another thing. You know physics is a sneaky little thing. I can imagine someone in the North Pole going “You FIZZIKS!” as a curse beyond the definitions of a curse. Okay, maybe not. You know when you’re sitting in the exam hall then you get this question.

“An ideal, massless string attaches a mass M and a mass of M/3. The string is strung over an ideal, massless pulley such that the mass M sits on a frictionless inclined plane, while the mass M/3 hangs vertically. The hanging mass accelerates vertically upward at g/8.

How much work is done on the hanging mass by the tension in the string when the mass moves a distance of 0.15 m?”

First things first, I hope I’ve established I don’t really want to know (or believe I need to either).

Secondly, the question is very questionable. How is something that is massless, ideal? Trust me if what we want is ideal, we will want to be of some mass. If you have no mass, means you don’t exist, how can you be ideal?! This is one big mess (no pun intended).

Thirdly, I don’t know how to do the question.

To The XXman, it’s not my fault you asked me to complain about something.

Okay, actually besides these reasons, I love physics. Hope this makes The XXman happy, as happy as a blameless vestal.

Dear Disgruntled Julia,

We need to know the number of Jules in the event we need to design machines to lift boxes. The reason why the string is massless is so that we can investigate the other parts of the system in isolation and this was a spastic rubbishy entry.

I like it.